Economic arrangements, Ramseyer writes, are structured and implemented with the intent and hope that they will be carried out with 'care, intelligence, discretion, and effort'. Yet entrepreneurs work with partial information about the products, and people, they are dealing with. 'Contracting in...

From early spring to late summer in 2010 I investigated the financing behavior of Japanese firms with over 10 million in paid-in capital, using firm-level financial data from Hojin Kigyo Tokei Kiho (Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics) of the Ministry of Finance. “A Study of Financing...

The Ministry of Finance's "Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics" (Hojin kigyo tokei kiho) is the only statistical source of well-balanced information about the financing behavior of Japanese firms. Indeed, there are few comparable sources available anywhere in the world. Using this...