Assessing the Impacts of US‐Japan Bilateral Trade Agreements, 1980–1995

Abstract

The paper presents three different viewpoints on the effects of US‐Japan bilateral trade agreements and finds some evidence to support each one using trade data from 1980–1995. For most of the 25 industry‐agreement cases, the data do not support a conclusion of significant positive impacts of the agreements on Japan's imports of targeted manufactured products from either the US or non‐US sources. In at least one high‐profile case involving autos, I find evidence suggesting positive impacts on imports from the US, but in this case the data suggests trade diversion benefiting US0based producers at the expense of European ones. I also find a few cases where the agreements may have produced positive effects on Japan's imports from non‐US sources.