Raising Industrial and Firm Productivity

The aim of this program is to measure industry and firm-level productivity and its determinants for Japan and other East Asian countries and to conduct research on policies aimed at raising productivity. At the industry level, in addition to updating and expanding the Japan Industrial Productivity (JIP) and China Industrial Productivity (CIP) databases in collaboration with Hitotsubashi University, we will construct an industrial productivity database by prefecture for Japan and examine the total factor productivity (TFP) disparity between regions and the factors behind it, etc. At the firm or establishment level, employing micro-data from government statistics and corporate financial data in Japan and abroad, we will research the following: determinants of productivity gaps among firms; the impact of globalization and changes in demand affect corporate performance; policies for raising productivity in the service sector; productivity gaps between firms in Japan, China, and Korea; and international comparison of productivity dynamics. We will also measure investment in intangible assets such as research and development, software, in-house training, and organizational structure, all of which are important sources of innovation and productivity growth at both industry and firm levels, and examine the economic effects of such investments.