This paper examines the role of multinational firms in international trade using firm-level panel data for Japanese firms between 1994 and 2000. Our results indicate that multinational firms dominate Japanese trade. In 2000, only 12.4 percent of Japanese firms were multinationals but they...

Summary This paper examines the determinants of the backward vertical linkages of Japanese foreign affiliates in manufacturing for the period 1994-2000, focusing on the local backward linkages, or local procurement in the host country. Our major findings are twofold. First, the unobserved...

We examine the determinants and effects of technology acquisition licensing, using firm-level data between 1957 and 1970. Our results indicate that in technology acquisition licensing, the government screened a firm's application based on (i) the industry that the firm belonged to and (ii) its...

This paper investigates whether or not the natural selection mechanism (NSM) of economic Darwinism works in severe recessions. Although standard firm models imply the importance of NSM in an economy by showing firm's rational behavior on entry, surviv-ing, and exit leads to macro-level TFP...

Productivity convergence among countries has been investigated extensively with mixed results. This paper extends the analysis to the firm level to shed light on the debate of convergence or non-convergence. We find productivity convergence among firms widely in Japan, in both manufacturing...

Allowing for three labor market settings (perfect competition or right-to-manage bargaining, efficient bargaining and monopsony), this paper relies on an extension of Hall's econometric framework for estimating simultaneously price-cost margins and scale economies. Using an unbalanced panel of...

Allowing for three labor market settings (perfect competition or right-to-manage bargaining, efficient bargaining and monopsony), this paper relies on two extensions of Hall's econometric framework for estimating simultaneously price-cost margins and scale economies. Using an unbalanced panel of...