This paper reviews the evolution of the economic and political relationship between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States and Japan since the 1970s, from the perspectives of trade in goods and services, foreign direct investment (FDI) and international labour...

This paper examines the extent to which electricity supply constraints could affect sectoral specialization. For this purpose, an empirical trade model is estimated from 1990-2008 panel data on 15 OECD countries and 12 manufacturing sectors. We find that along with Ricardian technological...

International production fragmentation has been a global trend for decades, becoming especially important in Asia where the manufacturing process is fragmented into stages and dispersed around the region. This paper examines the effects of input and output tariff reductions on labor demand...

The spread of Asia’s free trade agreements (FTAs) has sparked an important debate on the impact of such agreements on business activity. This pioneering study uses new evidence from surveys of East Asian exporters – including Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the...

Recent heterogeneous-firm models of international trade suggest that productivity determines whether firms engage in export activity and foreign direct investment. In practice, however, many productive firms are not internationalized, whereas many unproductive firms are, which suggests that...