This study explores the policies and factors driving Japan’s success in managing the negative job and wage impacts of import shocks. Examining the estimated impacts from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s reveals three key characteristics of the Japanese economy that mitigate the negative impacts:deep integration into global supply chains, an egalitarian intra-firm labor market, and the propagation of trade benefits to non-trading firms. These features reduce the need for import-specific policies. Instead, general policies aimed at mitigating the negative effects, irrespective of their source, have fewer side effects and are more effective.

JEL codes:F13, F14, F16

　　This study provides a theoretical perspective on partial economic integration, where integration and segmentation of countries coexist in the global economy. Drawing on the author’s research, this study summarizes the key factors of partial economic integration. These factors include policy-related factors such as regional trade agreements, rules of origin, and service trade barriers. They also include global shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside firm-level behaviors, such as partial cross-ownership and international price discrimination. It elaborates on the author’s two recent studies related to partial economic integration, sector exclusions in free trade agreements (Mukunoki and Yildiz, 2025), and partial cross-ownership (Ghosh and Mukunoki, 2025). These insights highlight the need for government policies and international cooperation to address both the integration and segmentation forces in international trade.

JEL classification:F10;F12;F13;F15;F23

　　Intellectual property rights (IPR) protection policies in Southern countries play a crucial role in the product cycle by restricting Southern firms from imitating products developed by Northern firms. In this paper, we incorporate the Southern government’s political decision into a North-South model, where foreign direct investment (FDI) from the North results in technology leakage to the South through imitation. We analyze the optimal IPR-protection policy in the South to show that the Southern government selects the least stringent level that still successfully attracts Northern FDI. We demonstrate that this result holds in a model with heterogeneous Northern firms.

JEL Classification:O24, O31, O19

　　In this paper, we examine welfare effects of reducing communication costs for multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in both developed and less developed countries, considering firm-level heterogeneity in productivity levels. MNEs based in developed countries that invest in less developed countries typically establish plants as export-platform foreign direct investment (FDI) and incur communication costs between the developed and less developed countries. On the other hand, MNEs investing in other developed countries employ plants as horizontal FDI and face communication costs between the developed countries. We demonstrate that a comparison of a welfare impact by reducing each communication cost exhibits a non-monotonic relationship when both investment strategies coexist. This relationship is contingent upon the magnitude of transportation costs and the relative mass of firms utilizing export-platform FDI to those employing horizontal FDI.

JEL Classification:F12, F23, L22

　　This paper examines the impact of increased international trade on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving the SDGs is not mandatory for all member countries;hence, the voluntary efforts of each country to achieve the SDGs are crucial. This paper focuses on trade in environmental goods (EGs), which aim to induce individual behavioral changes by promoting the international diffusion of environmental technologies. Using the 2022 SDG Index as the dependent variable, we confirm that trade in EGs positively affects the SDGs. The results also show that merchandise trade has a positive effect, although to a lesser extent than trade in EGs. This paper suggests liberalizing trade in EGs and provision learning opportunities to increase trade effects.

JEL classification:F14;F18;F64