This paper investigates the effect of agglomeration on the productivity of manufacturing establishments using data from Japan’s Census of Manufactures. For this purpose, we propose a distance-based index defined for each establishment, rather than one based on data aggregated per...

This paper examines the economic consequences of a horizontal merger between two Korean automakers in 1998. Estimates of structural demand and supply reveal that the merger enhanced the production efficiency of the merging parties by a magnitude of 8.4%. Simulations based on the estimates...

This paper uses firm-level data to examine the determinants and impacts of offshoring of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Japan, comparing results with those for larger firms from existing studies. The results of this paper can be summarized as follows. First, offshoring of Japanese SMEs...

The value of Japanese electronics exports has tumbled since the advent of the Global Financial Crisis, largely because export prices have fallen. This paper presents evidence that the appreciation of the yen between 2007 and 2011 caused yen export prices for electronics goods to fall by more...

Allowing for three labor market settings, this paper relies on an extension of Hall's econometric framework for simultaneously estimating price-cost mark-ups and scale economies. Using an unbalanced panel of 17,653 firms over the period 1986-2001 in France, 8,725 firms over the period 1994-2006...

In this paper, we construct a new converter that creates panel data drawing from the Census of Manufactures of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Previous work has utilized a converter based on the respondent statuses of surveyed establishments. Although this usual converter is...

Emerging green technologies are the most significant and realistic path to reducing global dependence on polluting fossil fuels while simultaneously decreasing the reliance of many countries on oil-rich regimes to meet their energy needs. However, as nations begin to rely on green energy...

This paper provides an analytical description of East Asian supply chains. The data indicate that they have become more and more centered on China. In a value-added sense, though, East Asia as a whole is running surpluses against the West. The paper then surveys evidence from a variety of...

Using a unique dataset of non-listed firms that identifies the banks with which firms transact, we examine the effects of the largest-ever bank merger in Japan—that between Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM) and UFJ Bank (UFJ) in 2005. We focus on how the merger affected firms through their...

Using a unique dataset of more than 140,000 manufacturing firms in Japan containing information on their suppliers and customers, this paper looks at the physical distances between transaction partners to examine the localization of transaction relationships. We find the following. First, based...