Japan’s trade agreements aren’t “window dressing” after all

Simba Mutsvangwa, Craig R. Parsons and Nagendra Shrestha

The International Trade Journal, 2019, vol. 33, issue 2, 176-196

Abstract: We analyze eight of the 15 existing Japanese economic partnership agreements (EPAs) from 1997 to 2012. First, we construct bilateral measures of trade barriers for Japan and its partners using input-output and trade data. Next, we conduct panel regressions using those measures and find that when Japan forms an EPA, the tariff-equivalent barrier between the two countries falls approximately 2% to 3%. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this suggests that Japan’s EPAs may not be merely “window dressing” after all. This has implications for larger trade agreements in the works, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08853908.2018.1448311 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uitjxx:v:33:y:2019:i:2:p:176-196

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uitj20

DOI: 10.1080/08853908.2018.1448311

Access Statistics for this article

The International Trade Journal is currently edited by George R. G. Clarke

More articles in The International Trade Journal from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().