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.     

EXPLORING THE SPECTRUM OF EXPORT DESTINATION: THE GEOGRAPHIC SPREAD OF KOREAN EXPORTS,ITS DETERMINANTS,AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Recent research in international trade has explored the stylized facts and causes and effects of export diversification. A simple model in this paper drawing on the work of Melitz suggests that there is an order in which a country spreads its goods to foreign countries. We estimate the order by using a methodology which takes account of the fact that most goods are not exported to several countries in our sample (unbalanced panel). We find that Korea exports its new goods first to the United States, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and most recently to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Finally we find that the countries that Korea has exported to first are those with large GDP, low tariff rates, geographic proximity, language familiarity, in-country Korean export promotion offices, and high-quality institutions.     

China＇s Import-exchange Rate Linkage： Evidence from the China-bound Exports of Japan and Korea

This paper examines how the China-bound exports of Japan and Korea are related to exchange rates, motivated by the fact that processing trade makes up a large proportion of China＇s trade, and that Japan and Korea are the leading source countries for processing imports. Because processing imports are inputs for exports, the link between such imports and China＇s exchange rates are ambiguous. We estimate export functions that include China＇s RMB real effective exchauge rates （REER） along with bilateral real exchange rates （B RER） using Johausen ＇s cointegration method aud find that the RMB REER significantly affects Japanese and Korean exports to China, even more so than BRER in most cases examined. These two exchange rates appear in the export equations with opposite signs. Subsequently, we use the estimated model to illustrate the importance of accounting for a concurrent change in B RER when analyzing the effects of a hypothetical RMB revaluation on China＇s trade balances despite the apparently weak imports-B RER linkage.     

Revaluation of the Chinese Yuan and triad trade: A gravity assessment

The literature had paid little attention to the endogenous nexus between exchange rates and bilateral trade. In this paper, I use a gravity model to investigate the two-way causality between exchange rates and bilateral trade with data from China, Japan, and the United States during the 2002–2007 period. After controlling for the simultaneous bias between exchange rates and bilateral trade, the extensive empirical evidence shows that the revaluation of the Chinese Yuan against the dollar significantly reduced China's exports to the United States but had no significant effects on China's exports to Japan. These findings are robust to different measures, econometric methods, and period coverage.     

Trade and GDP Growth: Causal Relations in the United States and Canada

Causal relations between the growth rates of exports, imports, and the GDP of Canada and the United States are studied using the vector error correction (VEC) model. Utilizing time-series annual data (1948-1996), Granger causality tests are performed within the framework of the VEC model. Bidirectional causality is supported for Canada from the foreign sector to GDP and vice versa. A weaker relationship between the foreign sector and GDP is statistically supported for the United States. These results are also supported by comparing the total trade (exports plus imports) shares to GDP of the two neighboring economies. The Granger causality tests suggest that Canada is a more open economy than the United States and more trade dependent.     

TRADE PATTERNS AND EXCHANGE RATE REGIMES: TESTING THE ASIAN CURRENCY BASKET USING AN INTERNATIONAL INPUT‐OUTPUT SYSTEM

This paper aims at analyzing exchange rates and trade patterns of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan in relation to Japan and the United States, with reference to the Asian currency crises in 1997. In order to analyze these issues, we constructed an international input‐output model linked with macroeconometric models of the ten countries/regions. Analyses on the Asian exchange rates with a currency basket peg framework show that the Asian exchange rate policy was the de‐facto dollar peg policy. As for trade patterns in relation to the yen‐dollar rate; when a country/region's industrial structure is similar to that of Japan's and the yen is weak, the appropriate change of the yen's weight proves to hold its competitiveness. By contrast, the weak yen shows a decrease of its imports, regarding complementary structure. In either case, however, effects are limited.     

Estimating the export and import demand for manufactured goods: The role of FDI

In this paper we estimate the demand for exports and imports of manufactured goods for a panel containing the majority of the EU countries as well as the United States and Japan. The model includes as explanatory factors both the traditional determinants of trade and also the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI). We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests allowing for heterogeneity. Whereas there is no evidence of cointegration when using just the traditional formulation, the results are favorable to the existence of long-run relationships linking the variables of the augmented model. Moreover, the results point mainly to a complementary relationship between trade and FDI.     

Estimating the export and import demand for manufactured goods: The role of FDI

In this paper we estimate the demand for exports and imports of manufactured goods for a panel containing the majority of the EU countries as well as the United States and Japan. The model includes as explanatory factors both the traditional determinants of trade and also the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI). We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests allowing for heterogeneity. Whereas there is no evidence of cointegration when using just the traditional formulation, the results are favorable to the existence of long-run relationships linking the variables of the augmented model. Moreover, the results point mainly to a complementary relationship between trade and FDI.     

Has China displaced other Asian countries' exports?

