Jota Ishikawa

This paper incorporates key stylized facts about the transport sector into the conventional international oligopoly model and explores how protectionist policies perform differently when transport costs are endogenous and subject to the backhaul problem (i.e., the imbalance of shipping volume in outgoing and incoming routes). A country’s protectionist policies, which benefit domestic firms and harm foreign firms in the conventional model, can harm domestic firms and benefit foreign firms if carriers avoid the backhaul problem. Protectionist policies may also lead to a facilitating practice. In the absence of the backhaul problem, both domestic and foreign consumers lose from protectionist policies.

The paper analyzes multinational enterprises' incentives to manipulate internal transfer prices to take advantage of tax differences across countries, and implications of transfer-pricing regulations as a countermeasure against such profit shifting. We find that tax-motivated foreign direct investment (FDI) may entail inefficient internal production but may benefit consumers. Thus, encouraging transfer-pricing behavior to some extent can enhance social welfare. Furthermore, we consider tax competition between two countries to explore its interplay with transfer-pricing regulations. We show that the FDI source country will be willing to set a higher tax rate and tolerate some profit shifting to a tax haven country if the regulation is tight enough. We also indicate a novel mechanism through which it is the larger country that undertakes tax-motivated FDI, the pattern we often observe in reality.

In international trade, transportation requires a round trip for which a transport firm has to commit to shipping capacity that is sufficient to meet the maximum shipping volume. This may cause the “backhaul problem.” Trade theory suggests that, facing the problem, transport firms with market power adjust their freight rates strategically when import tariffs change. As a consequence, a country reducing its import tariffs may experience an increase in exports as well as imports. Using worldwide data covering 1995–2007, we find evidence that supports these predictions: a 1% reduction in an importer's tariffs increases the import freight rates by around 0.8%; decreases the export freight rates by around 1.1%; and increases the export quantity by 0.6% to 1%. These findings indicate a new mechanism through which import-tariff reductions lead to export expansions.

We examine how trade liberalization affects South’s incentive to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) in a North–South duopoly model where a low‐cost North firm competes with a high‐cost South firm in the South market. The North firm serves the South market through either exports or foreign direct investment (FDI). The extent of effective cost difference between North and South depends on South’s imitation, which in turn depends on South’s IPR protection and absorptive capacity and North firm’s location choice, all of which are endogenously determined in our model. For a given level of IPR protection, South’s absorptive capacity under exports may be greater than under FDI. Even though innovation is exogenous to the model (and hence unaffected by South’s IPR policy), strengthening IPR protection in South can improve its welfare. The relationship between trade costs and the degree of IPR protection that maximizes South welfare is non‐monotone. In particular, South has an incentive to protect IPR only when trade costs are moderate. When masking technology or licensing is incorporated into the model, however, some protection of IPR may be optimal for South eve

Trade barriers due to transport costs are as large as those due to tariffs. This paper incorporates the transport sector into a standard model of international trade and studies the effects of trade and industrial policies. Transport firms need to commit to a shipping capacity sufficient for a round trip, with a possible imbalance of shipping volumes in two directions. This imbalance is known as the “backhaul problem.” As transport firms attempt to avoid this problem, a tariff in one sector may affect other independent import and/or export sectors. In particular, domestic tariffs may backfire: domestic exports may also decrease, harming domestic export sectors and the domestic economy. This finding contributes to the literature on how import liberalization may generate a positive effect on the liberalizing country's exports by identifying a new channel through endogenous changes in transport costs given the backhaul problem.

This paper studies greenhouse-gas emission (GHG) controls in the presence of international carbon leakage through international firm relocation. In a new economic geography model with two countries ('North' and 'South'), only North sets a target for GHG emissions. We compare the consequences of emission quotas and emission taxes under trade liberalization on location of two manufacturing sectors with different emission intensities and degrees of carbon leakage. With low trade costs, further trade liberalization increases global emissions by facilitating carbon leakage. Regulation by quotas leads to spatial sorting, resulting in less carbon leakage and less global emissions than regulation by taxes.

