This paper documents the growing importance of intra–East Asian trade of parts and components. Our empirical analysis shows that foreign direct investment (FDI) does play an important and independent role in facilitating the trade of parts and components in East Asia. This is true for FDI from all three source countries: the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Furthermore, our empirical studies show that compared with U.S. and Korean FDI, FDI from Japan has a particularly strong influence on trade in parts and components as well as trade in capital goods. One policy implication is that economies need to improve their physical infrastructure as well as the quality of their institutions to integrate further into the East Asian production network.

This paper attempts to determine empirically whether China is taking foreign direct investment (FDI) away from other Asian economies (the “China effect”). A random-effects simultaneous equation model, controlling for the determinants of inward FDI of eight East and Southeast Asian economies over 1985–2001 and using China's inward FDI as an indicator of the China effect, indicates that China's FDI level is positively related to these economies' FDI levels and negatively related to their shares in FDI in Asia. Moreover, openness, corporate tax rates, and corruption can exert a greater influence on these countries' FDI than China's FDI.

This paper aims to help Asian trade negotiators by examining the processes and results of the Uruguay Round. Analysts argue that trade negotiations are based on mercantilistic rules. But the actual outcome of the Uruguay Round suggests that trade bargaining was not based on strict reciprocity. In terms of tariff reductions, Asian economies received more than they gave, but relative to tariff bindings, Asian economies gave more than they received. Asian economies that undertook trade reforms prior to the trade talks did not lose bargaining power. The paper also presents econometric evidence on the determinants of bargaining power of nations.