Germany's nominal exchange rate has remained weaker because it is linked to weaker eurozone economies. Germany's real exchange rate also depreciated vis-à-vis eurozone countries after 2000 because German firms and workers controlled unit labor costs. This paper investigates how exchange rate...

This paper examines the relationships between productivity growth and characteristics of firms using Japanese firm-level data during the period 1995-2004. Applying a bootstrapped Malmquist index approach and weighted least squares (WLS) to two retail trade industries, we estimate the firm-level...

In 2011, Switzerland announced a floor for the Swiss franc, and it immediately depreciated by 10 percent. Many argue that depreciations should not matter for Switzerland's export basket because luxury brands and high value added products predominate, and these should compete on quality rather...

This paper examines productivity and returns to scale under the assumption of monopolistic competition using Japanese firm-level data. Although differentiating products (services) is considered important in firms' strategies and productivity growth, it has not been sufficiently investigated in...

This paper examines the relationship between productivity, markups, and development of foreign markets using a rich firm-level dataset of the Japanese manufacturing industry during the period 2000-2010. Using estimates of firm-specific productivity and markups, we investigate if the development...

This paper examines mark-up and productivity of retail trade industries under imperfect competition. Applying a newly developed approach by Martin (2010) to Japanese retail trade firm data, we estimate the firm-specific mark-up and productivity without price information and discuss their...

During the last decade, economists and policy makers have extensively discussed what types of firms can exploit external markets by exporting and what happens to domestic firms if external competitors penetrate into the home market. Although both theoretical and empirical studies have been...

This paper examines the similarities and differences between the manufacturing and the service sectors in terms of market power and productivity dispersion, using data of Japanese automobile manufacturers and dealers. Applying a newly developed approach proposed by Martin (2010), we estimate the...

Although the factor share approach is used to estimate total factor productivity (TFP) in many empirical papers, its validity is very controversial. This approach is justifiable if and only if the market of inputs and outputs is perfectly competitive, the production function follows constant...