{"title":"Who causes SMEs to suffer? An empirical analysis on the trade of SME products in Japan","authors":"Sawako Maruyama","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.01.SM","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.01.SM","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to investigate the structure and the determinants of the trade of products manufactured by smalland medium-sized enterprises. For this purpose, a trade database for selected SME-based industries is prepared. Analyzing this database, the following three findings are obtained. First, firms in SME-based industries are facing a large inflow of imported goods, while the volume of their exports is relatively small. Secondly, the share of Asian countries is larger in the trade of SME products than overall trade. Thirdly, the gravity model can be applied for the trade of SME products. In some cases, distance and difference of income level tend to be more sensitive for SME products than overall trade. These results are consistent with the labor-intensive characteristics of SME products.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"62 1","pages":"53-74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74091938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Production Networks:Contributions of Economics to Policymaking","authors":"F. Kimura","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.03.FK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.03.FK","url":null,"abstract":"ASEAN and developing East Asia have applied development strategies that have effectively utilized global value chains and have achieved both sustained economic growth and rapid poverty alleviation. This paper claims that the international trade theory or economics in general has greatly contributed to the formulation of such development strategies. Economists should also work for new issues and challenges that these countries start facing in a new step of economic development.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"39-52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88515813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implications of the “Status Quo” in Theoretical Trade Policy Analyses","authors":"Noritsugu Nakanishi","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.04.NN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2016.04.NN","url":null,"abstract":"I argue that if the notion of the “status quo” is not incorporated appropriately in the models of trade policy issues, there may arise some theoretical/conceptual problems in interpreting the results derived from the models as the guidance for the implementation of trade policies. To clarify the point, I use concrete examples of theoretical analyses of trade policies both in the general equilibrium framework (the piecemeal tariff reforms and the optimal tariffs) and in the game - theoretic framework (the tariff negotiations).","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"18 1","pages":"23-37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83920644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Globalization and Internal Corporate Organization: Evidence from Japanese Firms","authors":"Hiroyuki Kuwahata","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2014.02.HK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2014.02.HK","url":null,"abstract":"Recent years have witnessed that firm hierarchies are becoming flatter amid globalization. Span of control ( Span ) has broadened and the number of levels ( Layer ) within firms has declined. Motivated by these changes in the world, international trade theory has recently incorporated a rich organizational model into trade and heterogeneous firm contexts. However, empirical evidence for this theory has been so far limited because of the constrained data availability. This paper fills a part of this gap by exploiting a unique firm-level organization data in Japan, by which we can ascertain the relationship between a firm’s organization and its characteristics. Globalization, which is measured by the firm’s foreign sales ratio, has a positive link with Span , but has a negative link with Layer . This finding implies that organizational change is one source of learning effects of globalization.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"28 1","pages":"15-32"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90951548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Renewable Resources, Environmental Pollution, and International Migration","authors":"K. Kondoh","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2014.01.KK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2014.01.KK","url":null,"abstract":"To realize optimal management of trans-boundary renewable resources is very hard because not only is international cooperation indispensable, but several economic aspects should also be considered. In the familiar case of Japan and China, for example, East China Sea is a hot spot between the two countries. Not only is a natural gas field, which sometimes causes territorial conflicts, located just close to the border but the area is also quite rich in marine resources. As fishes are a trans-boundary renewable resource, international cooperation is required for its management. However, this is difficult to establish, and overfishing is common. For an optimal resource management policy between Japan and China, we need to consider two important aspects that have been ignored in previous studies. The first is environmental pollution caused by the smokestack manufacturing industry, which generates negative externalities on the stock of renewable resources. We focus on environmental pollution in the East China Sea, which comes mainly from China because of relatively poor pollution abatement technologies. Environmental pollution from industrial production has become one most serious problems of the world, which is difficult to solve because underdeveloped countries, without sufficient skills and funding, usually cannot control pollution well. Moreover, their governments often give priority to economic growth over protection of the environment. The second aspect is international factor mobility. Not only international trade strategies but also FDI and migration policies should be considered important for optimal economic management. Migration from China to Japan, which is the focus of this study, is not very large now, but the potential wage gap may cause a flood of labor mobility in the near future.