This study analyzes the cause of the slowdown in Japan's TFP growth during the 1990s. Many preceding studies, examining the issue at the macro- or industry-level, have found that the slowdown was primarily due to the stagnation in TFP growth in the manufacturing sector. Using establishment level...

Bloom and Van Reenen (2007) show that differences in management practices are correlated with productivity differences at the firm level. In this paper, we conducted similar interview surveys on management practices in Japanese and Korean firms in 2008 and 2012. We find that overall management...

Using establishment-level data from the Basic Survey of Human Resources Development for 2006, we estimate both the determinants and the impact of training. In the probit analysis, we find that larger firms /establishments and more productive firms have a higher probability of providing training,...

Using firm-level data of the Basic Survey on Business Structure and Activities and ICT Workplace Survey for 1995 and 2007, we examine the trends and the effects of IT investment in Japan. We also investigate the cause for the lack of advancement in the adoption of IT in Japan. Our main findings...

To compare management practices between Japanese and Korean firms, we conducted interview surveys on organizational and human resource management based on Bloom and Van Reenen (2007). The average management scores resulting from the interview surveys in Japanese firms were higher than in Korean...

Recent studies on productivity dynamics analysis using plant-level data found that major sources of the decline in aggregate productivity growth is due to the negative exit effect, in which the productivity level of exiting plants is higher than the industry average, and the total factor...

Although by the early 2000s, Japan had largely overcome its non-performing loan problems, economic growth hardly accelerated, resulting in what now are "two lost decades." This paper examines the underlying reasons from a long-term and structural perspective. Major issues examined include the...