This paper examines how Japanese firms' export decision is affected by the availability of information on export markets, focusing on whether the availability of such information has a different impact on the export decision between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In...

This paper examines whether and how the entry of foreign multinational firms affects productivity growth of domestically owned firms, using Japanese firm-level data for the period 2000-2007. Although there are a considerable number of studies conducting productivity analyses on foreign...

We analyze the productivity level for parent firms and their affiliates in foreign countries, using large-scale parent-affiliate-linked data for the Japanese manufacturing multinational firms. We first measure the labor productivity level converted to the internationally comparable unit using...

There is a growing body of literature analyzing empirically the evolution of productivity dispersion at the firm level and its determinants. This paper contributes to this literature by investigating the case of Japanese firms during the so-called "Lost Decade" (1992-2005), which is still...

(Introduction) The purpose of this paper is to explain the preliminary version of the newly compiled Japan Industrial Productivity Database (JIP 2006) and report some results of our growth accounting analysis based on this database. The JIP 2006 contains information on 108 sectors from 1970 to...

This paper focuses on non-internationalized supplier firms and investigates how the expansion of overseas activities by their main customer firms affects their employment, utilizing a unique dataset that includes information on buyer-supplier transaction relationships for Japanese manufacturing...

This publication is in Japanese. Neither an English translation of the publication nor an English abstract is available.

Although heterogeneity in the performance of firms is a well-established stylized fact, we still lack full understanding of its origins and the reasons why it persists. Instead of assuming that performance differences are exogenous, this paper focuses on two endogenous strategies - innovation...

An increasing number of manufacturers are shifting some stages of the production process offshore. This study investigates the effects of offshoring on productivity in Japanese manufacturing industries for the period 1988-2004. Material offshoring, as measured by an import share of intermediate...

This paper examines whether first-time exporters achieve productivity improvements through learning-by-exporting effects. The results suggest that the start of exporting to North America/Europe has a strong positive effect on sales and employment growth, R&D activity, and productivity growth. On...