This paper uses gravity modelling to explore whether and how the growth of China's exports is displacing exports of other Asian countries to third markets over the period 1990–2003. Chinese exports are defined both narrowly and more broadly to include exports from Hong Kong. We investigate whether the displacement effect on Asian exports differs when exports from Hong Kong and China are combined compared to the narrow case of Chinese exports only. Aggregate and disaggregated analyses are undertaken. In the latter, we explore whether the displacement effect varies across Asian countries and in trade with different types of countries. We find evidence of a displacement effect which is more pronounced in developed markets and stronger for Hong Kong and China combined. Further it is the high income Asian exporters that experienced a greater displacement effect. We also investigate whether China's development has generated any offsetting effects on its neighbours' exports to China itself and find that Chinese growth has indeed increased China's imports from the Asian countries in the sample and in particular from Japan and Korea.     

Is Japan's trade (still) different?

Does Japanese trade in manufactured goods differ from the rest-of-the world average and from the US? We use a simple industry-level gravity model and 1981–1998 data to answer this question. We construct a measure of normalized imports by dividing bilateral industry-level imports by the importer's aggregate absorption and the exporter's industry output. We find that Japan imports less than other countries, but also exports less than other countries. Relative to the US, Japanese export performance is half as strong today as it was in the mid-1980s. Bilaterally, Japan is more open to imports from the US than the US is to imports from Japan. This means that the US runs a trade surplus with Japan in normalized imports of manufactured goods. J. Japanese Int. Economies 17 (4) (2003) 507–519.     

Assessing the trade impacts of the ASEAN + 6 FTA for Lao PDR

Using an unbalanced panel dataset of bilateral exports from 1992 to 2009, we assess the potential trade impacts of the expansion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to ASEAN + 3 and ASEAN + 6 on the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). It is found that bilateral exports are positively related to overall bilateral country size and similarity in country size but inversely related to the factor endowment differences, transportation costs, and import tariffs. Simulation results show that the formation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) between ASEAN and the Plus‐6 economies (the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea in East Asia; and the other three economies of Australia, India, and New Zealand) could increase bilateral trade between the Lao PDR and ASEAN + 6 by US$1 billion, and ASEAN + 3 by US$981 million. Nonetheless, the trade balance of the Lao PDR is likely to worsen in both the ASEAN + 3 and ASEAN + 6 PTAs because they stimulate more imports than exports.     

Economic growth and income inequality in the Asia-Pacific region: A comparative study of China,Japan, South Korea,and the United States

This paper builds an inequality-growth-redistribution nexus, and applies the Engle–Granger two-step ECM approach to estimate the long-run and short-run relationships between inequality and growth for four economies: China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Our estimation results support the S-shaped curve hypothesis relating GDP per capita to inequality with different starting points for the four economies. For the reverse relationship, we find a positive causal relationship for China, Japan, and the United States, indicating that increased income inequality spurred economic growth. In addition, we find mixed results on the effect of trade openness on inequality and growth. Trade openness reduced inequality in the United States and Japan, worsened it in China and had no significant effect in South Korea. In the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, exports provided an impetus to economic growth for Japan. As for redistribution, although fiscal redistributive measures reduced inequality in Japan, they played no major role in the other three countries. With regard to the inequality-GDP per capita relationship, all countries except for China show a negative effect of fiscal redistribution on GDP per capita.     

Exchange Rates and the Trade Balance for Dynamic Asian Economies—Does the J-Curve Exist for Singapore,Malaysia, and Korea?

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the real trade balance and the real exchange rate for bilateral trade in merchandise goods between Singapore, Korea, and Malaysia and the USA and Japan on a quarterly basis over the period 1970 to 1996 using the partial reduced form model of Rose and Yellen (1989) derived from the two-country imperfect substitutes model. With the exception of Korean trade with the USA, and in line with recent work using a similar methodology, our findings suggest that the real exchange rate does not have a significant impact on the real trade balance, and for Singapore and Malaysia we can find no persuasive evidence for J-curves. For Korea, however, the data were consistent with some J-curve effects with respect to both Japan and the USA. Moreover, it is possible that for Korea these effects were being masked or muted by small country pricing of exports in foreign currency, but there was no evidence that imports subsequently fell as the lag length on the real exchange rate increased, which would be required to support a strict interpretation of the J-curve.     

The U.S.–China trade war: Tariff data and general equilibrium analysis

The current trade war between the United States and China is unprecedented in modern history. This study introduces a database of tariff increases resulting from the trade war and quantifies the impacts using the canonical GTAPinGAMS model calibrated to the recently released GTAP version 10 accounts. We find that the remaining tariff increases as of March 2020 after the phase one trade deal decrease welfare in China by 1.7% and welfare in the United States by 0.2%. Impacts on sectoral revenue are reported for both countries. China's exports to and imports from the United States are reduced by 52.3% and 49.3%. The trade flow between the United States and China will be diverted to their major trade partners resulting in higher welfare in those countries, including many Asian countries. The estimated impacts are robust to using alternative trade elasticities and are amplified in the absence of the phase one tariff reductions.     

