Mitsuyo Ando (Keio University), Fukunari Kimura (Keio University and Institute of Developing Economies), Kazunobu Hayakawa (Institute of Developing Economies), Hiroshi Mukunoki (Gakushuin University)
"Friend-shoring, near-shoring, and reshoring in factories America, Asia, and Europe amid rising geopolitical tensions"
European Journal of Political Economy
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102804

This study empirically investigates changes in sourcing patterns across three major production hubs: Factory America, Factory Asia, and Factory Europe. Specifically, using international and intra-national trade data from 2015 to 2024, we examine four types of “shoring” strategies, i.e., political friend-shoring, economic friend-shoring, near-shoring, and reshoring, simultaneously. Our findings provide quantitative evidence of increasing reliance on political friend-shoring, weakening dependence on near-shoring, and recent progress in reshoring amid heightened geopolitical risks, whereas economic friend-shoring appears unattractive on average. Moreover, we show that greater product substitutability does not necessarily lead to more significant changes in sourcing. We also revealed a notable difference across regions in political friend-shoring. The degree of its dependence is consistently most substantial for Factory America, while political motivations remain relatively unattractive for Factory Asia, with some specific variations even within the same Factory.

Kozo Kiyota (Keio University), Theresa M. Greaney (University of Hawaii)
"Regional Impacts of International Tourism Boycott: A China-Japan Conflict"
Economic Inquiry
http://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.70036

We examine the regional impacts of the Sino–Japan dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands that sparked a Chinese consumer boycott of travel to Japan from August 2012. This boycott caused significant and varied regional impacts across Japan. Prefectures that had higher pre-boycott dependency on Chinese visitors, particularly tourists, experienced the largest negative effects. While the boycott's intensity was strongest in the first 6 months, substantial negative impacts were still observable when averaging across 24 months post-boycott. Our results demonstrate the importance of diversification across traveler types and countries of origin in providing travel services to mitigate risks from political conflicts.