Conclusion and Recommendation for Future Research

Three major objectives were accomplished in this book. The first objective was to determine whether and to what extent industrial agglomeration existed in Japan’s manufacturing industry during the 1980s and 1990s, and what the economic effects of this agglomeration were on production in Japan’s manufacturing industries (lifestyle-related, basic materials, and processing and assembly-type industries) for 1985–2000. The second objective was to empirically elucidate the factors that led Japanese multinational firms (MNFs) to locate overseas in East Asia during this period. Then, with a focus on East Asia, we conducted an empirical analysis of the determinants of Japanese MNFs’ overseas location choices in East Asia for 1985–2009, employing the conditional logit model based on the new economic geography (NEG), with a particular emphasis on agglomeration, market access, and supplier access factors. The third objective was to build new industry clusters and elucidate their economic effects to overcome the negative economic impact of declining population and the COVID-19 pandemic using a dynamic four-region computable general equilibrium (D4SCGE) model.