We analyze the provision of repair services (aftermarket services that are required for a certain fraction of durable units after sales) through an international duopoly model in which a domestic firm and a foreign firm compete in the domestic market. Trade liberalization in goods, if not accompanied by the liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) in services, induces the domestic firm to establish service facilities for repairing the foreign firm's products. This weakens the firms' competition in the product market, and the resulting anti-competitive effect hurts consumers and reduces world welfare. Despite the anti-competitive effect, trade liberalization may also hurt the foreign firm because the repairs reduce the sales of the imported good in the product market. Liberalization of service FDI helps resolve the problem because it induces the foreign firm to establish service facilities for its own products.

Using the footloose capital model with two countries, this paper studies different impacts of emission taxes and quotas on firm location and global emissions under trade liberalization. If only one country (North) sets a target of emissions, firms may have incentive to relocate to the other country (South). That is, the pollution haven effect could arise. We show that a further decrease in trade costs, given an emission regulation in North, increases firm relocation and global emissions only if trade costs are relatively low. Moreover, compared with emission taxes, emission quotas moderate firm relocation, which results in less pollution haven and hence less global emissions.

This article studies environmental management policy when two fossil-fuel-consuming countries noncooperatively regulate greenhouse-gas emissions through emission taxes or quotas. The presence of carbon leakage caused by fuel-price changes affects the tax-quota equivalence. We explore each country's incentive to choose a policy instrument in a two-stage policy choice game and find subgame-perfect Nash equilibria. This sheds new light on the questions of which policy instrument is more stringent and of why adopted instruments could be different among countries. In particular, our result suggests a reason why developing countries tend to employ emission taxes whereas developed countries tend to adopt quotas. © (2013) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

This paper attempts to reinterpret the familiar approach to strategic public policies from the viewpoint of inefficiencies involved in oligopoly where firms engage in Cournot competition. To this end, we introduce tools called quasi-reaction functions and quasi-supply curves. These tools allow us to conduct analyses through use of the standard partial-equilibrium diagram, i.e. the quantity-price plane. We can find the relationship between prices and quantities directly and, hence, deal with inefficiencies easily and also suggest policies to correct such inefficiencies. Specifically, we reexamine public policies related to mixed-oligopoly, excess entry, technology choices with free entry and exit, and foreign oligopoly.

Post-production services, such as sales, distribution, and maintenance, comprise a crucial element of business activity. We explore an international duopoly model in which a foreign firm has the option of outsourcing post-production services to its domestic rival or providing those services by establishing its own facilities through FDI. We demonstrate that trade liberalization in goods may hurt domestic consumers and lower world welfare, and that the negative welfare impacts are turned into positive ones if service FDI is also liberalized. This finding yields important policy implications, given the reality that the progress of liberalization in service sectors is still limited. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper explores the effects of transport costs, tariffs, and foreign wage rates on the domestic economy in the presence of reverse imports, with special emphasis on inter-firm cost asymmetry in an international oligopoly model. To serve the domestic market, a foreign firm produces in the foreign country, while two domestic firms produce either at home or abroad. Surprisingly, an increase in the foreign wage rate may increase the profits of a firm producing in the foreign country. Even if all firms produce in the foreign country, an increase in the foreign wage rate may improve domestic welfare.

