High Yen, Overseas Direct Investment, and the Industrial Adjustments in the Asia — Pacific Area

Abstract

In the long postwar years, the protectionist pressures from the U.S. upon Japan have been continually strengthened from textiles to steel products and further to machine tools and automobiles. In that sense, the trade frictions were not new. However, the increase in Japan’s trade surplus and U.S. trade deficit particularly in the 1980s were extraordinary. Therefore, the problem is why a sudden change has emerged in the 1980s.