Real exchange rates between the yen and dollar based on general price indexes overestimate the competitiveness of the United States relative to Japan. High productivity growth in the traded sector of the Japanese economy results in a continuous fall in the prices of traded goods relative to...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of productivity growth in the U.S. and Japanese electrical machinery industries in the postwar period. This industry has experienced rapid growth in output and productivity and high rates of capital formation in both countries. A substantial amount of...

We estimate and compare the production structures of the US, Japanese, and Korean total manufacturing sectors for the 1974-1990 period. We employ a translog variable cost function that includes such inputs as labor, materials, physical and R&D capital with the physical and R&D capital treated as...

Many past studies of relative financing costs in the United States and Japan have relied on interest rates from the 1970s and earlier when Japanese financial markets were subject to numerous regulations and controls and were shielded by capital controls from financial markets abroad. Interest...

Relative price changes in Japanese and U.S. manufacturing are driven by two forces, productiviry growth which leads to secular changes in costs and exchange rate fluctuations which change relative prices between the two countries. In sectors where productivity growth is high, reductions in costs...