Studies comparing regional income in Japan before and after World War II have frequently drawn a picture of radical change from an economy characterized by large regional disparities to one characterized by small regional disparities. This paper comes to a very different conclusion. Based on...

The past few decades have seen a significant rise in foreign direct investment(FDI) worldwide. While Japanese companies have actively contributed to this trend, FDI in Japan continues to be much lower than in other countries. This paper explores the history of both outward and inward FDI in...

The 1990s have been a decade of minimal growth for the Japanese economy. Examining this record from a growth accounting perspective, this paper argues that a major factor underlying Japan's disappointing growth performance in recent years has been a marked slow-down in total factor productivity...

Studies comparing regional income in Japan before and after World War II have frequently drawn a picture of radical change from an economy characterized by large regional disparities to one characterized by small regional disparities. This paper comes to a very different conclusion. Based on...

The 1990s have been a decade of minimal growth for the Japanese economy. Examining this record from a growth accounting perspective, this paper argues that a major factor underlying Japan's disappointing growth performance in recent years has been a marked slow-down in total factor productivity...

The past few decades have seen a significant rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide. While Japanese companies have actively contributed to this trend, FDI in Japan continues to be much lower than in other countries. This paper explores the history of both outward and inward FDI in...

Although Japan experienced a significant jump in inward foreign direct investment (FDI) around the turn of the millennium, the level of inward FDI penetration remains much lower than in many other countries. Looking at the factors that determine Japan's attractiveness as an investment...

As Japan's financial system moves toward a more market oriented one, depositor discipline is expected to play a larger role in the monitoring of the country's banks. Relying on detailed survey data on households' bank switching behavior matched with banks' financial data, we examine households'...