Measuring the Potential Economic Impact of a Japan–US Free Trade Agreement: Can It Enable the US to Eliminate Its Trade Deficit in Goods with Japan?

Japan and the US are two major global trading partners that have at times been at odds regarding each other’s international trade policies. In particular, the ongoing US trade deficit in goods with Japan has been one of the primary disputes between Japan and the US. However, the recent withdrawal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) sent a clear signal that the US would take a new approach to international trade issues and has potentially paved the way for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the remaining TPP countries, including Japan. This paper contributes to the debate on the potential economic impact of a Japan–US FTA (JUFTA) by evaluating whether it could enable the US to eliminate its trade deficit in goods with Japan. To do this, we measure the potential impact of a JUFTA using a dynamic Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model. We find that a JUFTA is unlikely to enable the US to eliminate its trade deficit in goods with Japan, although the deficit will certainly decrease as a result

Economic Impact of the Japan–China–USA Free Trade Agreement on Japan using both Static and Dynamic GTAP Models

The Japanese government has been actively involved in so-called mega Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The purpose of this paper is to measure the potential impact of the Japan–China–USA Free Trade Agreement (JCUFTA) on Japan; in particular, on the Japanese agricultural sector using static and dynamic GTAP models. When tariffs are eliminated between Japan, the USA and China, the GDPs of the three countries will all increase, but the impact on the GDPs of the three countries is less than 1% in both static and dynamic models. The results also show that the total value of agricultural production in Japan is expected to decline by more than 10%

Lyotropic Liquid Crystallinity of Linear and Star Poly(quinoxaline-2,3-diyl)s: Isotropic-Liquid Crystal Phase Equilibria in Tetrahydrofuran

Hasegawa H., Terao K., Sato T., et al. Lyotropic Liquid Crystallinity of Linear and Star Poly(quinoxaline-2,3-diyl)s: Isotropic-Liquid Crystal Phase Equilibria in Tetrahydrofuran. Macromolecules, 52(9), 3158-3164, April 16, 2019. Copyright © 2019, American Chemical Society. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b00460

Genetic analysis in Japanese patients with osteogenesis imperfecta: Genotype and phenotype spectra in 96 probands

Background Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a rare connective-tissue disorder characterized by bone fragility. Approximately 90% of all OI cases are caused by variants in COL1A1 or COL1A2. Additionally, IFITM5 variants are responsible for the unique OI type 5. We previously analyzed COL1A1/2 variants in 22 Japanese families with OI through denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography screening, but our detection rate was low (41%). Methods To expand the genotype-phenotype correlations, we performed a genetic analysis of COL1A1/2 and IFITM5 in 96 non-consanguineous Japanese OI probands by Sanger sequencing. Results Of these individuals, 54, 41, and 1 had type 1 (mild), type 2-4 (moderate-to-severe), and type 5 phenotypes, respectively. In the mild group, COL1A1 nonsense and splice-site variants were prevalent (n = 30 and 20, respectively), but there were also COL1A1 and COL1A2 triple-helical glycine substitutions (n = 2 and 1, respectively). In the moderate-to-severe group, although COL1A1 and COL1A2 glycine substitutions were common (n = 14 and 18, respectively), other variants were also detected. The single case of type 5 had the characteristic c.-14C>T variant in IFITM5. Conclusion These results increase our previous detection rate for COL1A1/2 variants to 99% and provide insight into the genotype-phenotype correlations in OI