This paper examines the economic impact of re-invention - the degree to which an innovation is modified by user - on industry growth and productivity. The paper focuses on two re-inventions made by a Japanese steel company; these inventions improved the productive efficiency of Austrian-made...

The national treatment obligation, along with the most favored nation obligation, is an important principle of non-discrimination adopted by theWorld Trade Organization. It requires that foreign products be treated no less favorably than national products. This paper empirically examines the...

This study evaluates the economic impact of product innovation by using firm-level data obtained from the Community Innovation Survey conducted in Japan. It accounts for possible technological spillovers from innovation activities, and examines the extent to which new-to-market product...

　　 This paper examines the effectiveness of consumer subsidies to encourage the installment of solar panels in Japan. Such subsidies can be justified on the ground that the prices to consumers of the conventional energy alternative do not reflect their full social costs. The paper...

This paper examines the economic consequences of a horizontal merger between Korean automakers that took place in 1998, with a particular emphasis on export market behavior. Estimates of structural demand and supply reveal that the merger enhanced production efficiency of the merged party by 6.3...

Based on a unique data set of 760 air cargo transshipment routings to/from the Northeast Asian region in 2000, this paper applies an aggregate form of multinomial logit model to identify the critical factors influencing air cargo transshipment route choice decisions. The analysis focuses on the...

The paper analyzes product-level consumption patterns among countries in the OECD in the period from 1985 to 1999. Estimation results find robust evidence of strong convergence in cross-country consumption patterns. The paper also finds a relationship between openness and the cross-country...

This paper examines US safeguards applied to the motorcycle market in the 1980s. After receiving temporary protection by means of a maximum tariff of over 45%, Harley-Davidson sales recovered dramatically. Simulations, based on structural demand and supply estimates, indicate that while...

The paper examines the Japanese steel industry in the 1950s and 1960s to evaluate the role of export subsidy policies. Export subsidies can be instrumental in increasing an industry's cost competitiveness in the presence of learning by doing, a characteristic of production in the steel industry....

This paper provided a conceptual framework to quantify consumer gains from product innovations. Using an example of VCRs, we illustrate a model that is useful to measure consumer welfare, and describe what data are to be used for the analysis. We also make a selective survey of papers that...