The trade effects of export control regulations in Japan

Recent geopolitical tensions have generated various uncertainties in cross-border economic activities. A major concern is how far export control regulations by the US and its allies would decouple supply chains. This study empirically investigates the trade effects of export control regulations by Japan initiated on July 23, 2023. The regulations restrict exports of 22 items of semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) and one item of semiconductor inspection equipment (SIE), implicitly focusing on Japan’s exports to China. Our empirical analysis employs the monthly data of Japanese exports and Chinese imports. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, the export restrictions significantly decreased exports of some SME products from Japan to China but increased those of some other SME products. Second, we found insignificant changes in the exports of SIE from Japan to China when controlling for various elements in China, but those exports were found to increase significantly when controlling for various elements in Japan. These results suggest that when we empirically examine the trade effect of export control regulations against China, it is crucially important to use the trade statistics at the finest product level possible and to control for confounding factors in China as much as possible.