Note: This article was originally published in The Japan SPOTLIGHT on 11 November 2017. ERIA's Chief Economist, Fukunari Kimura, is the author.

In his ground-breaking book The Great Convergence(2016), Richard Baldwin discusses his idea of the first, second, and third unbundlings, with subsequent reductions in trade costs, communication costs, and face-to-face costs brought about by technological breakthroughs. Because the third unbundling is yet to come, we still do not know what it will be like. We East Asians, however, have already experienced the first and second unbundling. (Read the full article by using the link above).