Japan experienced high growth of TFP following World War II. This paper studies the sources of this technological growth and documents the role played by different government policies in achieving such growth. We find that in nonagricultural sectors, TFP growth occurred at first through the...

This paper overviews the industrial organization in Japan between the two World Wars. In this period, the change in the industrial structure gave a substantial impact on the industrial organization. On one hand, development of the heavy industries, which had been highly concentrated, raised the...

This article develops a multitask model in which the agent has to produce both verifiable and unverifiable outputs in a dynamic framework as observed in actual labor markets and practices. The model derives an important result regarding the timing and the length of a wage contract. A short-term...

In this paper, we investigate equilibrium cycles in dynamic general equilibrium models with cash-in-advance constraints. Our findings are two-fold. First, in such models, if an equilibrium cycle exists, then there also exists a continuum of equilibrium cycles in its neighborhood. Second, the...

The Japanese aircraft industry, which operated on a very small scale before World War II, became Japan's largest manufacturing industry by the end of the war. In this paper, we explore the causes of the growth of the aircraft industry during this time by focusing on the No. 5 Works of Mitsubishi...

This paper investigates how ownership changes affect the plant performance, focusing on the cotton spinning industry in early twentieth century Japan, where many plants experienced ownership changes. Through analyses of detailed plant-level data, it is revealed that, after ownership changes,...

The central bank as the Lender of Last Resort (LLR) is faced with a trade off between the stability of the financial system and the "moral hazard" of banks. In this paper we explore how this trade off was dealt with by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in the pre-war period, and how LLR lending by the BOJ...

This paper investigates the relationship between value relevance of the multi-step income statement and managerial opportunistic behavior. In Japan, net income is disclosed by three steps, i.e., 1) operating profits from core operating activity, 2) ordinary income, measured by adding gains and...

This paper studies the determinants of agrarian tenancy contract choice and its implication on productivity in prewar Japan. Rapid agricultural growth under extensive tenancy relationships in prewar Japan was achieved with the prevalence of a unique rent reduction contract, which was more...

A number of studies have revealed that the effect of industrial policy on productivity growth is negative. Is this because industrial policy fails to control the activities of firms, or because it can effectively control them? This paper attempts to answer these questions, using firm-level data...