Derived Demand for Fresh Cheese Products Imported into Japan

The objective of this article is to estimate the derived demand for imported fresh cheese products into Japan when fresh cheese import data are disaggregated by source country of production. We provide empirical measures of the sensitivity of demand to changes in total imports, own-price, and cross-prices among exporting countries for fresh cheese. Japan's derived demand for U.S. fresh cheese products is perfectly inelastic. Thus, the import demand competition among importing countries should be based upon differences in product characteristics.