Telecommunications networks in particular the Internet are becoming more and more necessary and indispensable for social and economic activities in the era of digitalization.
Taking advantage of the teacher's experiences of policy practices in the Japanese government (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications - MIC) and the OECD secretariats, this course provides overview and case studies of Japanese telecommunications policy in the areas of infrastructure development, competition enhancement, consumer protection and international communications, etc., with focusing on each policy's backgrounds, purposes and further challenges.
In order to fully understand policy backgrounds and make policy discussion meaningful, the first section of the course will be dedicated to learning and discussing necessity of policy intervention, with introduction of related basic economics concepts.
Note: In this course "policy" also means regulation unless otherwise indicated.