Invoice Currency Choice and its Determinants in Japanese Trade: New Evidence from Japanese Customs Data

In this study, we use microdata from Japanese customs declarations and calculate semiannual invoice currency shares by country, both on a value and transaction basis. From country-level data,we can confirm the following: First, the impression that Japan’s trade is biased toward the U.S. dollar (USD) is mainly due to choices in the U.S., China, and resource-rich countries with large trade volumes. Second, the yen invoicing is selected on a value basis and an even larger transaction number basis, and the local currency invoicing is also used on a bilateral country basis. Third, the choice of invoice currency has changed in recent years. From 2014 to 2020, the USD lost the most shares, falling in 23 of the 34 countries. By conducting an empirical analysis exploring the determinants of invoice currency, our main findings confirm that the intermediate goods trade share has the effect of reducing Yen and increasing USD invoicing in export, while the higher the inflation gap, the more likely one is to use USD invoicing, which suggests that Japanese firms will be further exposed to foreign exchange risk in the future.