Research on Measuring Productivity in the Service Industries and Identifying the Driving Factors for Productivity Growth

In the trend toward a service economy, productivity growth in the service industries is an important policy challenge which directly affects the sustainable growth of Japan's economy, as well as the improvements in the people's welfare and the quality of lives. Our research group, which is titled "Research on Measuring Productivity in the Service Industries and Identifying the Driving Factors for Productivity Growth," addresses this challenge by studying the following three issues: 1) accurately measuring productivity in the non-market service industries--such as the health and education industries--in which prices and outputs are not appropriately observed, by taking the quality of services into account, 2) investigating the effects of policy changes, such as the easing of regulations, on productivity growth, using the econometric methods on the frontier, and 3) identifying the driving factors for productivity growth in the service industries, considering both ICT capital and human capital.

April 1, 2011 - March 31, 2013