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The article presents a research paper on the images of Japan that readers of U.S. newspapers may create and the images of the U.S. that readers of Japanese newspapers might develop. It states that citizens of both countries would unlikely to reach accommodation on mutual conflicts if the potential for the development of equivalent images does not exist in both the U.S. and Japanese newspapers. It discusses systematic content analysis and impressionistic description of news in selected newspapers from the U.S. and Japan. It adds that readers from both countries are likely to gain different mental images on U.S.-Japan political and economic relations.

This paper empirically analyses the stability of the aggregate import demand function for G7 countries. The standard cointegration test and a test developed by Gregory and Hansen are performed. The results of standard cointegration tests suggest that there is no stable cointegrating relation between real import, real GDP and relative import price for all G7 countries. The cointegrating relation is empirically supported for France and Germany if structural change for cointegrating vector is explicitly taken into consideration. The cointegrating relation is empirically rejected for Canada, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA. Thus, the stimulation of domestic business conditions will not necessarily link the quantity of imports for these five countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a structural approach to investigate the relationship between the terms of trade and private savings in Japan and the US. A small open economy model is developed in which an infinitely-living representative agent consumes both tradable and non-tradable goods and a stochastic Euler equation is derived. Then, the GMM estimation method developed by Hansen (1982) is applied to estimate structural parameters and test model specifications. The main result is that the estimate for the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution is more than one for both countries. It may therefore be concluded that an improvement in the future terms of trade can decrease the private savings in Japan and the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Decoupling of GDP from all energy sources under multiple principles are examined. • World economy achieved weak energy decoupling in most years during 2000–2011. • World economy coupled with coal use and tended to couple with cleaner energy use. • None of studied economies achieved long-term GDP-embodied energy decoupling. • Decoupling delusions occurred when only considering direct and total energy use. Decoupling indicators are widely used to understand links between economic growth and energy use. However, traditional decoupling analyses mostly focus on domestic energy consumption (i.e., the production-based principle) and neglect off-site energy use across global supply chains to satisfy an economy's final consumption (i.e., the consumption-based principle). Moreover, analyses for total primary energy conceal an economy's preference for different energy sources. Therefore, this paper evaluates decoupling states of GDP from all types of primary energy use under consumption-based principle, for world economy and eight typical economies during 2000–2011. Regarding total primary energy, world economy witnessed weak decoupling in most years, and most economies studied (e.g., USA, Japan and China) achieved decoupling initially but performed negative decoupling finally. For EU, USA, Japan, Russia and India, production-based decoupling performances were generally better than consumption-based ones. Decoupling phenomena detected under production-based principle even became coupling or negative decoupling under consumption-based principle in some cases. As for each energy source, world economy decoupled from oil use, but still coupled with coal use, and gradually showed a trend to couple with natural gas and renewables use. Different energy sources showed distinct decoupling degrees from GDP, affected by individual embodied energy requirement structure. This paper uncovers potential energy decoupling delusions to deepen the understanding of relationships between energy use and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a simple comparative analysis of Japanese and US trade with China. In recent years, Japanese exports to China had been growing faster than US exports, but Japanese imports from China had been growing more slowly. A large amount of US and Japanese exports were first shipped to Hong Kong, and then re-exported to China. In 1994, Japan's largest export item to China was general machinery, while US largest export item to China was transportation equipment. According to the rivalry index constructed in the paper, competition in 1994 between US and Japanese firms was most intense in the chemical goods sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the impact of Japanese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the productivity of the United States automobile parts manufacturing industry. Gains and benefits derived from FDI; Measurements of productivity; Regression analysis to test the existence of technology transfer; Increase in competitive pressure as a key determinant of productivity improvement.

This paper examines problems that arise in using the relative cost and price performance of the U.S. for assessing its competitiveness and hence for predicting pressures on its trade balance. The author observes that the U.S. has lost manufacturing competitiveness relative to the rest of the industrial world even though its manufacturing prices and unit labor costs had below-average increases when measured in dollars. He attributes this development to the fact that, in many foreign economies but not in the U.S., the prices of manufactured exports rise less than the prices of manufactured goods in general. He points out that some possible explanations for that phenomenon--such as declining profitability or government subsidies of export industries abroad--are implausible in view of its persistence for a sustained period of time. For Japan, the author is able to disaggregate costs and prices by industries; he directly identifies the better price performance of export industries relative to the manufacturing average and links that to faster productivity growth in those industries. He suspects that such a dualism between the costs in the export sector and elsewhere also exists in other foreign economies. Until this historical finding is better understood, the author warns against using aggregate indicators of prices and costs as evidence of U.S. price competitiveness.

