Abstract
Based on his comparative study, Aoki argues that environmental regulation in the United States imposes heavier cost on regulated firms than its Japanese counterpart in order to produce almost the same regulatory effects. If we add some more items of the costs and the benefits of regulation to his study, however, we may be able to reach a somewhat different conclusion.
For instance, expenses to maintain long-term harmonious relationships with regulatory officials may be a heavy cost of the Japanese style of regulation. And the realization of such abstract legal values as "the rule of law", "legality", and "the transparency of public administration" may be counted as a benefit of the American style of regulation.
Therefore, we should not treat Aoki's study as an unreserved praise of the reasonableness of the Japanese style of regulation. Rather, its significance is that it invites socio-legal scholars to sophisticated cost-benefit analyses of regulation which is based not on some abstract economic model but on detailed case studies on specific areas of regulation.
