This paper analyzes the causes of the decline in Japan's border effect by estimating gravity equations for Japan's international and interregional trade in four machinery industries (electrical, general, precision, and transportation machinery). In the estimation, we explicitly take account of...

In an attempt to explain the male-female wage differential, we estimated the relative marginal productivity and relative wage of female workers compared to those of male workers, using panel data from Japanese firms. The estimation results indicate that firms hiring 10 percentage points more...

We conduct a comprehensive examination on how relationship lenders price loans to small opaque firms using the rich matched data set of Japanese firms and their main banks. Our major findings are: 1. Neither measures for a borrower firm's transparency to the public (outsiders) nor measures for...

We conduct a two-stage game experiment with a non-excludable public good. In the first stage, two subjects choose simultaneously whether or not they commit to contributing nothing to provide a pure public good. In the second stage, knowing the other subject's commitment decision, subjects who...

This paper asks two questions. 1) Do multinational enterprises (MNEs) present different patterns of employment from domestic firms? 2) Do workers in MNEs face a higher risk of losing jobs? We distinguish two types of MNEs (i.e., Japanese MNEs and foreign-owned firms) and utilize firm-level data...

The Japanese economy has suffered from persistent deflation since the mid-1990s, when the banking system fell into serious undercapitalization. In Germany and in China, worries about impending deflation have emerged, along with fear of prospective or hidden bank insolvency. In this paper I...

This paper proposes a simple model that possibly explains the productivity slowdown observed in Japan during the 1990s. Under a forbearance policy by the government toward nonperforming loans, one keeping insolvent firms afloat, other economic agents become exposed to a higher risk of not being...

We investigate whether and how technical cooperation aid (TC) facilitates technological diffusion from developed to developing countries, comparing it with foreign direct investment (FDI) and external openness. Extending the model of Benhabib and Spiegel (2005), we estimate the degree to which...

This paper shows firm level micro analysis of information network use and its impact on firm's productivity. New evidences on economic impacts of IT by type of its application are provided, based on METI's firm level data of Japanese manufacturers and distributors. It is found that productivity...

Recent empirical studies reveal that effectiveness of aid on growth is ambiguous. This paper considers aid proliferation - excess aid investment relative to recurrent cost - as a potential cause that undermines aid effectiveness, because aid projects can only produce sustainable benefits when...