IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/17005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Yen for Change: The strong yen and the Japanese automobile industry

Author

Listed:
  • Willem THORBECKE

Abstract

The yen depreciation since 2012 has not revived Japanese exports. To investigate why, this paper examines automobile exports. Panel regression evidence points to price elasticities exceeding unity. However, out-of-sample forecasts and other evidence indicate that offshoring since the Global Financial Crisis has prevented automobile exports from recovering. Further, results from pass-through equations indicate that exporters allowed the recent depreciation to raise yen export prices and profit margins rather than export volumes. Finally, regressing stock returns on exchange rates indicates that automakers were more exposed to the value of the yen in 2016 than at any time over the last 12 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Willem THORBECKE, 2017. "A Yen for Change: The strong yen and the Japanese automobile industry," Discussion papers 17005, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:17005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/17e005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koichiro Kamada & Izumi Takagawa, 2005. "Policy coordination in East Asia and across the Pacific," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 275-306, December.
    2. José Manuel Campa & Linda S. Goldberg, 2005. "Exchange Rate Pass-Through into Import Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 679-690, November.
    3. Kao, Chihwa, 1999. "Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-44, May.
    4. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Tesar, Linda L., 2006. "Exchange rate exposure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 188-218, January.
    5. Kiyotaka Sato & Junko Shimizu & Nagendra Shrestha & Shajuan Zhang, 2013. "Industry-specific Real Effective Exchange Rates and Export Price Competitiveness: The Cases of Japan, China, and Korea," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 8(2), pages 298-321, December.
    6. SATO Kiyotaka & SHIMIZU Junko & Nagendra SHRESTHA & Shajuan ZHANG, 2012. "Industry-specific Real Effective Exchange Rates for Japan," Discussion papers 12044, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Ceglowski, Janet, 2010. "Has pass-through to export prices risen? Evidence for Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 86-98, March.
    8. Nelson C. Mark & Donggyu Sul, 2003. "Cointegration Vector Estimation by Panel DOLS and Long‐run Money Demand," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(5), pages 655-680, December.
    9. Jayasinghe, Prabhath & Tsui, Albert K., 2008. "Exchange rate exposure of sectoral returns and volatilities: Evidence from Japanese industrial sectors," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 639-660, December.
    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. KATO Atsuyuki, 2019. "Exchange Rates and Intra- and Inter-Firm Trade in Japan," Discussion papers 19082, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    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. Willem THORBECKE, 2020. "Weathering Safe Haven Capital Flows: Evidence from the Japanese Transportation Equipment Industry," Discussion papers 20024, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Thorbecke, Willem, 2019. "Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing electronic parts and components," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    3. Thorbecke, Willem, 2020. "How Japanese firms can weather endaka periods: Evidence from the transportation equipment industry," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    4. Thorbecke, Willem, 2014. "The contribution of the yen appreciation since 2007 to the Japanese economic debacle," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-15.
    5. Thorbecke, Willem & Kato, Atsuyuki, 2018. "Exchange rates and the Swiss economy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1182-1199.
    6. Willem THORBECKE & Nimesh SALIKE & CHEN Chen, 2020. "Product Complexity, Exports, and Exchange Rates: Evidence from the Japanese Chemical Industry," Discussion papers 20085, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. SHIMIZU Junko & SATO Kiyotaka, 2015. "Abenomics, Yen Depreciation, Trade Deficit, and Export Competitiveness," Discussion papers 15020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. Willem Thorbecke, 2021. "The weak rupiah: catching the tailwinds and avoiding the shoals," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 23(3), pages 521-539, December.
    9. Willem THORBECKE, 2021. "East Asian and European Firms: Comrades or Competitors," Discussion papers 21098, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    10. Thorbecke, Willem & Salike, Nimesh & Chen, Chen, 2022. "The impact of exchange rate changes on the Japanese chemical industry," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Dongwon Lee & Yu-chin Chen, 2014. "What Makes a Commodity Currency?," Working Papers 201420, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    12. Ciarlone, Alessio, 2011. "Housing wealth effect in emerging economies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 399-417.
    13. Valérie Mignon & Christophe Hurlin, 2007. "Une synthèse des tests de cointégration sur données de panel," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 180(4), pages 241-265.
    14. BADALYAN, Gohar & HERZFELD, Thomas & RAJCANIOVA, Miroslava, 2014. "Transport Infrastructure And Economic Growth: Panel Data Approach For Armenia, Georgia And Turkey," Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics (RAAE), Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, vol. 17(2), pages 1-10, October.
    15. Matteo Bugamelli & Silvia Fabiani & Stefano Federico & Alberto Felettigh & Claire Giordano & Andrea Linarello, 2018. "Back on Track? A Macro–Micro Narrative of Italian Exports," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, March.
    16. Garba, Ifeoluwa & Bellingham, Richard, 2021. "Energy poverty: Estimating the impact of solid cooking fuels on GDP per capita in developing countries - Case of sub-Saharan Africa," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    17. Moataz Elshimy & Khadiga M. El-Aasar, 2020. "Carbon footprint, renewable energy, non-renewable energy, and livestock: testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for the Arab world," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(7), pages 6985-7012, October.
    18. Prabhath Jayasinghe & Albert K. Tsui & Zhaoyong Zhang, 2014. "Exchange Rate Exposure of Sectoral Returns and Volatilities: Further Evidence From Japanese Industrial Sectors," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 216-236, May.
    19. Willem THORBECKE, 2024. "Investigating Japan’s Machinery and Equipment Exports after the Global Financial Crisis," Discussion papers 24033, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    20. Jhon Edwar Torres & Juan Pablo Cote, 2017. "Un nuevo cálculo de la tasa de cambio real de equilibrio para Colombia: Enfoque de Balance Macroeconómico," Borradores de Economia 1030, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.

    More about this item

    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:eti:dpaper:17005. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    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.