Shift-Share Analysis and Changes in Japanese Manufacturing Employment

Shift-share analysis is used to examine the role of spatial structure on changes in regional manufacturing employment, in contrast to the traditional focus of shift-share studies on the role of industrial structure. It is argued that changes in a region's space-economy can be understood not only in terms of the economic subdivisions of the region but also in terms of the contribution of its spatial subdivisions. The latter is illustrated by means of a case study of the contribution of different types of local area to changes in regional manufacturing employment in Japan. Each region was subdivided into four types of local area based on population density. The analysis covered the period from 1981 to 1995, a time of major transformation in Japan's space-economy. The shift-share model was also used to estimate the impact of local area output and productivity on changes in regional employment. In general, the results show that there was a progressive underdevelopment of the core regions, associated with falling output and productivity. The country's peripheral regions were characterized by development, associated with rising output and productivity. At the local scale, however, the picture is far more complex. Types of local area contributed to regional employment change in very different ways, with respect to both time, region, and output/productivity. The contribution of local spatial structure to the regional space-economy of Japan is fundamentally fragmented and uneven