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...

Research on Japanese corporate finance typically starts from the premise that banks decisively affect corporate behavior. Crucial to this premise in the Japanese context are two claims: that the strength of a firm's relationship with a specific bank (and the funds that the bank makes available...

For more than half a century, inventory investment has attracted wide attention as a major cause of short-term macroeconomic fluctuations, and the mechanisms involved have been the focus of many major studies. Yet microeconomists and business people familiar with corporate behavior have...

Prepared for a forthcoming book on the distribution sector in Japan, this essay introduces the distribution network in the apparel industry. We note the varying patterns of cross-market contracting and intra-firm organization in the industry, and trace the economizing logic involved. More...

The Japanese quot;main bank systemquot; figures prominently in the recent literature on quot;relationship banking.quot; By most accounts, the main bank epitomizes relationship finance: traditionally, every large Japanese firm had one, and that bank monitored the firm, participated in its...

Although some observers urge modern transitional economies to rely on bank finance rather than stock markets, in quot;transitionalquot; Japan at the opening of the 20th century large firms did not rely on debt. Instead, they raised their funds through the stock market, and took a variety of...