This paper examines how the intensity of compulsory education affects the time use and academic achievement of children with different socioeconomic backgrounds. The impact is identified off the school-day reduction of Japan in 2002 that resulted when all Saturdays were set as public-school...

In spite of the significant restructuring of the university system in the postwar period, national universities continue to occupy the top end of the prestige hierarchy of universities in Japan. In this paper, we examine long-term trends in the educational credentials of Japanese corporate...

Wage inequality declined in the 1990s for full-time male workers in Japan, while it in- creased in the 2000s. We find that a decreased return to firm-specific human capital, which has been neglected in previous empirical analyses of inequality, is a key factor preventing a rise in wage...

We propose an efficient moment estimator for the probit model with a continuous endogenous regressor. The estimation can be readily implemented using a standard statistical package that can estimate a non-linear system two-stage least squares (instrumental variable) estimator.

E24, J80 </AbstractSection> Copyright Kawaguchi and Murao; licensee Springer. 2012

This study examines the importance of the supply factor as a determinant of the college wage premium by comparing the trends of the college wage premium between Japan and the US. The wage differential between college and high-school graduates decreased from 0.35 to 0.34 log points in Japan...

This paper examines the effect of introduction of information technology driven manufacturing information systems (IT-MIS) to workshops on the usage of contingent workers and subsequent productivity growth based on an unique survey of workshop supervisors of the Japanese electrical and...

Are workers in modern economies working "too hard"--would they be better off if an equilibrium with fewer work hours were achieved? We examine changes in life satisfaction of Japanese and Koreans over a period when hours of work were cut exogenously because employers suddenly faced an overtime...