The electronics industry has undergone a transformation from dominant vertically integrated firms to a system of lead firms that specialize in single slices of global value chains. We consider the role that modularization has played in this transformation, the insights this provides for our...

The growth of East Asia’s intra-regional trade is driven largely by increased component trade within global electronics production networks. Data on both electronics trade and production elucidate a pattern of specialization in which upper- and middle-income countries produce sophisticated...

The few existing empirical studies of U.S.-Japan trade agreements have relied primarily on descriptive statistics or univariate time series methods. We conduct a more powerful test by evaluating agreements in the context of well-specified econometric models. Consistent with trade theory, import...

We estimate the impact of FDI on growth using sectoral data for FDI inflows to China and Vietnam. Previous empirical studies, using either cross-country growth regressions or firm-level micro-econometric analysis, fail to reach a consensus. Our paper is the first to use sectoral FDI inflow data...

The Japanese current account has been in surplus since 1981, ranging from 1% to more than 4% of GDP. In this paper, we review the macroeconomic forces that have driven the surplus and describe likely changes in the first part of the next century. In coming years, structural change in Japan's...

The voluntary export restraint agreement (VER) limiting Japanese exports of cars to the US is evaluated. Extending a previous article dealing with Japanese transplant auto factories in the US, the authors examine impacts of alternative responses to the VER on the micro and macro level. The VER...

In the last two decades, the electronics industry has evolved from a vertically integrated in-dustry to a vertically segmented one. This transformation has often been attributed to the modularization of electronic products. In this paper, we argue that the degree of modularity is an active...

Tourism taxes have become an important source of revenue or many tourist destinations in the USA. Among the most widely used is the hotel room tax, levied by 47 states and many localities. Room taxes are touted by proponents as a way to shift the local tax burden to non-residents, while the...

This paper evaluates factors responsible for the competitiveness of China in the world economy and relative to its East Asian rivals. China has been highly successful in capturing world export markets. Chinese competitiveness is not just a matter of an undervalued exchange and extremely low...