OBASHI Ayako

写真a

Affiliation

Faculty of Economics (Mita)

Position

Professor

E-mail Address

E-mail address

Related Websites

External Links
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Profile Summary 【 Display / hide 】

  • I am an economist specializing in the study of international trade and trade rules and institutions, with emphasis on cross-border unbundling of production, or global value chains (GVC). I received my first Ph.D. from Keio University in 2011; and my second Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018. Prior to coming back to Keio as a Professor in April 2023, I was a Research Associate at Keio Economics, an Assistant Professor at Toyo University, Faculty of Business Administration, and an Assistant Professor and an Associate Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, School of International Politics, Economics and Communication (SIPEC).

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Career 【 Display / hide 】

  • 2008.04
    -
    2011.03

    Keio University, Faculty of Economics, Research Associate

  • 2016.04
    -
    2017.03

    Toyo University, Faculty of Business Administration, Assistant Professor

  • 2017.04
    -
    2019.03

    Aoyama Gakuin University, School of International Politics, Economics and Communication (SIPEC), Assistant Professor

  • 2019.04
    -
    2023.03

    Aoyama Gakuin University, School of International Politics, Economics and Communication (SIPEC), Associate Professor

  • 2023.04
    -
    Present

    Keio University, Faculty of Economics, Professor

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Academic Background 【 Display / hide 】

  • 2002.04
    -
    2006.03

    Keio University, Faculty of Policy Management

    University, Graduated

  • 2006.04
    -
    2008.03

    Keio University, Graduate School of Economics

    Graduate School, Completed, Master's course

  • 2008.04
    -
    2011.03

    Keio University, Graduate School of Economics

    Graduate School, Withdrawal after completion of doctoral course requirements, Doctoral course

  • 2011.09
    -
    2018.12

    University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Economics

    United States, Graduate School, Completed, Doctoral course

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Academic Degrees 【 Display / hide 】

  • Master of Arts in Economics, Keio University, 2008.03

  • Ph. D. in Economics, Keio University, 2011.05

  • Ph.D. , University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2018.12

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Licenses and Qualifications 【 Display / hide 】

  • UNCTAD Certified Non-Tariff Measures Data Collector Certificate, 2015.07

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Research Areas 【 Display / hide 】

  • Humanities & Social Sciences / Economic policy (International trade and trade policy)

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Books 【 Display / hide 】

  • Trade in goods with internationalised production activities

    Matsuura T., Obashi A., Handbook on East Asian Economic Integration, 2021.01

    　View Summary

    Trade flows are broken down by types of products within the region (defined as the RCEP members) and outside it. There are differences between primary productions, parts and components and final goods. For all categories, intra-regional trade has grown faster than both world trade in total and East Asian trade with the rest of the world. The region was therefore becoming more integrated. The surge in component trade in evident in data for the 1990s, but again component trade in East Asia grew nearly twice as fast as that in the rest of the world. Both component trade (especially so) and final product trade slowed after 2000, but East Asia internally recorded faster growth in both categories. East Asian exports to the rest of the world are dominated by final products while imports from the rest of the world are mainly primary and processed products. There are various methods of identifying the extent of activity in value chains in the regions, using data from input-output tables, rather than the categorisation of trade products. The position of various countries in value chains and the drivers of participation in value chains including location advantages, decreases in trade costs, due to tariff cuts and efforts on trade facilitation, are identified. Significant issues remain in the region with respect to non-tariff barriers. Three current issues in the evolution of regional goods trade are discussed. With respect to the impact of China, China’s growth has created opportunities for the rest of the region, rather than crowding out other exports. With respect to opportunities for small firms, an issue which is critical to the question of the inclusiveness of integration, a range of factors that might encourage participation in trade is identified. The relative importance for smaller firms of some of the barriers to exporting is noted. The durability of value chains, and the debate in the literature on the ‘trade slow down’, are reviewed.

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Papers 【 Display / hide 】

  • Global Warming and Border Carbon Adjustments

    Hong S., Sim S.G., Obashi A., Tsuruta Y.

    Asian Journal of Law and Economics 13 ( 2 ) 195 - 208 2022.08

    　View Summary

    This study examines the welfare implications of allowing border carbon adjustments (BCAs) in a globalized economy characterized by international trade and cross-border pollution (CBP). The model predicts that adopting BCAs is a weakly dominant strategy and global welfare is maximized when at least one country adopts BCAs in the presence of CBP, such as global warming. This is because adopting BCAs induces other countries to raise their domestic emission tax rates without concerns such as the excessive shrinkage of domestic production and aggravation of CBP.

