In the 1990s and the 2000s, the average nominal wage in Japan declined continuously. This is a sharp contrast to wage trends in other developed countries in the same period. This study seeks to provide new quantitative evidence on the possible factors contributing to the nominal wage decline in...

We examine the effects of R&D spillovers on total factor productivity in a large panel of Japanese manufacturing plants matched with R&D survey data (1987-2007). We simultaneously examine the role of public (university and research institutions) and private (firm) R&D spillovers, and examine the...

The main purpose of this paper is to study how individual differences in implicit worldviews regarding categories versus relationships affect altruistic behavior towards parents, children and non-family members, using the survey data of Korea, Japan and the US. Altruism and intergenerational...

In this paper, we investigate the volatility of sales at the firm and the aggregate level using the longitudinal dataset of the <i>Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations</i> (FSSC). The main findings are as follows: (1) Firm-level volatility decreased until the mid-1990s but then increased...

Using Japanese firm-level data for the period from 1994-2002, this paper examines whether a firm is chosen as an acquisition target based on its productivity level, profitability and other characteristics and whether the performance of Japanese firms that were acquired by foreign firms improves...

This paper compares the performance of foreign-owned and domestically-owned firms, using micro data on Japanese firms in the manufacturing sector for the period 1994-2000. The overall comparison between foreign-owned and Japanese companies shows that foreign-owned companies enjoyed 5% higher TFP...

This paper employs nonparametric tests and Japanese firm level data to examine the hypothesis put forward by Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2003) and Head and Ries (2003) that firms engaging in FDI are more productive than other firms. We find that the productivity distribution of foreign firms...