This is the second article of my series, “Improving Economic Statistics in order to Improve Economic Policy and Research.†It fleshes out some of the issues presented in the first article, Miwa [2014]. Focusing on SNA (GDP) estimates, this study investigates the availability and...

This is the fourth article in my series, "Improving Economic Statistics in order to Improve Economic Policy and Research". It fleshes out some of the issues presented in the first article, Miwa [2014a]. The second and third articles (Miwa, 2014b, c) investigate the availability and usefulness of...

This is the fifth article in my series, "Improving Economic Statistics in order to Improve Economic Policy and Research". It fleshes out some of the issues presented in the first article, Miwa [2014a]. In reading the four previous articles, readers learn that government statistics in Japan, both...

The Ministry of Finance's "Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics" (Hojin kigyo tokei kiho) is the only statistical source of well-balanced information about the financing behavior of Japanese firms. Indeed, there are few comparable sources available anywhere in the world. Using this...

Using the firm-level data of the "Corporate Enterprise Annual Statistics (hojin kigyo tokei nenpo)", in this paper I investigate the capital investment behavior of Japanese firms. I focus on the second-half of 1980s, and begin what I anticipate will become a full-fledged study of corporate...

The Japanese government, in collaboration with local governments, guarantees the credit of small businesses. During the last decade, it spent annually an average of 2 billion US dollars under these programs. In addition, during the last stage of the Japan's "financial crisis" (Oct. 1998-Mar....

In this essay on Masahiko Aoki's recent study of Japanese corporate governance, we argue that he and others misdescribe Japan on several fundamental dimensions. First, Japanese firms and employees choose neither to arrange implicit life-time employment contracts nor to invest heavily in...

Change is in the air in Japan, claim many observers: the government is radically deregulating crucial sectors of the economy, the large firms are unwinding their keiretsu corporate groups, and firms and banks are dismantling their main bank arrangements. Some observers see all three as exogenous...

The Japanese antitrust agency (the J-FTC) holds a jurisdictional monopoly over most issues. Because overlapping jurisdictions would enable politicians to gauge relative bureaucratic performance, this monopoly prevents politicians from monitoring the agency on most issues. In response, J-FTC...

Observers of modern transitional economies urge firms there to ignore stock markets. Stock markets simply will not work in such environments, they explain. Firms should instead rely on debt finance, particularly bank debt. Only then will they be able to keep principal-agent (i.e.,...