  • Technological advancement, import penetration and labour markets: Evidence from Thailand

    Jongwanich J., Kohpaiboon A., Obashi A.

    World Development 151 2022.03

    ISSN  0305750X

    　View Summary

    This paper examines the impact of advanced technology and import penetration on changes in employment positions and income, as well as the possibility that workers become unemployed due to such technological progress. Two proxies of advanced technology are used, ICT and the intensity of robot usage. The analysis considers changes in employment status and income, together with workers’ industrial adjustments in investigating the impact of technological advancements and imports, which are delineated into raw materials, capital goods and final products. The results show that in Thailand, the impact of advanced technology in pushing workers out of the job market is limited. Instead, it tends to affect the reallocation of workers between skilled and unskilled positions. The results vary among workers’ industrial destinations and proxies of technology. Skill upgrading is likely to occur more when workers stay or move within manufacturing sectors, while ICT usage tends to generate more favourable outcomes than robot adoption. Workers in comparatively capital-intensive industries, including the automotive and plastics and rubber sectors, tend to receive greater benefits from technological growth. Our results highlight a diminished negative impact resulting from imports, particularly those of capital and final goods, in comparison to that of technological advancements. Technology adoption and imports are likely to lower workers’ income regardless of their industrial destinations and proxies of technology.

  • International production networks are overcoming covid-19 shocks: Evidence from japan’s machinery trade

    Ando M., Kimura F., Obashi A.

    Asian Economic Papers 20 ( 3 ) 40 - 72 2021.11

    ISSN  15353516

    　View Summary

    This paper investigates the impacts of COVID-19 on international production networks in machinery sectors by shedding light on negative supply shocks, negative demand shocks, and positive demand shocks. Specifically, we examined changes in trade in the trade-fall periods amid COVID-19 in 2020 using Japan’s machinery trade at the most disaggregated level and decomposed them into two intensive margins (i.e., the quantity effect and the price effect) and two extensive margins (i.e., the entry effect and the exit effect). Our empirical results show that trade relationships for par ts and components were robust even amid COVID-19 and that international production networks in machinery sectors were almost intact. They also demonstrate that COVID-19 brought positive demand shocks for specific products with special demand due to its nature in addition to negative supply shocks and negative demand shocks, which par tially explains heterogeneous effects not only among sectors but also among products in the same sector. As of October 2020, Japan’s machinery trade seems to have mostly recovered.

  • Impacts of additional compliance requirements of regulations on the margins of trade

    Nabeshima K., Obashi A., Kim K.

    Japan and the World Economy 59 2021.09

    ISSN  09221425

    　View Summary

    It is widely known that countries export less to destination countries with greater regulatory burdens. Using finely disaggregated product-level bilateral trade value and quantity data for 98 countries, together with a new data set of detailed information on technical regulations, we answer the following question: If a country faces a greater regulatory burden in a particular destination market, is that country more likely to export a narrower set of goods (the extensive margin) and lower quantities of each good at a higher price (the intensive margin)? We find that beyond the overall trade-diminishing effect, regulatory burdens adversely affect the extensive margin of trade. With respect to the intensive margin, regulatory burdens negatively affect the quantity margin but positively affect the price margin. As the negative effect on the quantity margin is relatively larger in magnitude than the positive effect on the price margin, the result is a negative net impact on the intensive margin.

  • The impact of regulatory distance from global standards on a country's centrality in global value chains

    Inui T., Ikeuchi K., Obashi A., Yang Q.

    International Economics 166   95 - 115 2021.08

    ISSN  21107017

    　View Summary

    We examine whether and how a country's centrality in global value chains (GVCs) is dependent upon the extent to which its regulatory regime differs from the global norm, using country and sector-level data from OECD and UNCTAD. We find that the more similar a country's regulatory regime is to global standards the more likely the country is to play a dominant role in GVCs. Our findings suggest that a country could enhance its centrality in GVCs by harmonising a set of technical regulations to the global standards.

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Papers, etc., Registered in KOARA 【 Display / hide 】

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Reviews, Commentaries, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

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Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

  • 国際的工程間分業の進展下での通商協定の目的と互恵的貿易自由化のあり方

    2019.04
    -
    2024.03

    若手研究, Principal investigator

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Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

  • RESEARCH SEMINAR B

    2024

  • RESEARCH SEMINAR A

    2024

  • RESEARCH SEMINAR (THESIS)

    2024

  • INTERNATIONAL TRADE B

    2024

  • INTERNATIONAL TRADE A

    2024

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