The article focuses on the Japanese financial system and how changes in that system will affect the functioning of U.S. financial markets and economy as a whole. The U.S. has traditionally been a major exporter of investment capital, but low U.S. savings rates, recurring federal budget deficits, and reduced sovereign lending by U.S. banks have combined to make the U.S. a major importer of capital, while Japan has become the world's principal capital exporter. The author discusses some effects of Japan's emergence as a major capital exporter.

This paper reports laboratory experiments comparing arbitration behavior between and across two countries with extensive trade relations, the United States and Japan. Besides comparing disputes in both locations, we evaluate disputes between them. While we find nominal differences between the countries, we observe significant changes in both groups' behavior when facing someone from the other country. Specifically, Americans seek larger profits when facing a Japanese counterpart and Japanese subjects settle more frequently with an American counterpart. Our results suggest that the literature on bargaining behavior across cultures paints an incomplete picture of international comparisons by failing to consider bargaining interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the evolution of APEC and the rejection of Japan's 1997 AMF proposal reflect a failure of Japanese and US leadership. Not only have the two countries failed to exercise either individual or shared regional leadership. Instead, both have used their considerable structural power negatively to block the other's proposals for regional collective action, rather than positively to exercise leadership. After developing the concepts of leadership and blocking power, the paper provides case studies of the APEC and AMF. It concludes that if a post-hegemonic US no longer has the willingness and/or the ability to undertake collective action single-handedly, and if in a post-Cold War world neither the US nor Japan has sufficient incentives to bridge their differences and sacrifice some interests to achieve a unified stance, then continued stalemate and under-supply of regional collective goods can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the crisis in U.S.-Japanese relations. The continuing crisis has had substantial repercussions for both sides, not only in bilateral affairs but also in the international trading system. With the end of the Cold War, the government-to-government cooperation between politicians and bureaucrats in Washington and Tokyo has decreased as was evident in the summit between U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in 1991. According to the author, a formal treaty will be needed to regulate and guarantee the U.S.-Japanese economic and political relations.