The other trade war: Quantifying the Korea–Japan trade dispute

In mid-2019 a new trade war between Korea and Japan started heating up, while the U.S.–China trade war held the spotlight. This paper documents the recent Korea–Japan trade dispute and quantifies its economic impacts. We consider a set of non-tariff distortions—Japanese export controls combined with Korean boycotts of Japanese goods. We simulate the impact of these actions using a multi-region general equilibrium model calibrated to the GTAP version 10 accounts and observed trade responses in the Korea Customs Service data. We find a welfare loss of 0.144% ($1.0 billion) for Korea and 0.013% ($346 million) for Japan. Sectoral impacts include a 0.25% reduction in chemical production in Japan. In Korea the reduction in imports from Japan is offset by increases in domestic production and imports from other countries.     

Do Export Promotion Agencies Increase Exports?

In this paper, we examine the role of export promotion agencies (EPAs) in promoting exports from Japan and Korea. Looking at two home countries enables us to tackle endogeneity issues by controlling for both country‐pair time‐invariant characteristics and importing‐country time‐varying characteristics. Our empirical results indicate that EPA has a positive and significant effect on exports even when we control for endogeneity. However, the size of the effect becomes substantially smaller, implying the importance of addressing endogeneity in accurately measuring the impact of EPA on exports. In addition, we find that EPA's (marginal) effects are larger in exporting to low‐income trade partners than in exporting to high‐income trade partners.     

Exports,imports and growth: New evidence on Italy: 1863–2004

The nexus between trade and economic growth in Italy has been widely debated by historiography. However, there are no long run analyses on this topic that cover the whole span from Unification to present days. This paper contributes to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between real exports, imports and GDP in Italy from 1863 to 2004 by using cointegration analysis and causality tests. The outcome suggests that these variables comove in the long run but the direction of causality varies across time. In the period prior to the First World War import growth led GDP growth that in turn led export growth. Conversely, in the post-Second World War period we have a strong bidirectionality between imports and exports consequent on the increase in intra-industry trade. We also find a weak support for export-led growth and growth-led imports. This suggests that exports were not the only or the main driver of economic growth. There was probably a multiplicity of factors at work, among which high rates of capital formation and the expansion of internal demand probably stood out.     

RCEP关税减让对各成员国的经济影响分析

大幅度削减成员国间关税是RCEP协议的核心内容,为了揭示RCEP成员国间关税减让的经济影响,文章首先分析了RCEP成员国间贸易现状、产品结构、进口关税和贸易竞争力,然后,运用GTAP模型模拟RCEP关税减让对各成员国宏观经济和产出的影响,得到结论如下：（1）RCEP关税减让可以缓解中美贸易摩擦对于中国经济的不利影响;（2）就短期而言,RCEP成员国间关税减让可以提高中国、日本、韩国和澳大利亚的GDP、社会福利、居民收入和消费水平等宏观经济效益,同时,还可以提高中国、韩国、澳大利亚、东盟的总产出水平;（3）就长期来说,实施零关税可能显著提升RCEP大多数成员国的宏观经济效益和产出水平。     

Lingering effects of central planning on trade? Evidence from current CIS trade patterns

Conclusions Both the gravity model and indexes of trade dependence show a bias in the geographical distribution of trade towards other members of CIS, in both exports and imports of most of the CIS countries, except Russia. The gravity model and the comparison made with the EU shows that this cannot be solely explained by geographical proximity or free trade agreements within the CIS. However, central planning cannot be the only reason, either. These CIS members shared a country, a common experience, a culture for more than half a century. This can also explain part of the bias in CIS trade. In sum by these two measures, some evidence is found for a bias in geographical distribution towards CIS, suggesting that complete reorientation towards Western markets did not take place.     

Linguistic and Religious Influences on Foreign Trade: Evidence from East Asia*

Using a modified gravity model and the cross‐sectional data of East Asian economies, the present paper presents evidence that supports the view that the effect of distance‐related transaction costs on trade tends to fall over time. Overall religious influence on foreign trade exists in the post‐Cold War period but not during the Cold War period. The effects of language on inter‐regional trade and of religion on intra‐regional trade both weaken over time. In all cases, religion tends to have more significant influences on intra‐regional trade than language, and language tends to exert more significant influences on inter‐regional trade than religion. Finally, from 1985 to 1995 there is an indication that: (i) English becomes more important for inter‐regional trade; (ii) Bahasa, English and Khmer become less important for intra‐regional trade; and (iii) Chinese plays an increasing role in both intra‐regional and inter‐regional trade.