Japan and the World Economy最新文献

This study examines the role of part-time employment in Japan’s business cycles from 2002Q1 to 2018Q3 using a two-sector competitive search and matching model. The model is estimated by the generalized method of moments (GMM). The results demonstrate that part-time employment exhibits significantly higher volatility compared to full-time employment in response to productivity shocks. Companies adapt their utilization of part-time labor through both extensive and intensive margins to a similar extent, which stands in contrast to full-time workers whose labor input variation is primarily explained by the intensive margin. These findings substantiate the concept of part-time employment serving as an “Adjusting Valve for Employment” within the Japanese labor market. However, the model only accounts for a limited portion of the fluctuations in the proportion of part-time workers among total employment. The GMM estimation reveals that a general productivity shock adequately explains variations in wage rates and market tightness, but it falls short in accounting for fluctuations in the share of part-time employment. Thus, the findings suggest the necessity for more sophisticated models to amplify the variation in part-time employment while keeping wage rates and market tightness unchanged.

This paper studies the determinants of Japanese direct investment worldwide and in different country groups. We derive our research hypotheses from the Knowledge-Capital Model and test them empirically using the PPML model and statistical data for 179 target countries between 1995 and 2019. We examine the role of a host’s institutional quality in affecting the cost of FDI. We show that institutional quality matters in attracting Japanese FDI for developed, developing, and transitioning economies. We find the effect of institutional quality to be more pronounced in the latter group of countries, especially concerning industries characterized by high asset-specificity.

This study investigates the impact of introducing corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees on firms’ CSR performance. Using a sample of publicly traded Japanese companies for the period of 2011–2021, we employ propensity score matching difference-in-differences methods to address endogeneity issues. Our main findings reveal that the introduction of a CSR committee significantly improves CSR performance, providing support for the importance of structured and dedicated efforts toward achieving sustainability. In addition, our study contributes to the literature by examining the effects of the detailed components of environmental and social scores on CSR performance, offering a granular understanding of how CSR committees may influence various aspects of CSR performance.

In 2021, new bank forms, such as Internet-only banks, amassed 2 % of Japanese deposits. Tokyo’s statistics since 2005 encompass deposits in such banks, regardless of depositor location. These Tokyo-based banks operate branchless. Elevated deposits reported in Tokyo, Japan’s highest-income prefecture, could skew the income elasticity of money demand upwards in a cross-sectional regression. This study proposes reallocating Tokyo’s bank deposits to all prefectures to quantify the bias. Additionally, it suggests aggregating fifteen prefectures into five areas to address discrepancies between the deposit and income locations owing to cross-prefectural commuting. Adjusting for new bank deposits, the income elasticity of money demand decreased from 0.899 to 0.872 in March 2021, with overestimation increasing since March 2005. These findings suggest the adequacy of regional statistics in reflecting economic behavior in the digital era, warranting reevaluation.

After the bursting of real estate bubbles in 1991, Japanese banks continued lending to unviable firms to conceal problem loans. We revisit Japan’s experience and propose a new mechanism via which banks’ loan-evergreening policy undermines allocative efficiency across industries by focusing on construction and real estate loans. Namely, banks’ continuing support for construction and real estate firms encourages labor hoarding in unviable construction projects. Since construction projects predominantly use low-skilled workers, banks’ loan-evergreening policy in these troubled sectors may depress other low-skilled industries. Based on the industry-level data in each of Japan’s 47 prefectures from 1992 to 1996, we document empirical facts consistent with this hypothesis. On average, low-skilled industries experienced disproportionately slower output and employment growth and more sluggish growth in the number of new establishments in prefectures where the share of bank loans to local construction/real estate sectors increased more after construction boom ended.

Factory location in large urban areas is more difficult today as the sites are more likely to be used for residential and commercial facilities. This study investigates factors behind factory land use change, based on the redevelopment theory. Estimation is made using 1,824 land-use data in Osaka, a large urban area in Japan, between 2013 and 2018. Our new insight is that the diseconomy of the mixed land-use greatly impacts the land redevelopment of factory sites. In addition, the loose restriction of zoning districts and lack of localization economies of the factory also promote factory land redevelopment.

On the basis of a sample of 19 countries and using sign-restricted VAR and second-stage regression, this research investigates whether there exist differences in the effects of monetary shocks on output and prices between countries, and, if any, which country characteristics incur such differences. The VAR analysis shows that monetary policy shocks of the same magnitude generate differences in terms of the effects on output and prices between countries. The maximal responses of industrial production indexes to a 25-basis-point shock policy rate cut range from a decrease to an over 3% increase with an average of about 1–2% increase. Those of consumer price indexes range from 0.3% to around a 2% increase, with an average of 0.9% increase. The results from regression analysis imply that various country characteristics engender disparities in the responses to monetary policy shocks. The magnitude of the output responses to monetary policy shocks is larger in countries with a monetary policy framework closer to inflation-targeting, a more flexible exchange rate regime, more rapid population aging, and a more rigid labor market, and is smaller in countries with a more independent central bank and a more developed financial market. The size of the price responses is larger in countries with higher trade openness and a more rigid labor market, and smaller in countries with a monetary policy framework closer to inflation-targeting and more rapid population aging.

This paper examines how instruction time affects students’ cognitive ability and motivation. It uses data obtained from the responses of 4th-grade Japanese students from the international academic survey “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.” The study estimates a fixed effects model using within-student between-subject variation, which, in 2002, caused a reduction in instruction time due to the revision of curriculum guidelines in Japan. To remove teachers’ fixed effects, the sample was restricted to students taught by the same teacher. The results demonstrate that instruction time positively affects student test scores and two out of three motivation variables (Like and Positive). This result suggests that the 2002 educational reform negatively impacted students’ cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. Further, instruction time had different effects on test scores and motivation variables (Like and Positive) for students’ and teachers’ gender. Additionally, instruction time also positively impacted scores and motivation variables (Like, or Like and Positive) in combination with teachers who had experience of ten or more years and students who had time to study at home.

The Bank of Japan has purchased long-term Japanese government bonds under the Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing (QQE). To study monetary policy after the Bank of Japan exits the QQE, we develop a model in which the fiscal authority commits: (ⅰ) not to making fiscal adjustments needed to stabilize government debt and (ⅱ) not to providing financial supports for the central bank that incurs losses on its balance sheet due to a decline in the price of long-term bonds. Within this framework, this study investigates how the interaction between these commitments reduces the ability of monetary policy to control inflation after liftoff from the zero lower bound. We consider a situation in which the central bank that holds long-term bonds raises the nominal interest rates and show two key results: (ⅰ) when the Taylor principle is violated, under certain conditions, inflation right after liftoff cannot overshoot the central bank’s target; (ⅱ) when the central bank follows the Taylor principle, under certain conditions, it cannot prevent the economy from converging to the deflationary steady state.

This study explores individuals’ interests and actions in angel investing. Using a sample of Japanese individuals who are interested and engage in general investing obtained from original survey data, we examine whether risk aversion and subjective time discounting are associated with angel investing. To provide a clear picture of potential and actual angel investors, we classify individuals’ attitudes toward angel investing into “no interest,” “interest only,” and “action.” By estimating the marginal effects of risk aversion on angel investment, we find that individuals’ risk aversion is negatively associated with their angel investment actions; that is, individuals with a higher degree of risk aversion are less likely to engage in angel investing. We also find that wealthy individuals are more likely to engage in angel investing. Moreover, among individuals with entrepreneurial experience, subjective time discounting is positively associated with their angel investment actions, suggesting that entrepreneurs with higher subjective time discounting are more likely to engage in angel investing.