This paper investigates the macro-determinants of Korea's persistent bilateral trade deficit with Japan but her trade surplus with the US using Johansen's cointegration-error correction model, which includes bilateral trade balance and real exchange rate, domestic and foreign incomes and relative money supply. The empirical results show that all variables included affect bilateral trade balances and there exists a long-run equilibrium among them. Especially, Korean won depreciation improves Korea-US trade balance according to the Marshall-Lerner condition while the J-curve effect between Korea and Japan exists with a little improvement of deterioration of trade balance followed by Korean won depreciation. In addition, domestic economic growth is found to improve persistent trade deficits against Japan and mitigate trade surplus with the US. The short- and long-run effects of monetary policy on Korea-US trade balance are opposite to those on Korea-Japan. The exogenous US income contributes to increase Korea-US trade balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that the economic relationships between China and her major trading partners have changed over the past 20 years with the industrialisation of China, and the emergence of Japan as a source of investment and network trade in sophisticated manufactures, and the US as a source of finance and investment assets, supplier of services and an apparently inexhaustible demand for consumer and intermediate goods. Has this changed the size and direction of spillovers in the region, and has it curtailed or eliminated American economic leadership? We use time-varying spectral methods to decompose the links between the two leading Asian economies and the US. We find: (a) the links with the US have been weakening, while those based on China have strengthened; (b) that this is not new—it has been happening since the 1980s, but has now been reversed by the surge in trade; (c) that the links with the US have been rather complex, with the US able to shape the cycles elsewhere through her control of monetary conditions, but the China zone able to control the size of their cycles; (d) that Japan remains linked to (and dependent on) the US; and (e) there is no evidence that pegged exchange rates encourage convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To develop and test a new model of relational exchange in marketing-oriented non-equity international strategic alliances. Design/methodology/approach - The model is tested using a sample of 97 matched dyads of US and Japanese firms in the electronics industry. The model was tested using three stage least squares. Findings - The data generally support the proposed model for both nations/cultures. The results suggest that the benevolence dimension of trust is a more important determinant of managerially assessed alliance marketing performance for the Japanese firms relative to their US partners. Research limitations/implications - While strong inferences are inhibited by the nature of our data set, our research implies that cultural sensitivity is an important determinant of the credibility and benevolence dimensions of trust and quality information exchange. Also, exchanging quality information is a strong mediator of the trust-performance relationship. Practical implications - International marketing managers should be focused on the process of developing high levels of alliance marketing performance. Our results suggest that this performance can be linked, at least in part, to the exchange of relevant, timely, important information. Information exchange in turn depends on the development of trust and cultural sensitivity in the relationship. Originality/value - This paper integrates the cultural sensitivity construct into a relational exchange model of international alliances, demonstrating the importance of being open to, and understanding of, culturally driven operational differences. The important behavioral construct we rail quality information exchange is a mediator in the relational exchange model, an improvement over models that include only relational constructs such as trust and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telecommunications is a leading industry that occupies a significant part of the contemporary economy and impacts economic development considerably. Since the 1980s, three major trade disputes in telecommunications – the NTT procurement, MOSS/Motorola, and NTT interconnection charge disputes – have developed between the Japanese and US governments. In responding to US pressures, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) has generally been receptive to US demands and willing to contain negotiations to a bilateral format, unlike the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which has become resistant to US pressures and active in utilizing multilateral arrangements. This paper shows that explicit government involvement in the industry concerned, combined with strong US pursuit of negotiations, made it difficult for MPT to resist US pressure and resulted in its enactment of measures conciliatory toward the United States. These findings are then applied to brief analyses of other trade disputes to show the generalizability of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of a comment by Shimshon Kinory on a paper entitled `Black Consumer Power and American Imports from Japan,' by Joe W. Lee, Youngho Lee and A. Kidane.

Examines how Japanese-American economic interdependence changed from 1985 to 1990. Analysis of constant-price Japan-United States intercountry input-output tables for 1985 and 1990; Factor decomposition analysis; Decomposition of the Leontief inverse matrices into three matrices.

The article discusses the role in global economy of the Japan-U.S. Bilateral relationship. This paper focuses on the author's view of the two countries apart from the general thinking that the U.S. and Japan are on economic collision course. It reviews the possible collaboration and cooperation between the two nations in terms of technological superiority, international finance, and world enterprises. It also shares the view on strong disposition in representatives of bilateral discussions as this will equally bring opportunities to both.

This paper draws an analogy between post Cold War American policy in Iraq and prewar Japanese policy for the region of Manchuria (northeastern China), arguing that both the United States and Japan became obsessed with "solving" a perceived foreign policy "problem" that had plagued them for decades. In both cases, the "problem" grew in proportion to the fear that domestic radicals and ideologues were successful in instilling in their fellow citizens. However, the perception of threat often existed in an inverse relationship to any actual threat presented to national interests. The rising level of fear-as well as the posting of ideologues to serve in key policy positions-resulted in efforts by both prewar Japan and post Cold War America to "solve" its perceived problem through the use of military force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

`This paper examines the export performance of the four Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) by modelling their bilateral export flows to three main OECD blocks: the USA, Japan, and the European Community. Our estimated export demand models reveal interesting asymmetries between these three areas of destination which do not emerge from previous aggregate empirical studies of NIE export performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Japanese direct investment in the European Community. The objective of the paper is to refute two common perceptions about Japanese direct investment in Western Europe. These perceptions are that Japanese manufacturing firs invest in order to avoid actual or anticipated trade barriers in Europe and the location of investment within Europe is determined by a mixture of comparative advantage and government inducements. The evidence from Japan's investment in the U.S. and in Europe suggests that proximity to larger markets even within an integrated market is one of the prime concerns of Japanese firms.

