IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/63.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Japan import less than it should?

Author

Listed:
  • Takeuchi,Kenji

Abstract

Japan's continuing large current account surpluses have promoted a series of investigators to examine the volume and the structure of the goods that Japan imports. The usual charge is that Japan's level of manufactured imports is too low and that it is low because Japan has erected a wall of trade barriers that limits access by foreign suppliers of manufactured goods. Recent studies have looked at this question to see if Japan's overall imports are lower than they should be, and specifically if Japan imports fewer manufactures than other industrial countries. This paper presents a review of the econometric literature and these give diverse results. Additionally, if Japan does import a lower volume of manufactures, why is that so? Is it because of trade and tariff barriers, the Japanese marketing system, or the tastes of Japanese consumers? None of the studies resolved these questions.

Suggested Citation

  • Takeuchi,Kenji, 1988. "Does Japan import less than it should?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 63, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:63
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/735951468752763370/pdf/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    2. Gary R. Saxonhouse, 1989. "Differentiated Products, Economies of Scale, and Access to the Japanese Market," NBER Chapters, in: Trade Policies for International Competitiveness, pages 145-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Robert Z. Lawrence, 1987. "Imports in Japan: Closed Markets or Minds?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(2), pages 517-554.
    4. Fitchett, D.A., 1988. "Agricultural Trade Protectionism In Japan," World Bank - Discussion Papers 28, World Bank.
    5. Helpman, Elhanan, 1981. "International trade in the presence of product differentiation, economies of scale and monopolistic competition : A Chamberlin-Heckscher-Ohlin approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 305-340, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Meland, Frode & Straume, Odd Rune, 2009. "Can deunionization lead to international outsourcing?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 109-119, February.
    2. J. Hanna & L. L鶩 & S. Petit, 2015. "Intra-tourism trade, income distribution and tourism endowment: an econometric investigation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(21), pages 2184-2200, May.
    3. Anis, Aslam H. & Benarroch, Michael & Wen, Quan, 2002. "Persistent protection in an international exit game," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 465-487, March.
    4. William Milberg, 1988. "A Product Line Life Cycle Model of Intra-industry Trade," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 389-397, Oct-Dec.
    5. Leitão, Nuno Carlos, 2012. "Globalization and United States’ Intra-Industry Trade," MPRA Paper 39756, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Juliette Milgram Baleix & Ana I. Moro-Egido, 2005. "Trade types with developed and developing countries what can we learn from Spanish data? Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the nature of Spanish intra-industry trade and find that intraindustry ," Working Papers 05-06, Asociación Española de Economía y Finanzas Internacionales.
    7. Simon J. Evenett & Wolfgang Keller, 2002. "On Theories Explaining the Success of the Gravity Equation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 281-316, April.
    8. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 105-130, Summer.
    9. Michael C. Burda & Barbara Dluhosch, 2002. "Fragmentation, Globalisation and Labour Markets," International Economic Association Series, in: David Greenaway & Richard Upward & Katharine Wakelin (ed.), Trade, Investment, Migration and Labour Market Adjustment, chapter 4, pages 47-65, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Krugman, Paul R., 1989. "Industrial organization and international trade," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 20, pages 1179-1223, Elsevier.
    11. Frahan, Bruno Henry de & Tharakan, Joe, 1998. "Horizontal And Vertical Intra-Industry Trade In The Processed Food Sector," 1998 Annual meeting, August 2-5, Salt Lake City, UT 20903, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Hartman, Darcy A. & Henderson, Dennis R. & Sheldon, Ian M., 1993. "A Cross-Section Analysis Of Intra-Industry Trade In The U.S. Processed Food And Beverage Sectors," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 24(1), pages 1-9, February.
    13. John Gilbert & Hamid Beladi & Reza Oladi, 2015. "North–South Trade Liberalization and Economic Welfare," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 1006-1017, November.
    14. Satya P. Das, 2005. "Gradual globalization and inequality between and within countries," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 852-869, August.
    15. Carsten Eckel, 2009. "International Trade and Retailing," CESifo Working Paper Series 2597, CESifo.
    16. James R. Markusen & Anthony J. Venables, 2021. "The theory of endowment, intra-industry and multi-national trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 4, pages 69-94, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Heiland, Inga & Kohler, Wilhelm, 2022. "Heterogeneous workers, trade, and migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    18. Michaël Freudenberg & Françoise Lemoine, 1999. "Central and Eastern European Countries in the International Division of Labour in Europe," Working Papers 1999-05, CEPII research center.
    19. Carsten Eckel, 2005. "Market Integration and Market Concentration in Horizontally Differentiated Industries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(16), pages 1-6.
    20. Carsten Eckel, 2006. "Trade and Diversity: Is There a Case for ‘Cultural Protectionism?’," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(4), pages 403-418, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.