We highlight the difference between the service sector and the manufacturing sector in regard to the determinants for a firm to start FDI and the productivity growth it achieves. This paper analyzes two questions: (1) whether a certain level of productivity explains a Japanese firm's choice to...

The purpose of this paper is to identify the organizational constraints on science innovations in the midst of the increasing complexity of technology and markets and to search for measures to overcome them. For this purpose, we scrutinize the rise and fall of Japanese chipmakers in their...

We characterize monetary and fiscal policy rules to implement optimal responses to a substantial decline in the natural rate of interest, and compare them with policy decisions made by the Japanese central bank and government in 1999-2004. First, we find that the Bank of Japan's policy...

TSince current Japanese patent law was enacted in 1959, it has been revised several times, mainly for the purpose of international harmonization. Recently the Japanese government stresses the importance of pro-patent policies, i.e., strengthening intellectual property right in order to stimulate...

With the advent of the Internet, the emphasis of communication policies has moved from the regulation of telephone networks to the unbundling regulation to enforce sharing of network elements. Since unbundling is often impeded by the renegotiation by incumbents over the control of essential...

China became a Member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, after more than 15 years of difficult negotiations. This paper reviews the negotiating history of China's accession with special emphasis on the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, which deals with standards and...

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons why Japanese microlithography manufacturers lost their competitiveness in the latter half of the 90's mainly based on the field interviews and publicly available data. Especially, we shall focus on the following four possible determinants...

This paper looks back on the evolution of institutional frameworks for economic integration in East Asia, which accelerated after the Asian financial crisis, analyzes its dynamics and future prospects, and identifies Japan's roles in the process that are consistent with the institutional...

Whether a trade ban on a product imposed because of the fact that the process-and-production-method (PPM) of that product is harmful to the environment can be consistent with the WTO law? The purpose of this paper is to trace what the panels and the Appellate Body of the WTO have done in...

The boom-bust cycles such as the episode of the "Internet bubble" in the late 1990s may be described as the business cycle driven by changes in expectations, which is called the Pigou cycle by Beaudry and Portier (An exploration into Pigou's theory of cycles, Journal of Monetary Economics,...