PROBLEMS IN EXPANDING JAPAN'S IMPORTS OF MANUFACTURES FROM DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: A SURVEY*

The Japanese economy is now the second largest market economy, with a large trade surplus. And yet, Japan's imports of manufactures have long been very low relative to its GNP, when compared with other industrial countries; its ratio of manufactured imports to GNP was in the range of 2.1–2.7% in the 1980-87 period, as compared with 8.5–10.3% for the industrial countries as a whole or 4.7-7.2% for the United States. The share of developing economies in total imports of manufactures in Japan is about the same as, if not higher than, those for most other industrial countries. If Japan's ratio of manufactured imports to GNP were to rise in the future to approach closer to those of other industrial countries, Japan's imports of manufactures from developing economies could be two to three times what they are today, even if Japan's GNP does not increase at all and the share of developing economies in Japan's manufactured imports does not increase. This paper is an attempt to probe the potential of the Japanese market for imports of manufactures from developing economies in terms of rising ratio of such imports to GNP. The paper explores the reasons why Japan's ratio is exceptionally low, on the basis of existing literature. (a) Japan's ratio of manufactured imports to GNP has remained exceptionally low compared with those for other industrial countries. (b) Japan's ratio of manufactured imports from developing economies to GNP has remained distinctly low despite the recent surge in such imports. (c) If a part of the reason for the low ratio for Japan was a market access problem as often alleged, the problem is not with formal import barriers such as tariffs and formal non-tariff barriers because these barriers in Japan are no higher than in other industrial countries. As for informal import barriers, evidence found indicates that: (i) Administrative guidance and flexibly managed competition policy, which in the past had considerable effects of limiting imports, appear to have declined-in importance, but they still have import-limiting effects in certain areas. (ii) Market access difficulties involving import procedures, product standards, testing and certification requirements, which were enormous in the past, may have also decreased in severity over the last decade, but problems in these areas persist. (iii) There are aspects of the Japanese distribution system and practice that seem to make foreign access to the Japanese market significantly more difficult than the access by Japanese exporters to the markets in other industrial countries. Distribution in Japan suffers from overregulation. (iv) Users of manufactured products in Japan are sensitive to quality, perhaps more so, on the average, than in other industrial countries. Does the recent upsurge in Japan's imports of manufactures suggest that the traditional import behavior of Japan is changing? Japan's manufactured imports measured in yen increased by 18 and 27 percent in 1987 and 1988, respectively, and those coming from developing economies increased even more rapidly. There is also some evidence that price and income elasticities of demand for manufactured imports may have increased recently. These are encouraging, but it remains to be seen whether the trends will continue far enough into the future to bring Japan's import behavior more into line with those of other industrial countries. If they do, implications for the market prospects of manufactured exports from developing economies could be far-reaching. Outstanding questions are: (i) How much of the recent increase in manufactured imports is attributable to the appreciation of the yen (price effect)? How much is attributable to the increase in income or industrial output (income effect)? How much is attributable to removal of formal and informal import barriers effected so far (structural change)? Has consumer taste changed? (ii) Why have Latin American countries not been successful in promoting their exports of manufactures to Japan, when Asian exporters have been so successful? (iii) Up until now, the share of developing economies in Japan's manufactured imports has not been particularly low compared with those for other industrial countries, but is this share likely to fall or rise in the future? (iv) What is the likely impact of recently increased direct investment (DFI) by Japanese manufacturers in developing economies on the imports of their products into Japan?     

