We examine two sources of productivity improvement in the specialized industrial clusters of the early twentieth century Japanese silk-reeling industry. Agglomeration improves the productivity of each plant through positive externalities, shifting plant-level productivity distribution to the...

This paper attempts to provide a systematic analysis on the effects of industrial policy in postwar Japan. Among the various types of Japanese industrial policy, this paper focuses on the removal of de facto import quotas through the foreign exchange allocation system. Analyzing a panel of 100...

We examine two sources of productivity improvement in the specialized industrial clusters. Agglomeration improves the productivity of each plant through positive externalities, shifting plant-level productivity distribution to the right. Selection expels less productive plants through...

As service sectors account for a growing share of economic activity in advanced economies, economists claim that the quality and cost of producer services supplied by the service sectors are crucial in supporting the competitiveness of manufacturing firms. This paper provides an empirical...

The paper analyzes whether firms that start exporting become more productive utilizing recently developed sample matching procedures to control the problems from self-selection into the export market. We use plant level panel data on Korean manufacturing sector from 1990 to 1998. We find clear...

Recent Melitz-type (2003) intra-industry heterogonous trade models argue that a firmfs productivity has significant effects on the firmfs exports. This paper examines how a firmfs credit constraints as well as its productivity affect its export decisions. We imbed the firmfs credit constraints...

We examine the impact of internal and external R&D on labor productivity in a 6-year panel of 304 innovating firms. We apply a dynamic linear panel data model that allows for decreasing returns to scale in internal and external R&D with a non-linear approximation of changes in the knowledge...

It is often claimed that one contributing factor to Japan's weak economic performance over the past decade is that Japanese banks have continued to provide financial support for highly inefficient, debt-ridden companies, commonly referred to as "zombie" firms. Such poor banking practices in turn...

This paper examines the pre-exit productivity performance and asks how productivity affects future survival, using firm-level data in Japan for 1995-2002. We found that firms did not face "sudden death" but there was a "shadow of death." Future exiting firms had lower performance four years...