We construct a cross-prefectural index of human capital that captures the quality of the labor force available to the 47 Japanese prefectures from 1970 through 2008 using the Population Census. Our index is based on the index number concept proposed by Caves, Christensen, and Diewert (1982), and...

This paper describes the construction of the Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity Database (R-JIP), which covers the period from 1970 through 2008 and comprises annual industrial output and factor input data of Japan's 47 prefectures classified by 23 industry. Output is measured in terms...

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 had a serious negative impact on the Japanese economy. The earthquake reduced production substantially not only in the regions that were directly affected but also throughout Japan via the disruption of supply chains. The meltdowns at the...

This paper measures the productivity disparities between self-employed workers (i.e. business owners and unpaid family workers) and employees by estimating a production function based on enterprise-level micro data from the Census of Manufactures between 1981 and 2000. As a result, we find that,...

Concerns over the rise in the vintage of capital in the Japanese economy have focused attention on the technological progress embodied in capital. In this paper, we derive the theoretical relationship between the rate of technological progress embodied in capital, the obsolescence rate of...