Japan’s high corporate savings might be holding back growth. We focus on the causes and consequences of the current corporate behavior and suggest options for reform. In particular, Japan’s weak corporate governance—as measured by available indexes—might be...

The paper discusses the role the financial sector can play in supporting growth in Japan. While overall credit conditions have been accommodative, credit growth has remained weak, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Firm-level SME data and sectoral corporate balance sheets...

The objective of this paper is to illustrate that the change in shareholders' attitude towards firms (from stakeholder model to shareholder model) influences the accounting treatments of goodwill. Our study is based on four countries (Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and France) and...

Over the last two decades, cash holdings in nonfinancial firms around the world have increased. This phenomenon is particularly concerning in Japan, where the success of Abenomics depends on a transition from stimulus-driven to self-sustaining growth based on private consumption and investment....