中美贸易对美国就业影响研究——基于美国制造业面板数据的分析

本文通过建立国际贸易对就业影响的理论模型,利用美国制造业面板数据分析中美贸易对美国就业的影响问题。实证结论表明,美国进口中国制成品对美国就业没有显著影响,也不是美国失业的Granger原因;美国制成品出口对增加美国就业虽有显著影响,但作用不大;影响美国国内就业的主要因素是实际工资、企业发展状况等实际因素。这些结论充分说明,美国的失业问题不是由美国进口中国制成品引起的,美国减少中国制成品进口也解决不了美国的失业问题。     

W. Arthur Lewis lecture: Should there be a marshall plan for eastern europe?

The desirability of massive financial aid to support the transition of East European countries to market economies is considered in the light of structural adjustment experience of Latin American countries. It is argued that, politically, an autonomous state is necessary to guide the restructuring. The democratization of Eastern Europe decreases the autonomy of the state. Economically, recent experience in Latin America and Eastern Europe has demonstrated that reforms take place during periods of stringency rather than affluence. It is therefore argued that trade and foreign investment are preferable to generous aid.     

Trade,Job Destruction and Job Creation in European Manufacturing

This paper examines the effects of international trade with the newly industrialized Asian economies on the labor markets of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. The analysis confirms that, despite the growing importance of this trade, the problems of the European labor market can hardly be explained by the increase in imports of manufactures from the Nies. While job destruction appears completely independent from the trade flows with the emerging Asian economies, the evidence on job creation is less clear cut. In two cases imports appear to have depressed employment dynamics, but in another exports turn out to have stimulated it. The most striking evidence is on sector-specific features and individual characteristics, such as sector of (last) employment, sex and education: these variables appear to be much more important than trade in explaining individuals' positions in the labor market.     

外商直接投资与中国进出口贸易的区域差异研究——基于省级面板数据的单位根、协整与Granger因果检验

本文基于1987～2004年的省级面板数据,通过面板单位根、协整和Granger因果检验,对国内东、中、西三大地区的外商直接投资与进出口之间的关系进行了系统考察。研究发现:东、中部地区的FDI与进出口之间存在长期均衡的关系,但在西部地区却并不存在协整关系;三大地区的进口均是FDI的Granger原因,但出口并不是FDI的Granger原因;东部地区的FDI很显著地构成了进出口的Granger原因,但这种Granger因果关系在中、西部地区却并不存在。文章结合区域差异结论,从技术溢出的角度重新解释了中国区域经济发展的"马太效应"。     

Bilateralism and Regionalism in Japanese and U.S. Trade and Direct Foreign Investment Patterns

We apply a modified "gravity model" incorporating measures of factor endowments to analyze Japanese and U.S. bilateral trade flows and direct foreign investment positions with a sample of around 100 countries for the period 1985–1990. Country features that our analysis takes into account are population, income, the land–labor ratio, the average level of education, and region. We find that features of a country associated with more trade with either Japan or the United States also tend to be associated with more direct foreign investment (DFI) from Japan or the United States. U.S. economic relations with Japan and Western Europe provide an important exception. Despite U.S. concern about its trade deficit with Japan, we find Japan to be much more open to the United States, not only as a source of imports, but also as a destination for U.S. exports than most countries in Western Europe. Taking other factors into account, however, Western Europe is more open to U.S. direct foreign investment. We also find that a country′s level of education tends to increase significantly U.S. interaction of all types with that country, even after correcting for per capita income. Education does not play a significant role in Japanese trade patterns. As factor endowment theory would predict, the United States tends to trade more with densely populated countries, while Japan tends to import more from sparsely populated countries. Even after taking into account population, income, factor endowments, and region, there is a substantial degree of "bilateralism" in Japanese and U.S. economic relationships in that the residual correlation among exports, imports, and outward direct foreign investment is much larger than would be the case if these magnitudes were independent across countries. J. Japan. Int. Econ. December 1994, 8(4), pp. 478–510. Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215; and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.     

Hungary's export prospects in the EC market

Political changes in Eastern Europe will help to cement improving economic relations between those countries and the EC, accelerating a trend that flows in part from the continuing economic difficulties in Eastern Europe. Hungary has little alternative but to seek to continue strengthening these ties. Membership in the EC could lead to an expansion of Hungarian exports to the Communities of some 48 percent, with the main gains occurring for meats, iron and steel, fruit and vegetables, textiles, and clothing. Even if membership is unattainable, Hungary stands to gain considerably from an improvement in its standing in the EC pyramid of privileges, and must seek some closer relationship with the EC, encompassing agriculture as well as manufactures, and tariffs and non-tariff barriers.     

Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Latin America: Overview and Policy Implications

Rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and incomes (RNFI) are crucial to Latin American rural households. The 11 rural household income studies in this volume, reviewed in this paper, use 1990s data and show that RNFI averages 40% of rural incomes. RNFI and RNFE have grown quickly over the past three decades. The review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of Latin American rural households. In terms of shares of rural incomes: (1) nonfarm wage incomes exceed self-employment incomes; (2) RNFI far exceeds farm wage incomes; (3) local RNFI far exceeds migration incomes; (4) Service-sector RNFI far exceeds manufactures RNFI. These findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector, versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures. Moreover, poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of RNFI as compared to richer households and zones. The RNFE of the poor tend to be the low-paid nonfarm equivalent of semi-subsistence farming. Raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better-paid types of RNFE is crucial — via employment skills training, education, infrastructure, credit. Finally, RNFE has grown fastest and been most poverty-alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors, in particular in the agricultural sector, but also in tourism, links to urban areas, mining and forestry. This means that developing RNF jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development.     

Between conquest and independence: Real wages and demographic change in Spanish America, 1530–1820

On the basis of a newly constructed dataset, this paper presents long-term series of the price levels, nominal wages, and real wages in Spanish Latin America – more specifically in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina – between ca. 1530 and ca. 1820. It synthesizes the work of scholars who have collected and published data on individual cities and periods, and presents comparable indices of real wages and prices in the colonial period that give a reasonable guide to trends in the long run. We show that nominal wages and prices were on average much higher than in Western Europe or in Asia, a reflection of the low value of silver that must have had consequences for competitiveness of the Latin American economies. Labour scarcity was the second salient feature of Spanish Latin America and resulted in real wages much above subsistence and in some cases (Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina) comparable to levels in Northwestern Europe. For Mexico, this was caused by the dramatic decline of the population after the Conquest. For Bolivia, the driving force was the boom in silver mining in Potosi that created a huge demand for labour. In the case of Argentina, low population density was a pre-colonial feature. Perhaps due to a different pattern of depopulation, the real wages of other regions (Peru, Colombia and Chile) were much lower, and only increased above subsistence during the first half of the 18th century. These results are consistent with independent evidence on biological standards of living and with estimates of GDP per capita at the beginning of the 19th century.     

Trade, technology spillovers, and food production in China

Trade, Technology Spillovers, and Food Production in China. — This paper studies technology spillovers between China and other countries, international trade in inputs being the prime carrier of knowledge in agricultural production. Human capital characteristics and structural characteristics of the agricultural production sys-tems determine the local usability of foreign knowledge for Chinese farmers. The authors utilize a multi-region applied general equilibrium model to analyze Chinese opportunities to benefit from foreign technology improvements in grain production. It is shown that possible negative welfare effects of unilateral trade liberalization of China against North American imports of agricultural inputs may be more than compensated by productivity gains if technology spillovers are included.     

Convergence and divergence of numeracy: the development of age heaping in Latin America from the seventeenth to the twentieth century1

This study makes the first systematic attempt to trace the long‐term development of Latin American numeracy, a phenomenon of great interest to economic historians in that it serves as an accurate gauge of human capital development. In order to approximate basic numeracy we use age‐heaping techniques. We find that Latin America was on a path of convergence with western Europe during the early eighteenth century. During the early nineteenth century, not only did numeracy development stagnate in some Latin American countries but differences among some of them actually increased. While numeracy rates in Argentina, Uruguay, and to a lesser extent Brazil, along with Europe, underwent a significant increase in the late nineteenth century, they declined in Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia. By performing a regression analysis, we find that, even when we control for investment in education, mass immigration contributed to human capital formation.     