We examine the relationship between tariffs and North-South technology transfer in an oligopoly model when technology is embodied in a key component that only North firms can produce. They may have an incentive to transfer their technologies to South firms even if the South's licensing market is restricted or if intellectual property right protection is imperfect in the South. Interestingly, a decrease in the tariff on the final good as well as an increase may induce technology transfer. Our analysis suggests that the South should implement pro-competitive policies to induce technology transfer and enhance welfare. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

In the framework of international Cournot oligopoly, we analyze welfare-enhancing policies when policyrnakers have only limited information on demand and cost structures. We show that even if policymakers have no idea about costs and demand, they can raise welfare by introducing a small production subsidy. If the government knows that demand is not very convex, a small tariff can be used to enhance welfare. With strategic complements, a small import reduction by an import quota deteriorates welfare while a small increase in the number of domestic firms improves welfare. In other cases, some more information is required to determine right policies. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Using a simple Cournot-oligopoly model, the paper examines the effects of voluntary export restraints (VERs) on profits, market shares, consumers' surplus, and domestic welfare when the domestic market is open to foreign direct investment (FDI) or exports from a third country. A VER may induce FDI from the VER-restricted country or exports from the third country. Under certain circumstances, the domestic firm loses from a VER. Even if the domestic firm gains, the increase in the market share of the domestic country induced by the VER could be less than that of the third country.

In this paper, we explore welfare implications of a voluntary export restraint (VER) agreement within a simple model of duopoly with product differentiation and conjectural variations. We assume that the foreign exporter does not sell its product in its own market and that the imposition of a VER makes the domestic firm into a Stackelberg leader. Under these assumptions, it is shown that a VER introduced at the free-trade equilibrium level of export is welfare-improving for the importing country if and only if the foreign exporter is forced to comply with the restraint involuntarily. In other words, it is impossible to benefit home country and foreign country simultaneously by a VER agreement within the class of models we are envisaging. This result holds irrespective of whether firms compete in terms of quantities or prices.

This note further develops Ikema's (1990, 1991) diagrammatic demonstration of the Cournot-oligopoly equilibrium on the price-quantity plane. It is shown that Ikema's method can be used to illustrate the Stackelberg and Bertrand equilibria on the price-quantity plane. Furthermore, we algebraically derive the "monopoly-equilibrium" curve and show that the Cournot-oligopoly equilibrium is stable if the monopoly-equilibrium curves for all producers are upward sloping.

In the context of an international duopoly with product differetiation and conjectural variations, this paper examines the equivalence of several policies that are designed so as to restrict domestic imports to a certain exogenous level and ranks them from the point of view of consumer prices, profits, and economic welfare. The particular value of conjectural variations and the slope of reaction curves are crucial for the ranking. The ranking on the basis of domestic welfare and world welfare is directly opposite to the ranking on the basis of foreign welfare. Tariffs and quotas are never equivalent in our model. © 1994.

This paper considers a model with one primary factor, one intermediate good, and two final goods. Increasing returns to scale are introduced into the production of the intermediate good to analyze trade patterns and gains from trade with two assumptions about the market structure of the intermediate good: average cost pricing and monopoly. Free trade does not necessarily lead to gains for the economy and either specialization or multiple equilibria are obtained. This paper also provides interesting comparisons between the types of market structure, showing, for example, that monopoly can be preferred to average cost pricing. © 1992.

This paper presents a simple dynamic model which allows for changes in both industrial structure and trade patterns during the process of economic growth. Learning by doing in the producer-service sector is the source of endogenous growth. Interesting interdependences between economic growth and the structure of the economy are obtained: economic growth is accompanied by changes in industrial structure and comparative advantage, while changes in industrial composition of the manufacturing sector accelerate economic growth. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the relationship between economic growth and the endowment structure, and the effects of two types of technology transfers on economic growth. © 1992.

A two-final-good and knowledge-based growth model is constructed to study growth patterns in a small open economy. The source of growth is the introduction of new intermediate goods as a result of R&amp D, which in turn generates dynamic increasing returns in both the production of one final good and R&amp D. The results obtained in the model are consistent with intercountry differences in growth patterns. Depending on the technology level, a zero-growth equilibrium may appear. However, there exist some temporary policies that can help the economy take off. If the economy grows, the growth rate increases. Moreover, the share of the labor force employed by the constant-returns final-good sector decreases in the process of growth. © 1991.