Research Activities

Research Projects

FY 2015/2016 Research Topic: B-1-04
Economic Analysis of Trade Policy and Trade Agreements

Outline

It is currently widely understood that joining the global supply chain is important for developing countries. Further, recent developments in the global supply chain have revealed the insufficiencies in the trade liberalization promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO). This has resulted in the demand for deeper integration and more individualized agreements than those possible by the WTO. The goal of this research project is to provide an economic analysis of trade agreements with particular focus on topics such as FDI, trade in services, offshoring, and worker mobility. Furthermore, this project will cover the issues in the social clauses that are often built into preferential trade agreements. There is still plenty of room to examine what role trade agreements can play in the economic activities mentioned above, and in addition, the accumulation of empirical analysis on trade agreements is still lagging relative to theoretical analysis. This particularly holds true for preferential trade agreements between Japan and developing economies. Filling this gap is another goal of this project.

Period

April 2014 - March 2016

Members of the Research Project
[ Organizer ] SATO Hitoshi
[ Co-researchers ] TANAKA Kiyoyasu
[ Co-researchers ] ITO Tadashi
[ Co-researchers ] SUGITA Yoichi (Faculty of Economics, Hitotsubashi University)
[ Co-researchers ] ISHIDO Hikari (Professor, Chiba University)
[ Co-researchers ] KAMATA Isao (Assistant Professor, Kobe University)
[ Co-researchers ] KOMORIYA Yoshimasa (Associate Professor, Chuo University)
[ Co-researchers ] MUKUNOKI Hiroshi (Professor, Gakushuin University)
[ Co-researchers ] Chi-Hai Yang (Professor, National Central University, Taiwan)
Publications