Abstract

Over the last decade, the United States has lost its once dominant position in the critical microelectronics industry to Japan. The success of Japanese companies in this industry has been a result of both Japanese public policy and the Japanese domestic market structure. Unless U.S. firms are able to gain access to Japan's domestic market, the U.S. will continue to find themselves at a disadvantage in international competition. The United States urgently needs to develop an aggressive but coherent industrial policy that will insure an open global economy.