Using firm-level data on the sales and sourcing patterns of Japanese affiliates, this paper suggests that very little foreign direct investment (FDI) falls neatly into the standard bins of horizontal, vertical and export-platform FDI. Most affiliates import some intermediates and export some...

We examine the impact of cross-prefectural differences in financial integration on the regional spread of Japan's Great Recession in the early 1990s. In prefectures with many small manufacturing firms, post-1990 growth was significantly lower if low levels of banking integration with the rest of...

This paper uses a monopolistic competitive framework with many sectors to study the impact of trade liberalization on local and global emissions. We focus on the interplay of the pollution haven effect and the home market effect and show how a large-market advantage can counterbalance a high...

Exporters are more productive than non-exporters. Although this is a stylized fact, little is known on regional variations within a country. Based on plant-level longitudinal data covering all manufacturing industries in all regions of Japan, this paper finds that the productivity premium of...

In an economic geography model with firm heterogeneity, Baldwin and Okubo (2006) show that regional policies for promoting periphery development attract low-productivity firms and adversely affect the productivity gap within a country. This paper empirically examines their theoretical prediction...

This paper studies greenhouse-gas (GHG) emission controls in the presence of carbon leakage through international firm relocation. The Kyoto Protocol requires developed countries to reduce GHG emissions by a certain amount. Comparing emission quotas with emission taxes, we show that taxes...

This paper reviews a decade of implementation of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program in Japan, which is now experiencing unprecedented pressure from its rapidly aging population. This overview of the program's features focuses on the incentive mechanisms and diversity, and...

This paper examines the impact of the 1995 Kobe earthquake on the survival of manufacturing plants and their post-earthquake economic performance. The evidence from macroeconomic studies of the impact of natural disasters on economic growth is mixed with some papers finding a small negative...

This paper explores the role of multi-product plants and product switching in the Japanese manufacturing sector. While a substantial body of work has explored the importance of the extensive margins of plant entry and exit in employment and output flows, only recently has research begun to...

In this paper, we examine the spatial distribution of Japanese pollution-intensive firms. Employing spatial econometric techniques, our results show that firm-level carbon dioxide emissions are spatially correlated and spatial correlations with our dependent variable are perhaps due to...