Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced recently that they will terminate preferential treatment in the licensing of specific chemical products for export to South Korea. This announcement evoked concern that the impact on Korean semiconductor and electronics industries, which rely heavily on imports from Japan, might cause a serious supply shortage in the global semiconductor market. To assess the economic impact of tighter export controls, this study simulates: (a) imposition of an export tax on chemical products; and (b) a productivity decline in the electronics sector in Korea, using a world trade computable general equilibrium model. The results of these simulations indicate that such a productivity decline would cause only slight harm to the Japanese and world economies, aside from the electronics sector in Korea, and that an export tax would significantly distort trade patterns and undermine the welfare of Japan and Korea in a similar magnitude. However, welfare loss normalized for economy size would be far smaller in Japan than in Korea.