Optimum Currency Areas in Emerging Market Regions: Evidence Based on the Symmetry of Economic Shocks

This paper examines which emerging market regions form optimum currency areas (OCAs) by assessing the symmetry of macroeconomic shocks. We extend the output-prices-VAR framework by adding net exports and the real effective exchange rate as endogenous variables. Based on theoretical considerations, we derive which shocks affect these variables in the long run: shocks to labor productivity, foreign trade, labor supply, and money supply. The considered economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, East and Southeast Asia, and South Asia, exhibit large enough shock symmetry to form a currency union; the economies of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East do not.     

A general equilibrium analysis of FDI growth in Chinese services sectors

This paper analyzes one of the features of the Chinese economic transition, namely, the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) accruing to advanced services sectors. To that aim we use an innovative computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that includes, in a multi-regional setting, foreign multinationals operating in monopolistic competition. The model is based on data that split the world economy in 2016 into 11 regions (China - US - EU27 - Great Britain -other advanced economies - India - Japan - South East Asia - Latin America - Middle East - Sub Saharan Africa) and 21 sectors. We provide quantitative evidence on several characteristics of the 21 sectors in China, EU27 and the US, as well as other data on the role of China in the global stage, including its evolution since 2004. Several scenarios focusing on the increase of FDI inflows in services, because of the reduction of its FDI barriers, are simulated deriving short and long run results. We find that the impact of more foreign multinationals in services is positive for China but smaller than the one that had been obtained in other previous studies on FDI in manufactures. This is due to the still limited role of services in the Chinese economy and to a crowding out effect that domestic firms experience after the entry of foreign multinationals. On the whole the impact is, however, slightly positive for China, because manufactures benefit from the entry of foreign services multinationals. The rest of regions are unaffected or benefit very slightly, due to the fact that services production is less export oriented and more devoted to private consumption than in the case of manufactures. However, their manufacturing sectors are slightly harmed by the stronger Chinese competition. Many of them manage to more than offset this latter trend through higher exports or FDI in services directed to China.     

Population Problems of the Countries of Asia

Abstract

This study seeks to explain the variation in U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America and Asia. The analysis focuses on 19 Latin American and Asian countries for the period of 1979–1999. The results show that the variation in the U.S. FDI can largely be attributed to the differences in fundamental economic and social factors such as market size, gross domestic product (GDP) growth, macro-economic stability, the degree of trade openness, and both school enrollment and infrastructure availability. Separating the data into two time periods reveals interesting results about the location decisions for U.S. investors. In addition, the results from the comparison between the two regions show that Latin American countries clearly attract U.S. FDI for different reasons than Asian countries.     

