In this paper, we propose a bank-based explanation for the decade-long Japanese slowdown following the asset price collapse in the early 1990s. We start with the well-known observation that most large Japanese banks were only able to comply with capital standards because regulators were lax in...

This paper analyzes the effects of the financial crisis on credit supply by using highly detailed data on bank-firm relationships in Italy after Lehman’s collapse. We control for firms’ unobservable characteristics, such as credit demand and borrowers’ risk, by exploiting multiple lending....

This study investigates the relative importance of factors shaping banking and corporate landscapes in Thailand after 1997 through an empirical analysis of micro-data of Thai banks and firms. The results of the analysis of the bank data show that the deceleration of bank credit growth is mainly...

This study investigates the changing relations between banks and their business customers in selected Asian emerging economies. These changes are manifest in declining bank lending growth and can be attributed to three major driving forces: cyclical factors, the fallout from the 1997 Asian...

The influence of industrial structure, more specifically of business ownership, is investigated on the level of unemployment in Japan. The question is to what extent business ownership, i.e., entrepreneurship, can reduce the level of unemployment. It will be concluded that Japan is hardly an...

The purpose of this paper is to measure the influence of information technology (IT) on Japanese economic growth. For this purpose, we first conduct growth accounting analysis for data acquired over the last 30 years, reviewing the contribution of information technology to economic growth. Then...

This paper analyzes the causal relations between firms’ productivity, factor intensity and export participation. Using propensity score matching techniques and firm-level panel data for Chinese manufacturing firms over the 1998-2007 period, we find strong evidence of domestic firms...

Industry mean wages in China have exhibited sharply increased dispersion since the early 1990s. The upward trend in differences of average wages among major industry groups parallels increases in wage and income inequality not only between rural and urban sectors but within the urban economy as...

This paper analyzes the causal relations between firms' productivity, factor intensity and export participation. Using propensity score matching techniques and firm-level panel data for Chinese manufacturing firms over the 1998-2007 period, we find strong evidence of domestic firms...

This paper analyzes how a firm's specialization in its core products after exporting affects its factor intensity and productivity. Using Chinese manufacturing firm data for the 1998–2007 period, we find that firms become less capital-intensive but more productive after exporting, compared to...