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,...

Software platforms are a critical component of the computer systems underpinning leading-edge products ranging from third-generation mobile phones to video games. After describing some key economic features of computer systems and software platforms, the paper presents case studies of personal...

This paper analyzes the evolution of regionalism in East Asia and derives implications for the role and influence of the United States and Japan in the region. In the introductory section, this paper identifies three major driving forces and three factors that acted as a brake throughout the...

This study examines the effect of Japanese aid-funded technical assistance programs in the Indonesian foundry industry funded, applying difference-in-differences propensity score matching estimation to a unique firm-level dataset. The major finding is that the average effect of the aid programs...

In this paper, we examine the causes of the first merger boom since the late 1990s in Japan. Using industry-level data, we show that mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are driven mainly by economic shocks. While industries with higher growth opportunities are likely to have more M&A activity,...

This study proposes to analyse in an exploratory way the state of innovation and production systems in Swiss biotechnology and especially its innovative capacity and related factors. As biotechnology as such cannot be considered as an industrial sector but rather as a set of technologies...