Overview
While it had been hoped that Japan's economy would shift from the low growth of the "two lost decades" and shift to a new rapid growth stage, leading to the birth of a new Japan, the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck amid such hopes caused a massive shock to Japan's society and its economy. It is thought that in order to overcome the immediate crisis and break free from the past low growth trend, both Japanese society and the Japanese economy need to undergo massive transitions in a wide range of areas. In the second five-year midterm period, both theoretical and empirical analysis were conducted and policy proposals were made based on a foundation of corporate heterogeneity and globalization, seeing such corporate globalization (i.e., exports and overseas production) as keys to Japan's economic growth. Based on the results of such study, this project will (1) add the perspective of analysis of changes in firms and industries due to the earthquake to research on the globalization of Japanese firms and industries; (2) focus analysis on subjects such as the globalization of firms (i.e., trade and overseas investment); production networks and industrial clusters in global markets; responses to the impacts of supply shocks of electric power and materials and related changes; corporate R&D, innovation, and international technology transfer and corporate exports and growth; forms of corporate R&D and systems to protect intellectual property rights; corporate exports and employment structures; and industrial heterogeneity, the properties of local communities, and determination of comparative advantage; (3) conduct unique empirical study based on microeconomic data at the industry, corporate, and plant levels, with the addition of field study and other activities; and (4) make clear the short-, medium-, and long-term issues and problems affecting growth of the Japanese economy from a global perspective and make policy recommendations. We will also advance joint research with the Development Research Center of China on the globalization of Chinese firms and growth in the Chinese economy, which are closely related to the globalization of Japanese firms.
The subjects of research in this project are made up of the following topics:
(1) Analysis of changes in the Japanese economy and the economies of the Tohoku and northern Kanto regions from before to after the earthquake, from the perspective of international production networks
(2) Analysis of impacts of supply shocks and changes in the factor prices, including restrictions on electric power supply, and changes in the structure of Japan's comparative advantage
(3) Analysis of the employment effects of exports by Japanese firms, protection of intellectual property rights, corporate R&D, and trade, and corporate globalization and international technology transfer
(4) Analysis of industrial heterogeneity and comparative advantage, exports and outsourcing, and the properties and comparative advantages of local communities
(5) Analysis of corporate clustering and globalization (i.e., exports and FDI) in the China market and Chinese economic growth
May 10, 2011 - March 31, 2013
Major Research Results
2013
RIETI Discussion Papers
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13-E-081
"Does Agglomeration Promote the Internationalization of Chinese Firms?" (ITO Banri, XU Zhaoyuan and YASHIRO Naomitsu)
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13-E-079
"Overseas Investment of Chinese Enterprises: Discovery and discussion based on site research" (CHEN Xiaohong, QI Changdong, ZHOU Yan and ZONG Fangyu)
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13-E-077
"On Biased Technical Change: Was technological change in Japan electricity-saving?" (SATO Hitoshi)
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13-E-060
"Innovation in the Host Country and the Structure of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japanese multinationals" (JINJI Naoto and Xingyuan ZHANG)
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13-E-051
"The Impacts of Natural Disasters on Plants' Growth: Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake" (TANAKA Ayumu)
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13-E-036
"Why Did Manufacturing Firms Increase the Number of Non-regular Workers in the 2000s? Does international trade matter?" (MATSUURA Toshiyuki)
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13-E-028
"How Do Supply Chain Networks Affect the Resilience of Firms to Natural Disasters? Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake" (TODO Yasuyuki, NAKAJIMA Kentaro and Petr MATOUS)
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13-J-024
"Determinants of Transaction Partners' Quality: Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake" (NAKAJIMA Kentaro and TODO Yasuyuki)
RIETI Policy Discussion Papers
2012
RIETI Discussion Papers
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13-E-015
"Why is Exporting Hard in Some Sectors?" (Anders AKERMAN, Rikard FORSLID and OKUBO Toshihiro)
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13-E-007
"Firm Productivity and Exports in the Wholesale Sector: Evidence from Japan" (TANAKA Ayumu)
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13-E-006
"Open Innovation, Productivity, and Export: Evidence from Japanese firms" (ITO Banri and TANAKA Ayumu)
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13-E-005
"Regional Variations in Productivity Premium of Exporters: Evidence from plant-level data" (OKUBO Toshihiro and TOMIURA Eiichi)
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13-J-002
"Determinants of the Reconstruction Period from the Great East Japan Earthquake: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Tohoku" (WAKASUGI Ryuhei and TANAKA Ayumu)
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12-E-069
"The Effects of FDI on Domestic Employment and Workforce Composition" (TANAKA Ayumu)
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12-E-058
"Effects of Ownership on Exports and FDI: Evidence from Chinese firms" (WAKASUGI Ryuhei and Hongyong ZHANG)
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12-E-033
"Productivity and FDI of Taiwan Firms: A review from a nonparametric approach" (WAKASUGI Ryuhei and NATSUHARA Takashi)
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12-E-027
"Networked FDI: Sales and sourcing patterns of Japanese foreign affiliates" (Richard BALDWIN and OKUBO Toshihiro)
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12-J-007
"Electricity Supply and Industrial Specialization: A neoclassical evaluation on Japan's electricity supply constraints" (SATO Hitoshi)