Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity Database: Database Refinement and Its Analysis

The purpose of this research project is to update and refine our newly compiled Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity Database (R-JIP) and to carry out some analyses using this database. One refinement is to estimate the regional price level differences and reflect them in our output estimation. This is especially important for our productivity analysis of the service industries. The other refinement is to extend our database retroactively to the period before 1970. This period includes Japan's high economic growth era when its economy experienced dynamic structural change. We can analyze the regional economic convergence based on the longer period covering this interesting period. Other research being planned are analyses of the regional propagation of the severe economic decline after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, regional income differences taking into account of regional income transfers, transitions of the regional industrial structure, reconstruction process following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and micro data analysis of regional productivity differences.

April 15, 2013 - March 31, 2015