Eriko Hiraiwa (p)

Kenji Kondo

This study explores the extent to which Japan’s new visa policy that has introduced a category for unskilled workers has affected the movement of labor in Asia. We compare Asia’s geographical space with other regions such as the EU that have already established a free movement framework. Amidst the rapid global development of economic integration in trade and investment, international and intraregional labor movement has also expanded within Asia, especially in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where the practices and regulatory systems are very different from each other. However, its diversity might make ASEAN a new actor in the world migration regulatory system and within the ASEAN Economic Community. We examine the changes in Japanese immigration policy and practices as well as their links to ASEAN countries and compare them with those in other geographical regions such as EU and MERCOSUR. In summary, we focus on the geographical space of Asia, which has the potential to provide a new perspective in the map of international migration.

Ryoichi Nomura (p)

Yasuhiro Takarada

This paper examines how the formation of bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) affects firms’ technology choice in a three-country model, where each country has a domestic market and a local firm. We construct a following model: In the first stage, firms choose production technologies simultaneously and independently. We assume that firms can reduce their production cost by engaging Research and Development (R&D) activities. In the second stage, governments determine the tariff levels so as to maximize own national welfare. Governments set their tariff level under the Most Favored Nation clause when there is no FTA, while governments of FTA eliminate tariff each other and set only eternal tariff against non-member country under the FTA. In the third stage, firms compete a la Cournot in all markets. Our main conclusions are as follows: (i) a formation of bilateral FTA tends to encourage member firms’ R&D investment, (ii) it discourages an adoption of new technology by non-member firm under some condition, and then decreases the number of investing firms, and (iii) it may discourage member firms’ R&D investment and encourage non-member firm’s R&D investment.

Hirofumi Okoshi (p), Hayato Kato

Yukio Karasawa-Ohtashiro

Do low corporate taxes always favor multinational production in the course of economic integration? We build a two-country spatial model with different corporate tax rates where multinational enterprises (MNEs) can manipulate transfer prices in intra-firm trade. Using transfer pricing, MNEs can shift profits between domestic production plants and foreign affiliates. As trade costs decline, more MNEs locate their production plants in the low-tax country. However, a further decline reverses this location pattern. Agglomeration of production in the high-tax country does not lead to greater tax revenues there. The results
give implications for empirical studies and tax competition between unequal-sized countries.

Kazunobu Hayakawa (p), Kenmei Tsubota

Makoto Tawada

In this study, we empirically investigate the effect of highways on retail prices of butter in Japan. In particular, we take into account the relocation of producers through the development of highways. We found that the construction of highways raised the transportation speed while the average transportation time from production site increased by the dramatic increase in transportation distance. The latter occurred because of the concentration of butter factories in a limited number of regions. As a result, on average, the increase in transportation time during 1966-1980 raised the butter price by 3.3%. Out of that, while the rise in speed decreased the price by 2%, the increase in transportation distance raised it by 5.3%. These results imply that at least in the butter market, the reallocation of production site may increase producer surplus while the rise of retail prices will worsen consumer welfare.

Kiyoshi Matsubara (p)

Hiroshi Mukunoki

In this paper, we attempt to show what is effective to attract more international
conferences to a region, using Japanese prefectural data of 1998-2017. This article
follows the methodology of Falk and Hagsten (2018), performing regression analysis on data
of 943 European cities from 2012 to 2016 and showing that city size and other factors (culture, openness, etc.) work to attract international conferences. Our regression analysis shows mixed results of prefectural population, depending on model specification with prefecture/year dummies. Other independent variables, including tourism resources, international organizations, accommodation, and transportation infrastructure, also have mixed results, whose statistical significance changes with model specification. Therefore more analysis on the current independent variables as well as policy measures by governments is needed.