Abstract:
We estimate a gravity model of Japanese and US exports of used automobiles that incorporates an original, ordered measure of protection in global, used automobile markets. The model confirms that, overall, protection by our measure is suppress-ive and often statistically significant and that what we term 'Grubel income effects' are present. However, Japanese export behavior appears to differ in some important respects from that of the USA, with distance and protection levels being less significant and left-hand side driving patterns being a critical explanatory variable. Copyright 2006 East Asian Economic Association and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..