《タイトル》
「Current Trends in the Global Economy, From the Perspective of Japanese and Polish Economists」
edited by Bogusława Drelich-Skulska, Mami Hiraike Okawara
(出版元:Publishing House of Wroclaw University of Economics and Business 2021)
《本学教員の執筆テーマ》
・Recent trends of mega-regional integration and global value chain upgrading in the Asia-Pacific region(経済学部 教授 藤井 孝宗)
・Disciplines of industrial subsides: issues and directions for improvements in the changing world(経済学部 教授 梅島 修)
・Production network of the automobile industry in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region: a comparison to Europe(経済学部 教授 野崎 謙二)
・Comparing the roles of residents in the resort town of Karuizawa in Japan and residents on Martha’s Vineyard in the US(高崎経済大学 名誉教授 大河原 眞美)
Contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 7
Part 1. Macroeconomic Trends in the Global Economy............................ 15
1. Recent trends of mega-regional integration and global value
chain upgrading in the Asia-Pacific region (Takamune Fuji).... 17
2. Disciplines of industrial subsidies: issues and directions for
improvements in the changing world (Osamu Umejima).......... 29
3. From cybersecurity to economic security – the EU and the
Polish perspective (Bogusława Drelich-Skulska, Paweł Brusiło) .. 73
References .............................................................................................. 105
Part 2. Challenges of Economic Cooperation – the Mesoeconomic
Perspective.................................................................................................... 115
4. Network markets: cooperation and competition shaped by
the network effect (Szymon Mazurek)........................................... 117
5. Production network of the automobile industry in the Greater
Mekong Sub-Region: a comparison to Europe (Kenji Nozaki).... 133
6. Industrial cooperation as a form of transfer of arms and
military equipment (Przemysław Skulski) .................................... 148
References .............................................................................................. 163
Part 3. Cultural Aspects of the Global Economic Phenomena ................ 167
7. Comparing the roles of residents in the resort town of
Karuizawa in Japan and residents on Martha’s Vineyard in
the US (Mami Hiraike Okawara)..................................................... 169
8. Communication issues related to the cultural diversity of
clusters (Anna H. Jankowiak).......................................................... 182
References .............................................................................................. 194
List of figures ........................................................................................................ 196
List of tables .......................................................................................................... 197
Introduction
Globalization is a multidimensional phenomenon concurrent with humankind’s
development over the last few decades, or even centuries, as some authors believe.
Nowadays, no area of our lives escapes the influence of globalization. The
introduction of the term ‘globalization’ in the economic domain is attributed to
T. Levitt, who conducted deliberations about the impact of new technologies on the
foundation of global markets of standardized goods, and the role of transnational
corporations in these processes. Levitt’s insights were presented in the article entitled
The Globalization of Markets1 published in 1983. Since then ‘globalization’ has become
one of the most frequently used terms in scientific literature and journalism.
This monograph – developed by Japanese and Polish researchers – primarily
focuses on the economic and cultural aspects of globalization, as these factors,
together with technological changes, constitute the basis for this process. It is worth
underlining that modern technologies were the inducement for creating new
foundations and additional incentives to explore the previously known motives for
the development of economic activity. Such technologies involve the production
technologies, the supply of services, and the various aspects, for instance those
related to transportation, communication, and data processing.
At the same time, it turned out that the permanent pursuit of profit maximization
carried out by numerous economic actors, including enterprises and individuals,
causes multiple distortions associated with globalization. This observation indicates
the necessity of some coordination of action rules on an international scale, lacking
in the current stage of the development of globalization.
However, in this author’s view, the development of globalization, despite the
disadvantages and distortions that it causes, is inevitable unless the world is
unexpectedly devastated by some contingency. Technological progress, together
with knowledge, gives us the following tools to overcome future obstacles and
accomplish new findings, even though the world economy may be temporarily
experiencing periods of the curtailment global integration curtailment, ‘black swans’
such as COVID-19.
This monograph aims to study and present selected challenges that arise from
globalization and discuss the above-mentioned issues from the macroeconomic or
mesoeconomic perspective and also considers the cultural aspects of the global
economic phenomena.
1 T. Levitt (1983), The globalization of markets, “Harvard Business Review” (May-June), pp. 92-102.
8 Introduction
The deliberations included in the monograph represent a broad spectrum of topics
that constitute a review of the current trends and phenomena in the global economy.
The perspective of the Polish and Japanese economists translates into the high
diversity of discussed subjects and reflects the multidimensional challenges that
occur in the today’s globalized world.
The first part includes three chapters that give a brief overview of macroeconomic
trends in the modern globalized economy. Like in Asia Pacific, some regions have
already become one of the world’s leading regions of economic growth and regional
economic integration. In this context, the author of the first chapter begins by
presenting a review of the modern trends of negotiations over free trade agreements
and regional trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by a research and
literature review about the expansion of the Asia-Pacific global value chains. This
study explains the existence of the two substantial agreements that include
a structure established by the ASEAN and individual associated countries and the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (currently transformed into the Comprehensive and
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). Moreover, the study of global
value chain networks in this particular region shows that their development is
intertwined with the growing number of participating countries and continually
involves numerous small developing countries. However, it also finds little evidence
that participation in global value chains by the Asia-Pacific countries translates into
their economic growth.