This paper explores the usage of various industrial policy tools in Japan. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we find that a disproportionate amount of Japanese targeting occurred in low growth sectors and sectors with decreasing returns to scale. In addition, we find no evidence that productivity was enhanced as a result of industrial policy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract--This paper seeks to identify the determinants of the Japanese import share in the U.S. market. From the assumptions of international oligopoly and internationally differentiated products, a theoretical model is developed where import share is considered as a Cournot-Nash equilibrium. The relative position of the reaction functions is determined by the previous commitments of both domestic and foreign firms on advertising, R & D and tangible investment, as well as by artificial and natural trade barriers Using a sample of 24 3-digit import-competing U.S. industries matched to Japanese industries, the empirical analysis provides evidence supporting the model's predictions that the relative strategic expenditures and market structures of both partners explain the Japanese import share in U.S. markets [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the Japanese reaction to President George Bush's message that, if the American economy is to recover, then Japan must open its markets to free trade for American cars, computers, paper, and glass; otherwise, Japan will face the wrath of American legislators under pressure. `Kenbei,' a fundamental dislike of America; The rise of `kenbei'; Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa; Yoshio Sakurauchi, speaker of Japan's House of Representatives; More.

The European Union (EU) is a heterogeneous political and economic structure comprising 28 nations, differing in terms of size, population, economic development and institutional efficiency. National socio-economic context determines countries' growth potential and their ability to compete for foreign markets. The socio-economic discrepancies present, respectively, between the Western, Northern, Southern and Eastern EU nations still persist, thus reducing the community's ability to compete on the global market, especially with the USA, Japan and China, which are considered the main powerhouses of the world's economy capable of challenging economic positions of the European Union. Consequently, the present research aims to assess to which extent economic growth determinants in the European Union differ taking into account the regional context. An individual per region regression analysis was developed intending to identify which are the determinants of economic development at the level of EU's geographical regions. The results reached confirm this assumption underlining the fact that there are significant dissimilarities between the motivators of economic progress in the EU. This fact should particularly concern the European elites as these variations determine the further accentuation of development disparities not only among the countries but also between entire groups of states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of the natural or equilibrium rate of interest has attracted a lot of attention from monetary policymakers in recent years. Most attempts to estimate the natural rate use a closed-economy framework. We argue that in the face of greater integration of global product and capital markets, an open economy framework is more appropriate. We provide some initial estimates of the natural rate for the USA and Japan in a two-country framework. Our identifying assumptions include a close relationship between the time-varying natural rate of interest and the low-frequency fluctuations of potential output growth in both the home country and the foreign country. Our results suggest that the natural rates in both countries are mainly determined by their own trend growth rates of potential output. Nevertheless, the other country’s trend growth plays an important role in several specific periods. The gap between the actual real interest rate and our estimated natural rate offers valuable insights into the recent stance of monetary policy in both of these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses ways in which difficult changes in Eastern Europe have allowed Japan to become an economic power. Eastern Europe's financial crises have arisen due to troubles transitioning to free markets and capitalism. American policy makers who have acknowledged the financial problems of countries such as the Soviet Union or Germany have also realized they can implant Japanese money in the place of European money. In the same time that communism is on the verge of extinction as a viable species of government, Japan has undergone changes nearly as significant to international relations as those of the Soviet bloc. Advantages to Japan's economic involvement in Western markets are discussed.

The article discusses the impact of Japanese cross-investment on its economic rivalry with the U.S. Since the 1980's Japan has profited from a continuous trade surplus with the U.S. In 1984 manufactured exports from Japan jumped 395 from the previous year to claim approximately $57 billion in the U.S. market. This meant that every American spent an average of $243 on Japanese imports. Between 1979-1984 Japanese direct investments in the U.S. rose to over 33% annually. This rate of increase easily outpaced investments made by every other foreign nation.

The author reports on the relationship between the U.S. dollar and the Japanese Yen along with the trading relationship between the U.S. and Japan. The exchange rate between the dollar and the yen, in which the value of the dollar is increasing, is discussed. According to the article, the trade deficit which the United States has with Japan is associated with the valuation of the dollar and the yen. Ways in which the author feels a balance between the two currencies can be reached are mentioned, including quotas, tariffs and industrial policies.