We construct a search-theoretic model à la Lagos and Wright (2005), that has multiple steady-state equilibria, one of which may be interpreted as a state of financial crisis. The key ingredient is the collateral-secured loan in the decentralized matching market, in which the borrowers must put...

This paper compares the 1995 Kobe earthquake with the more recent one in Tohoku. The impact of the recent earthquake on industrial production was much larger and long-lasting than that of the 1995 earthquake. We find that very little of this can be explained by differences in government...

During the recent decade of declining foreign direct investment (FDI) barriers, small domestic firms disproportionately contracted while large multinational firms experienced a substantial growth in Japan's manufacturing sector. This paper quantitatively assesses the impact of FDI globalization...

This paper analyzes the relationship between the use of stock options and productivity by employing firm-level panel data from the Basic Survey of Japanese Business Structure and Activities. According to the analysis, the use of stock options has a positive impact on firm productivity....

In this paper, we examine the nature of the shocks that hit the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan during the global financial crisis that occurred in the wake of the massive number of non-performing subprime loans in the U.S. We examine how the SMEs responded to the shocks,...

Using panel survey data with comparable variables, this study tests whether certain sets of hypotheses that are related to rational-choice and purposive-action theories of birth behavior hold in Korea as well as in Japan. In a previous study, Yamaguchi (2009) tested similar sets of hypotheses...

We study the impact of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on firm dynamics and obtain implications for the recent Great East Japan Earthquake. By using unique micro-level data for a maximum of 90,000 firms, we examine the impact of the earthquake on firms' default, relocation, and investment...

By using a simple North-South trade model with vertically related markets, this paper draws our attention to previously unidentified effects of foreign direct investment (FDI), namely that a North downstream firm affects the pricing behavior of an input supplier through technology spillovers and...

This paper presents a microeconomic model of inter-regional freight transportation based on careful formulation of the cost structure in trucking firms and market equilibrium, which takes into account the feature of transport service as a bundle of multiple characteristics. We estimate the...

This paper examines whether or not privatization of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) increases the probability of exporting, and, if so, what channels generate such effect. Using firm-level data for the Chinese manufacturing sector for the period 2000-2007, we find that privatization has a...