This study investigates empirically why Japan's household savings rate fell in the 1990s. We constructed an economic model consisting of two types of household: unconstrained life cycle households and liquidity-constrained households. Unconstrained households generally save, but...

We explore the determinants of the number of long-term bank relations of listed Japanese firms using a unique data set covering the period 1982-1999. Japanese listed firms have about seven long-term bank loan relations on average, but show a large variation around the average. We analyze the...

This paper examines empirically some of the reasons why Japanese manufacturing firms frequently fail to satisfy concavity conditions of the cost function. We focus on the "bubble period" in the 1980s when land was in great demand for reasons related to both production and speculation, and land...

A surge of exports in the 2000s helped Japan exit the severe decade-long stagnation known as the lost decade. Using panel data of Japanese exporting firms, we examine the sources of the export surge during this period. One view argues that the so-called "divine wind" or exogenous external demand...