I am hoping that someone on this list might have some suggestions about where I can turn for data on a specific question I have about foreign direct investment in real estate.

My dissertation research is on the promotion of Japanese outbound tourism in the late 1980s principally as a way of reducing the trade surplus. Because some institutional mechanisms created by the Ministry of Transport as well as JICA and OECF appear to have paid careful attention to the interest of Japanese resort developers, I would like to ask whether there are any places I can turn for data on this subject.

I have looked at data from JETRO, but that simply discusses "real estate,"
without disaggregating the data any further. Toyo Keizai has a section on "hotels" as well as on "leisure development," which largely means golf courses, but those data are of course limited to companies who choose to fill out Toyo Keizai's questionnaires, and are not combined in any statistically useful way. I have started to resign myself to the idea of using the case study method as a way of tracing investment flows in leisure industries, interviewing representatives of specific firms, but I thought that I might first check with the experts. Are there any ideas?

Thanks very much,
David Leheny
Cornell University, Department of Government Univ. of Tsukuba, Research Student,
Department of International Political Economy