The next chapter investigates the various aspects of disciplines on industrial
subsidies. In this study, the author examines the effectiveness and insufficiencies of
disciplines of the industrial subsidies in the present provisions of the WTO
Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (the SCM Agreement). The
analysis is extended with suggestions aimed to strengthen the above-mentioned
disciplines, including potential solutions and forums to resume the disciplines’
effectiveness, based on what we have experienced in the last quarter of the century.
The last chapter in this part presents an overview of the other crucial global trend
that involves the changes and challenges in the area of cybersecurity. Firstly, the
authors described the evolution of the cybersecurity concept in the context of
economic security. The conducted analysis reveals that cyberspace security has
already become a substantial determinant of economic security, since the information
and communication technologies irreversibly change fundamental areas of human,
entrepreneurial and institutional activities. Furthermore, the role of cybersecurity
that constitutes economic security nowadays was investigated both on international
and national levels. The authors conducted two case studies of the EU and Polish
cybersecurity systems and strategic approaches, which then allowed to offer their
insights towards the diverse cybersecurity issues, and provide recommendations in
the field of cooperation between various stakeholders.
Introduction 9
As distinct from the previous part, the second part of the monograph discusses the
various aspects of the challenges of economic cooperation from the mesoeconomic
perspective, which involve analysing the changes at sectoral or industrial level that
differed from either micro or macroeconomic view.
The first chapter begins by examining the rising significance of relationships and
interactions between market participants, which lay the foundation of the network
market concept based on network structures and network effects. Moreover, the
author indicates the determinants of a company’s success in network markets,
including the dynamics of the growth of a network created or used by the enterprise.
In addition to these deliberations, the chapter outlines the other vital aspects of
network market phenomena such as the factors shaping a market player’s network
position, the changes in market participants’ behaviour under the influence of the
network effect, and the characteristics of the concept of the network good.
The discussion about the network markets and the forces and mechanisms that
determine them is followed by another challenge of economic cooperation at
mesoeconomic level. First, the chapter discusses the growing importance and
strength of an economic linkage between industrializing Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao
PDR, Myanmar, and the Greater Mekong Sub-region, potentially leading to the
formulation of the regional production network. The study investigated the structure
of the automobile industry’s production network in the Greater Mekong Sub-region
by implementing methods such as the Grubel and Lloyd index and the unit value
ratio of exports and imports to decide the types of division of labour in the process
of production. Additionally, this research was expanded with a comparative analysis
of the European and North American cases, which allowed the author to conclude
that the production fragmentation network in the Greater Mekong Sub-region is still
in the early development stage.
The last challenge, which is addressed in this part, involves discussing industrial
cooperation in the form of the transfer of arms and military equipment. The author
of this chapter underlines the significant role of industrial cooperation in international
business and its various forms such as strategic alliance, joint venture, licensing,
subcontracting, and teaming agreements. In this chapter, the author also examined
the forms of industrial cooperation in the defence industry from the perspective of
the international transfer of arms and military equipment, which allowed to
underline two groups of determinants that influence industrial cooperation in the
arms sector and its spectrum. Moreover, the author outlined the way of acting on the
part of government institutions and the arms sector’s functioning as the determinants
that set favourable conditions for industrial cooperation.
The selected issues regarding the cultural aspects of the global economic phenomena
aspects are discussed in the last part of the monograph. The first chapter begins with
a case study of Karuizawa, a summer resort in Japan, and the locally adopted
10 Introduction
residential strategies aiming to act in response to vital environmental protection issues.
This study gives an overview of the strategic approach that involves different
instruments implemented by Karuizawa decision-makers, including diverse tax rates,
management fees and prices addressed respectively to local residents and vacation
homeowners. It is worth emphasizing that this approach is based on the cooperation
of residents and non-residents. Furthermore, the author compares the Japanese resort
with Martha’s Vineyard, a US island, which represents the opposite approach, where
the local residents play a crucial role in the island’s environmental issues.
The final chapter of the monograph examines communication issues related to the
cultural diversity of clusters, starting with a presentation of crucial assumptions that
clusters are nowadays a specific combination of enterprises, science, and local
authorities, which is considered a determinant of innovation and competitiveness
growth involving associated companies and the hosting regions. Moreover, the
clusters stimulate the information flow and the exchange of experience and
knowledge between the participants. However, efficient communication may be
potentially disrupted since the involved companies originate from culturally diverse
regions and countries. This chapter aims to present these communication issues
related to the existence of cultural differences in clusters by giving the example of
the Toyota cluster – a Japanese cluster located in Poland.
The composition of the chapters reflects the complexity of tendencies that take place
in a globalized world economy. The presented deliberations, studies, conclusions,
and recommendations are the results of scientific research conducted by Polish and
Japanese economists. Moreover, this monograph could not be developed without the
international cooperation between researchers from the Asia-Pacific Research Centre
at the Wroclaw University of Economics and Business and the Takasaki City
University of Economics.
Being a mosaic of diverse research subjects, this book is dedicated to readers who
look for multidimensional insights into the modern trends and phenomena occurring
in the global economy. Considering the broad spectrum of the discussed issues, this
monograph is recommended to students of economics who want to acquire
knowledge about the selected tendencies, to researchers who would like to broaden
their knowledge in the area of current trends in the globalized world economy, as
well as entrepreneurs and business practitioners seeking information about the
cultural aspects of the global economic phenomena.
The authors of the introduction firmly believes that this monograph will provide
readers with valuable information about the events and trends observed in this
century and contribute to deepening the debate about the influence of selected
aspects of globalization on the modern world economy.
Bogusława Drelich-Skulska
Mami Hiraike Okawara