Endowment based economic models with constant returns to scale and perfect competition have been a primary theoretical basis for analyzing political preferences of domestic actors. However, it is well known that such class of model is inadequate in explaining the large volume of intra-industry trade. How do we understand distributive consequences of trade policy of industrialized countries espe...

Recently, a new resolve for both increased economic integration and monetary and exchange rate cooperation has started to emerge in ASEAN, especially since the 19971998 Asian financial crisis. According to the optimum currency area theory, the degree of trade integration is one most important criterion for joining a currency union. The large increase in intra-ASEAN trade in recent years natural...

A large share of world trade, especially among the OECD countries, is two-way trade within industries, so called intra-industry trade. Despite this, few attempts have been made to examine why countries export some products within industries, whereas they import others. We examine this issue, by means of regression analysis, by examining the shares of IIT that are vertical and horizontal and by ...