Human resources are increasingly seen as a key to innovation competitiveness, and there is a need for detailed, systematic data on the demographics of inventors, their motivations, and their careers. To gain systematic data on who invents, we collected detailed information on a sample of...

This paper investigates the redistributional view of trade credit from the demand side, based on a unique micro data of Japanese small firms where information on transactions of intermediate goods between firms of different size is available. The redistributional hypothesis is tested in two...

Many researches that apply business cycle accounting (hereafter, BCA) to actual data conclude that models with investment frictions or investment wedges are not promising for modeling business cycle dynamics. In this paper, we apply BCA to artificial data generated by a variant model of...

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...

The paper examines the use of Free Trade Agreements by Japanese companies. The FTAs analyzed include Japan's FTAs with Mexico, Malaysia and Chile. Based on 1,688 responses to a questionnaire survey conducted in 2008, the study finds that the utilization rate of FTAs ranges between 32.9%...

This paper examines how productivity heterogeneity affects the sorting of export and foreign direct investment (FDI) of Japanese firms in North America and Europe. The statistical analysis based on the firm-level data of 12,000 Japanese firms presents new and interesting results: the ranking of...

Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are important policy instruments to regulate food safety and to protect the domestic ecosystem from biological invasions. However, these measures may also be used to protect domestic producers from international competition. The World Trade...

This paper examines whether or not the number of fishers is optimal under an Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ) program. We consider two cases on the structure of the quota market: (1) cases in which all fishers are price takers, and (2) cases in which large-scale fishers have market power....

This paper provides an overview of the first wave of the Japanese Study of Ageing and Retirement (hereafter "JSTAR"). Using this rich and unique dataset, we describe in detail how middle-aged and elderly Japanese live in terms of economic, social, health, and family status. In this project, our...

In light of the recent movement toward regional integration through bilateral/plurilateral FTAs in East Asia, this paper attempts to estimate the impacts of several FTA scenarios in East Asia, using a CGE model. Although most previous simulation studies on the impacts of FTAs focus only on the...