Africa's Debts and Economic Recovery

A substantial reduction of external debt burden of many African countries is needed, for four reasons. First, the present debt burden of Africa is extremely heavy. Africa's debts are equivalent to more than 100% of its GNP, compared to less than 50% in Latin America – another heavily indebted region – and even less elsewhere. The weight of Africa's burden is exacerbated by its lower per capita income than elsewhere in developing regions. Secondly, Africa is experiencing adverse effects of falling commodity prices more than any other region because of its greater dependence on primary products than other regions. Over the last forty years, export commodity prices other than oil have fallen by 50% in real terms, a staggering development with far-reaching adverse effects on many producers. Between May 1989 and January 1991, commodity prices other than oil fell 23% in SDR terms – speed of decline similar to that experienced in the great price fall 1980-82 which marked the beginning of the debt crisis of the 1980s. Cocoa and coffee, two major exports of Sub-Saharan Africa, were particularly badly hurt. Thirdly, while debt in other debt-affected areas has stabilized in recent years, that of Africa has continued to grow as interest is charged on interest and capitalized. Many African countries have been compelled to suspend their debt service payments; according to World Bank calculations, less than one half of Africa's debt service due is now being paid. Even so, debt service which is still being paid absorbs 27% of Africa's shrunken exports – a proportion which severely curtails Africa's capacity to import and to grow. Fourthly, debt settlement is needed to clear the way for resumption of Africa's economic development, now virtually stagnant for a decade in aggregate terms and falling in per capita terms. Africa has the capacity to modernize and grow, and this has been proven in one critical area and against all odds. Between 1980 and 1987, exports of manufactures from Sub-Saharan African countries rose 42% in U.S. dollar terms or 5.7% per year. In 1988, out of 33 countries for which data are available, exports of manufactures rose in 28, and the overall increase for the 33 was 15.8 %. In 1988, eleven Sub-Saharan countries exported manufactures in excess of US $100 million each, compared to seven countries in 1980; and in 1989, there was none. There also have been setbacks, for various reasons. But taking Sub-Saharan as a whole, to achieve a 60% increase in exports of manufactures to US $4 billion on a non-negligible base of US $2.5 billion in 1980, over an eight-year period marked by a commodity collapse, droughts, debt crisis, wars and policy disasters, is a remarkable achievement by any standard. In North Africa, exports of manufactures more than doubled between 1980 and 1987, and then accelerated at 18% per year in 1988-89. North African exports of manufactures are now running at US $5 billion per year. This diversification and growth of African exports must be sustained. For this purpose, African countries must have realistic exchange rates, undistorted product prices across the economy, sufficient supply of industrial inputs and hence adequate growth of agricultural and mineral output, and they must reconstruct the existing capital stock, in many places obsolete, and add new facilities. Their investment, a crucial element for further growth, has fallen sharply in the last decade of the debt crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: the fall has been so severe that some countries have not even been able to fully replace depreciating capital. At the present level of domestic savings and international commodity prices, most of Africa cannot undertake the reconstruction, modernization and expansion out of domestic ressources to any significant extent. Foreign capital inflow is needed to initiate the recovery and to help sustain it thereafter. But such capital inflow will not take place until the present debt situation is cleared up. This is a necessary condition, even though it is not sufficient: it must be supported by domestic efforts single-mindedly dedicated to economic recovery and social justice. Past efforts at the solution of the debt problem, some of them imaginative and generous, have proven insufficient and uncoordinated. A new deal is needed, attacking the core of the Sub-Saharan problem: debts held by some multilateral financial institutions and debts held by the private sector, in addition to a further shrinking down of service on official bilateral debt or its total cancellation in an imaginative proposal. In North Africa, the acute liquidity squeeze of Algeria – debt service absorbing almost 70% of exports of goods and services per year – needs to be alleviated through debt rescheduling over the long term, thus releasing resources for needed economic recovery. Algeria's debt outstanding is relatively low; it is the service structure which needs radical change. While Africa's commodity problem is not on the agenda of the Abidjan Roundtable, one specific commodity situation can perhaps be handled: the cocoa crisis which affects severely a large part of West Africa and for which remedy seems relatively easily in hand. It is proposed that a consortium of international financial institutions be organized to finance, through loans of, say, 15 years duration, the sale of surplus cocoa stocks to Eastern Europe, thus contributing to cocoa price recovery and hopefully stabilization, and improvement of food supply in Eastern Europe. The operation would be no more risky than other balance-of-payments structural adjustment lending. Cocoa producing countries in parts of Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia would be also beneficiaries. Adjustment and development programmes should be prepared, and seen to be prepared, by national authorities of African countries rather than by foreign advisers and international organizations. Otherwise commitment will be lacking.     

An empirical examination of the effects of the U.S. dollar depreciation on the United States-Japan trade balance, with a control for auto quality diffe

This paper models the effect on the U.S. — Japan trade balance in manufactures of the shift during the 80's from a strong to a weak dollar regime, while controlling for the effects of changes in auto quality across U.S. and Japanese new passenger autos. U.S. auto imports are broken out from other manufactures, and auto prices adjusted to control for quality by means of a quasi-hedonic equation. Limited empirical evidence does suggest that using a quality-adjusted auto relative price, in place of a relative price term with no quality adjustment, increases the ability to explain variations of auto import demand. Changes in the U.S. dollar/yen rate give rise to a J-curve effect from 1985 to 1987, and a similar but more negative pattern holds when quality is not controlled for. The effect of positive U.S. auto quality change, ceteris paribus, is also investigated, and is found to have a substantial deficit reducing effect.     

