This paper examines the hypothesis that manufacturing industries in Japan that have been exposed to import competition from the People's Republic of China (PRC) experience greater skill upgrading (increased demand for skilled workers). Using an industry panel dataset over the period 1980-2010,...

This paper empirically examines the "defensive innovation" hypothesis that firms with higher exposure to low-wage economy import competition intensively undertake more innovative activity by using a high quality Japanese firm-level panel dataset over the period 1994-2005. The novel feature of...

This paper examines how an appreciation of the currency of the People's Republic of China (PRC) - renminbi - affects the country's exports in the context of production fragmentation, using a panel data set of the PRC's trade for 1992/93-2008/09. It constructs two exchange rates for renminbi: one...

This paper examines various indicators of the economic activities of Japanese and American multinational corporation (MNC) affiliates in India compared to the case of China, using the unique affiliate-level data. The study shows that Japanese MNCs in India follow the typical MNC expansion...

This paper examines trade integration of East Asian countries through the lens of global value chains (GVCs). It first gauges the extent and involvement of trade in value-added (TiVA) for East Asian countries. The analysis confirms that reliance on backward GVC participation outside of the...

This paper examines the drivers of the long-run structural transformation in Japan. We use a dynamic input-output framework that decomposes the reallocation of the total output across sectors into two components: the Engel effect (demand side) and the Baumol effect (supply side). To perform this...

In this paper we analyse how labour market institutions and technology affect wage determination through rent sharing. To this aim we first extend the theoretical framework of Estevao and Tevlin (2003) to account for heterogeneity of labour (regular and non-regular workers). The predictions of...

The labor share in Japan has been declining significantly over the last three decades, accompanied by persistent stagnation and an unprecedented increase in economic inequalities. Since these dynamics are likely to be interrelated, understanding the drivers of the labor share might contribute...