Using a unique dataset of more than 140,000 manufacturing firms in Japan containing information on their suppliers and customers, this paper looks at the physical distances between transaction partners to examine the localization of transaction relationships. We find the following. First, based...

This paper examines location patterns of Japan’s manufacturing industries using a unique firm-level dataset on the geographic location of firms. Following the point-pattern approach proposed by Duranton and Overman (2005), we find the following. First, about half of Japan’s manufacturing...

This paper quantifies the spillover effect of local exogenous shocks, such as earthquakes, to other firms through supply chain networks. Combining micro data on a large-scale inter-firm transaction network and geographic information on firm location, we examine the firm level impact of supply...

Observed spatial wage disparities reflect not only disparities in regional productivity but also an uneven geographical distribution of heterogeneous worker skills. We measure spatial skill disparities in Japan and evaluate how migration contributes to these disparities. For this purpose, we...

This paper examines the agglomeration effects of multinational firms on the location decisions of first-time Japanese manufacturing investors in China for the period 1995-2007. This is accomplished by exploiting newly constructed measures of inter-firm backward and forward linkages formed in a...

We develop a competitive search model involving multiple regions, geographically mobile workers, and moving costs. Equilibrium mobility patterns are analyzed and characterized, indicating that shocks to a particular region, such as a productivity shock, can propagate to other regions through...

Coordination within organizations has been recognized as an issue of central importance in the organizational economics literature, where the degree of interdependence between individuals’ actions is taken as given. In reality, however, the degree of interdependence is affected by the choice...

After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Japan annexed Korea in 1910. We exploit this event as a natural experiment to investigate the effect of improved market access on the population growth. It is found that the tariff reduction raised the growth rate of population, and...