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"14 1","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75282780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Investment Positions, Gross Capital Flows, and Global Liquidity","authors":"T. Iwamoto","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.01.TI","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.01.TI","url":null,"abstract":"To begin with, we analyzed the contrasting structure of the US and Japan’s international investment positions (IIPs) and their asymmetric movements of “valuation effects” derived from different IIP structures (exorbitant privilege and duty) before and after the global financial crisis (GFC). Then, we realized that a signifi cant impact on the GFC was not current account imbalances, which are equal to the net capital flows from Asian surplus countries to the US as a deficit country (global saving glut), but the gross capital flows between the US and Europe, both of which run current account deficits. Finally, we investigated the idea that the gross capital flows from the US to Europe represented the raising of wholesale funding through the US money market funds (MMFs) by European banks’ US branches and subsid iaries and then shipping it to their headquarters. From the viewpoint of the banking sector, these gross capital flows are in a large part regarded as global liquidity, espe cially non - core liabilities supplied by the US shadow banking system.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"67 1","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72644325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Privatization of a Renewable Resource Sector in the presence of a Foreign Enterprise","authors":"Kenzo Abe, Hiroaki Ogawa","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.02.KA","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.02.KA","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze the optimal level of privatization of a state - owned enterprise (SOE) in a renewable resource sector. We construct a model where a SOE and a foreign private enterprise compete in quantity in a market of a renewable resource good. In the short - run, a government should privatize the SOE when the foreign private enterprise is present, while it should keep the SOE when the foreign firm is absent. In the long - run, a government should privatize its SOE regardless of the presence or the absence of the foreign private competitor.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"416 1","pages":"21-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79455461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Positive and Negative Population Growth and Long-Run Trade Patterns: A Non-Scale Growth Model","authors":"H. Sasaki","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.01.HS","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.01.HS","url":null,"abstract":"This paper builds a two-country, two-sector, non-scale growth model and investigates the relationship between trade patterns and the growth rate of per capita real consumption. We consider negative population growth as well as positive population growth. We show that, as long as the population growth rates of the two countries are different, if the country that accumulates capital stock has negative population growth, no trade patterns are sustainable in the long run. This is true irrespective of the population growth rate of the other country. Moreover, we show that, if the country that accumulates capital stock has positive population growth, two trade patterns are sustainable in the long run. In this case, either each country's per capita growth is determined by the population growth of the capital-accumulating country or the population growth of both countries, depending on which of the two trade patterns is realized.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"47 1 1","pages":"43-67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89585445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environmental Protection and Tourism with Urban Unemployment","authors":"S. Yabuuchi","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.03.SY","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2015.03.SY","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the combined effects of tourism promotion and environmental protection, via a pollution tax, in labor-surplus developing economies. While tourism is expected to provide employment and improve national welfare, the tax is expected to have the opposite effect. This paper is the first of its kind to examine the interaction between tourism and environmental protection by considering production as well as consumption externalities. The results show that, under certain conditions, tourism promotion expands the tourism sector, increases unemployment, and improves welfare. Conversely, under certain conditions, an increase in the pollution tax contracts the sector, decreases unemployment, and reduces welfare. JEL Classifications: F16, O13, O18","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"12 1","pages":"31-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86514761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pareto-Efficient Trade and Domestic Policies under International Lobbying Activities","authors":"M. Endoh","doi":"10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2012.05.ME","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5652/INTERNATIONALECONOMY.IE2012.05.ME","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines in a two-country model under what conditions political donations establish Pareto-efficient trade and domestic policies. I consider two cases for international lobbying activities: multilateral political donations and international special interest groups. The analysis shows that Pareto-efficient policies are employed when each ruling party values the amount of cross-border donations and the sum of domestic welfare and domestic donations with the same weight in its objective function in the case of multilateral political donations, and when each ruling party only considers donations as the component of its objective function in the case of international special interest groups.","PeriodicalId":22492,"journal":{"name":"The International economy","volume":"44 1","pages":"79-94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79957533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}