In this paper, we investigate whether natural selection works for firm exit after a massive natural disaster. By using a unique data set of more than 84,000 firms after the Tohoku Earthquake, we examined the impact of firm efficiency on firm bankruptcy both inside and outside of the...

Inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in Japan is expected to contribute to the Japanese economy, but an empirical analysis on its causes and consequences has not been widely conducted partly because of a lack of comprehensive panel data on foreign firms. This paper seeks to construct a panel...

This paper first clarifies that, unlike propensity-score weighting in Rubin's causal model where confounding covariates can be endogenous, propensity-score weighting in the DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux (DFL) decomposition analysis may generate biased estimates for the decomposition of inequality...

This paper analyzes "attribute-based regulations," in which regulatory compliance depends upon some secondary attribute that is not the intended target of the regulation. For example, in many countries, fuel-economy standards mandate that vehicles have a certain fuel economy, but heavier or...

This paper compares the wage structure between the public and private sectors in Japan by using a large microdata set covering public and private sector employees. Rather than comparing overall wage levels, we examine the differences in relative wages by gender, age, education, and region....

Although there is widespread recognition of the importance of investment in intangibles, this is difficult to observe from the published data, even for listed companies. This study investigates the extent of investments in intangibles and their consequences for unlisted companies in Japan. For...

Since the Chinese government's rapid increase in expenditure on science and technology (S&T) during the 2000s, numerous related policies have been implemented by national-, provincial-, city-, and prefecture-level governments in China. Each level of government aims to promote innovation...

Using the data of individual loan contracts extended by the Japan Finance Corporation for Small and Medium Enterprise (JASME), which is one of the predecessor institutions of the Japan Finance Corporation (JFC) that aimed at lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), we examine whether the...

It is assumed in new trade theory and new economic geography that the supply of labor is fixed, which is not true in real labor markets. We develop a model of new trade theory by incorporating an elastic labor supply and analyze the impacts of technological progress on the equilibrium outcomes...

This paper examines how Japanese firms' export decision is affected by the availability of information on export markets, focusing on whether the availability of such information has a different impact on the export decision between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In...