1997 Volume 83 Issue 10 Pages 683-688
Due to the rapid change of appreciation of yen, many Japanese companies have been making intensive overseas investment since 1980s. However, while automobile and electronic industries have been aggressive about their overseas production, steel and other several industrial have made relatively small overseas investment. This difference is thought to be attributed to their cost structure and market structure. In order to evaluate the difference totally, we have to consider not only on the single industry base, but also on the total industry base including all the related industries. In this study, we used I/O table and calculated the comprehensive structure of cost and market for the steel and other major industries in Japan. The results show that as regards the labor cost ratio and the overseas market dependence calculated in this method there are a strong correlation the with investment overseas.
