As the world economy becomes more integrated, and industry becomes more globalised, constituent parts of products are made all over the world. This volume explores the theoretical implications and empirical manifestations of this phenomenon.

Using state-of-the-art econometric tools, this book examines the implications of international fragmentation of production for the performance of the Japanese manufacturing industry.The impact of the ongoing process of international fragmentation of production and outsourcing has become a highly contentious issue in developed economies such as the US and Japan. Concerns about deindustrialisation and large-scale job losses - 'the export of jobs' have generated a political backlash against multinationals and globalisation. Using detailed data from Japanese multinationals this book rigorously analyses the Japanese experience and compares and contrasts it with the experience of US manufacturing. The study finds no empirical evidence that expansion of multinational activities in foreign countries produces job losses in the home country. Indeed, when demand induced indirectemployment effects are taken into account the increased profitability of Japanese firms is likely to have increased overall employment in Japan. However, the shift of labour intensive activities to low wage economies associated with the international fragmentation of production generates adjustment pressures and a structural shift in favour of skilled workers in Japanese manufacturing.

Changing Patterns of Global Trade outlines the factors underlying important shifts in global trade that have occurred in recent decades. The emergence of global supply chains and their increasing role in trade patterns allowed emerging market economies to boost their inputs in high-technology exports and is associated with increased trade interconnectedness.The analysis points to one important trend taking place over the last decade: the emergence of China as a major systemically important trading hub, reflecting not only the size of trade but also the increase in number of its significant trading partners.

Quantitative Analysis of Newly Evolving Patterns of International Trade offers a variety of perspectives on new forms and developments of international trade and related activities for Japan, the United States, China, and some other important trading countries, to develop new methods and data for measuring the factor contents of emerging new modes of international trade. Such methods and data are crucially important for evaluating impacts of the new modes on factor markets in the United States, Japan, and other major trading countries, and also for forecasting the future development of world trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), evaluating welfare gains from trade, estimating impacts of free trade agreements, and designing effective trade and FDI policies.