Part2 : Chapter 5 - On the Co-movement of Sector Export Prices by Country in the World Market: An Approach by Principal Component Analysis

As economic globalization advances, the sectoral trade structures of nations and regions worldwide are displaying year-by-year change.One noteworthy feature of such change is a general tendency towards an increase in the weighting of inter-industry trade in the Asian region, centering on machinery-related sectors.In order to conduct an empirical analysis of the factors behind such changes in trade structure from the perspective of price competitiveness, it is essential to clarify the ways in which sector export price are determined.This paper uses two-digit level sector export unit price indexes for major countries calculated by the Institute of Developing Economies in order to statistically analyze the mode of determination of export prices in these countries, and in particular to analyze the relative importance of common factors and individual factors as demonstrated in time series fluctuations.In addition, the paper evaluates the characteristics and reliability of the calculated sector indexes in an attempt to seek pointers towards improvement of the method of calculation.