IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/japwor/v39y2016icp37-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From global factory to global mall? East Asia’s changing trade composition and orientation

Author

Listed:
  • Helble, Matthias
  • Ngiang, Boon-Loong

Abstract

This paper examines East Asia’s changing trade composition and geographical orientation from 1999 to 2014 and draws implications for the region and beyond. Over the last two decades, East Asia has been one of the most successful regions in the world to build and connect cross-border supply chains. Introducing a new and simple analytical tool, we show that since 1999, East Asia has been successful in consolidating its role as a global manufacturing hub and is sourcing an increasing share of intermediate and capital goods directly from the region. Being a thriving manufacturing hub has also triggered rising demand for consumption goods. All East Asian countries, except the PRC, are selling an increasing share of their consumption goods within the region. Furthermore, more consumption goods from outside the region are also being attracted to East Asia. If these trends were to continue, East Asia has the potential to transform into one of the world’s largest “malls”.

Suggested Citation

  • Helble, Matthias & Ngiang, Boon-Loong, 2016. "From global factory to global mall? East Asia’s changing trade composition and orientation," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 37-47.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:japwor:v:39:y:2016:i:c:p:37-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.japwor.2016.06.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0922142516300147
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.japwor.2016.06.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-1721, September.
    2. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    3. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    4. de Sousa, José, 2012. "The currency union effect on trade is decreasing over time," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 917-920.
    5. Ng, Francis & Yeats, Alexander, 2003. "Major trade trends in East Asia : what are their implications for regional cooperation and growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3084, The World Bank.
    6. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    7. Aaditya Mattoo & Zhi Wang & Shang-Jin Wei, 2013. "Trade in Value Added : Developing New Measures of Cross-Border Trade," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15809, December.
    8. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry & Ries, John, 2010. "The erosion of colonial trade linkages after independence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 1-14, May.
    9. Tomoko Mori & Hitoshi Sasaki, 2007. "Interdependence of Production and Income in Asia-Pacific Economies: An International Input-Output Approach," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 07-E-26, Bank of Japan.
    10. Jan Fidrmuc & Jarko Fidrmuc, 2009. "Foreign Languages and Trade," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 09-03, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    11. Yuqing Xing & Neal Detert, 2011. "How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People's Republic of China:," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 66(03), pages 339-350, September.
    12. Richard E. Baldwin, 2008. "Managing The Noodle Bowl: The Fragility Of East Asian Regionalism," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 53(03), pages 449-478.
    13. Inomata, Satoshi, 2013. "Trade in Value Added: An East Asian Perspective," ADBI Working Papers 451, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    14. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    15. David Hummels, 2007. "Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 131-154, Summer.
    16. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2000. "Non-Europe: The magnitude and causes of market fragmentation in the EU," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 136(2), pages 284-314, June.
    17. Yuqing Xing & Neal Detert, 2010. "How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People’s Republic of China," Trade Working Papers 23280, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    18. Yuqing Xing & Neal Detert, 2010. "How the iPhone Widens the United States Trade Deficit with the People’s Republic of China," Trade Working Papers 23128, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    19. Richard Baldwin & Masahiro Kawai, 2013. "Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism," Trade Working Papers 23553, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    20. Jarko Fidrmuc, 2009. "Gravity models in integrated panels," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 435-446, October.
    21. Serena Ng & Pierre Perron, 2001. "LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1519-1554, November.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6apm7lruv088iagm4rv2c33jtg is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    24. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-623, June.
    25. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," Post-Print hal-03579844, HAL.
    26. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2011. "Production Networks and Trade Patterns in East Asia: Regionalization or Globalization?," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 10(1), pages 65-95, Winter/Sp.
    27. Satoshi Inomata, 2013. "Trade in Value Added : An East Asian Perspective," Trade Working Papers 23855, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    28. Peltonen, Tuomas A. & Pula, Gabor, 2009. "Has emerging Asia decoupled? An analysis of production and trade linkages using the Asian international input-output table," Working Paper Series 993, European Central Bank.
    29. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    30. Anderson, James E, 1979. "A Theoretical Foundation for the Gravity Equation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 106-116, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shin-ichi Fukuda & Mariko Tanaka, 2017. "The Impacts of Emerging Asia on Global Financial Markets," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(12), pages 2725-2743, December.
    2. Shin-ichi Fukuda & Mariko Tanaka, 2017. "The Impacts of Emerging Asia on Global Financial Markets," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1050, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    3. Matthias Helble, 2018. "Toward a Consumer-Centered Economy and Its Implications for International Trade and Asia's Development," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 17(3), pages 56-74, Fall.
    4. Helble, Matthias, 2018. "Shifting Towards a Consumer-Centered Economy and the Implications for International Trade," ADBI Working Papers 812, Asian Development Bank Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Helble, Matthias & Ngiang, Boon-Loong, 2014. "From Global Factory to Global Mall: East Asia’s Changing Trade Composition," ADBI Working Papers 496, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    2. Helble, Matthias, 2014. "The Pacific's Connectivity and Its Trade Implications," ADBI Working Papers 499, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    3. Yulin Hou & Yun Wang & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2023. "Gravity channels in trade," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 37-65, January.
    4. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2013. "What separates us? Sources of resistance to globalization," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1196-1231, November.
    5. Anderson, James E. & Borchert, Ingo & Mattoo, Aaditya & Yotov, Yoto V., 2018. "Dark costs, missing data: Shedding some light on services trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 193-214.
    6. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2011. "Gravity, trade integration, and heterogeneity across industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 206-221.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/443fbihfmj8h58a4ceedn30ogb is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Head, Keith & Mayer, Thierry, 2014. "Gravity Equations: Workhorse,Toolkit, and Cookbook," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 131-195, Elsevier.
    9. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "Short run gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    10. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H. & Larch, Mario & Yotov, Yoto V., 2015. "Economic integration agreements, border effects, and distance elasticities in the gravity equation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 307-327.
    11. Jens Wrona, 2018. "Border Effects Without Borders: What Divides Japan's Internal Trade?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7056, CESifo.
    12. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dambferfb7dfprc9m01g1j1k2 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Thomas Orliac, 2012. "The economics of trade facilitation [L'économie de la facilitation des échanges]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03681980, HAL.
    15. Eugenia Go, 2020. "Trade implications of transport cost in the Philippines," Economics PhD Theses 0320, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    16. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin L. Vespignani, 2020. "Non-Gravity Trade," Globalization Institute Working Papers 388, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    17. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2008. "International Trade Integration: A Disaggregated Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Agnès Bénassy‐Quéré & Matthieu Bussière & Pauline Wibaux, 2021. "Trade and currency weapons," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 487-510, August.
    19. Bailey, Michael & Gupta, Abhinav & Hillenbrand, Sebastian & Kuchler, Theresa & Richmond, Robert & Stroebel, Johannes, 2021. "International trade and social connectedness," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Adu, Raymond & Litsios, Ioannis & Baimbridge, Mark, 2022. "ECOWAS single currency: Prospective effects on trade," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    21. Heid, Benedikt & Larch, Mario, 2016. "Gravity with unemployment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 70-85.
    22. Dennis Novy, 2013. "Gravity Redux: Measuring International Trade Costs With Panel Data," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 101-121, January.
    23. Donaldson, Dave, 2010. "Railroads of the Raj: estimating the impact of transportation infrastructure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade; Global value chains; Trade composition; Trade orientation; Consumption goods; Intermediate goods; East Asia; Japan; ASEAN; Republic of Korea; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • N15 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Asia including Middle East

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:japwor:v:39:y:2016:i:c:p:37-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505557 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.