The goal of this report is to overview the characteristics of the evolution and current status of corporate governance of Japanese companies from the 1990s to recent years, by focusing on two keywords: diversification and hybridization. We also seek to identify the policy implications with...

The Japanese economy is currently experiencing a major merger and acquisition (M&A) boom unprecedented in its postwar economic development. The purpose of this paper is to cast light, from a number of angles, on the determinants of the rapid increase in M&A activity in Japan since the end of the...

The rapid increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) from the 1990s onward can be attributed primarily to a type of shock to the growth and/or profitability of certain industries and corporations. Characteristics of industries and corporations subject to particularly aggressive...

With the diversification and globalization of Japanese companies in recent years, their business portfolios have become more complex, and the grouping of companies has progressed via carve-outs and M&As. As a result, adequate control of business units by headquarters (business unit governance)...

The ownership structure of Japanese corporations has changed dramatically since the banking crisis in 1997, from an insider-dominated structure to an outsider-dominated structure. In this paper, we address the causes and effects of the dramatic change in the ownership structure, focusing on...

Globalization of business leads to environmental uncertainty for corporate organizations. To establish competitive advantage, organizations need continuous introduction of new products and services to markets and quick implementation of new strategies. This paper shows what kinds of initiatives...

A decomposition of the gender gap in earned income among white-collar regular employees in Japan was conducted using the DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux method based on propensity-score weighting. The results show that gender differences in three human-capital variables, namely, education, age, and the...

This paper has constructed a theoretical model to explain why the share of those who remain unmarried has increased in Japan. It is still common for women to leave the labor market due to marriage and thereby see an irreversible decrease in their income. Taking into consideration of the...

Employing massive contract- and firm-level data provided by the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Unit of the Japan Finance Corporation (JFC), one of the largest government lending institutions for SMEs, and linking the data with other firm-level data from a business credit information company,...

In treaty-based investment arbitration, tribunals quite often render their awards referring to the protection of the investor's legitimate expectations. A number of tribunals deal with this issue in the context of the application of the fair and equitable treatment clause and argue that the...