Give Heckscher and Ohlin a chance!

Give Heckscher and Ohlin a Chance! — This paper argues that criticism of the empirical inaccuracy of Heckscher-Ohlin theory has been much exaggerated. Most tests have mis-specified the theory, particularly in their treatment of capital, a factor of production which is internationally mobile and therefore generally does not influence the pattern of trade. The argument is illustrated by a review of empirical studies of North-South trade in manufactures, which is well explained by a skill-only Heckscher-Ohlin model.     

Technology and employment in the production of cotton cloth

This paper makes use of two well-known UN studies of the integrated spinning and weaving of cotton cloth in order to examine the relationship between technology and employment in developing countries. In particular the paper: (a) considers the choice of technology in the production of a given volume of cotton cloth in Western Europe, Latin America and Africa; (b) estimates and discusses the elasticity of capital-labour substitution in such production: and (c) examines some aspects of job creation, factor prices and economic efficiency. The variation in ‘optimal’ technology choice across wage areas is found to be rather narrow and to lie in the upper part of the capital-labour spectrum. The variation in profitability across technologies, however, is found to be much less than that of employment in all three areas. The limited range of ‘optimal’ technologies is partly explained by the elasticity of substitution which lies between 0.2 and 0.25 for Europe; 0.25 and 0.33 for Latin America; and 0.33 and 0.50 for Africa. A certain prodigality in the use of both men and machines in the developing regions is also part of the explanation of the relative similarity in optimal technology choice in the three wage areas considered. In the light of this prodigality and the low elasticity, consideration is given to the question of increasing developing country employment in a state enterprise and a private firm respectively. Not surprisingly, it is found that it would pay to exploit the scope for substitution in the state factory if more employment were sought, although the difference in total costs by ignoring such scope could be relatively small. It is further found that the magnitude of factor price changes required to induce a profit-maximizing businessman to provide the required volume of employment could be dauntingly large. It is noted that increased efficiency in the developing textile industry could result in increased unemployment.     

ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION AND CHANGES IN CORPORATE CONTROL IN LATIN AMERICA

This article analyzes ownership restructuring and changes in corporate control in four large Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico—during the 1990s. Drawing on original firm‐level data, this is a comparative study aimed at identifying cross‐country differences and regularities. It focuses on transactions associated with privatizations and private mergers and acquisitions (M&As)—their evolution, relative importance, and sectoral incidence—as well as the role played by different types of investors: local, foreign, and joint ventures. A specially built database was used in the analysis, comprising 3,085 private M&As and 329 privatization transactions. Although similar to processes occurring elsewhere, it is argued that ownership restructuring in Latin America was facilitated and fostered by specific changes in policy‐associated institutional framework conditions. That is, the wide‐ranging process of ownership restructuring is strongly associated with economic liberalization, which has become the main feature of Latin American national regimes of incentives and regulation.     

Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Industrial Upgrading from the Perspective of Differences among Countries

This paper constructs a two‐sector model to identify the effects of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in different countries on China's industrial upgrading and conducts an empirical analysis using provincial‐level panel data from 2003–2015. The results show that China can benefit from industrial upgrading via OFDI in developed countries by way of reverse technology spillover. This effect is significant in the eastern region, but not in the central and western regions. China can also benefit from industrial upgrading via OFDI in developing countries and countries along the Belt and Road through marginal industrial transfer. This effect is more significant in the central region, followed by the western and eastern regions. Our results imply that China should promote technology‐seeking OFDI in developed countries, and enhance efficiency‐seeking OFDI in developing countries, especially in countries along the Belt and Road.