Raising Industrial and Firm Productivity

Since the 1990s, Japan has fallen behind other developed countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, by a large margin in terms of its gross domestic product per capita and the increase in its real wage rate. The main factors causing this include the stagnation of the total factor productivity (TFP) and the significant slowdown in capital stock accumulation, including intangible assets and information and communications technology (ICT) particularly since the mid-2000s. This program will update and develop databases concerning the industry-level productivity and factor inputs in Japan and China (Japan Industrial Productivity [JIP] Database and China Industrial Productivity [CIP] Database) and the Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity (R-JIP) Database, which measures the TFP for each industry by prefecture. The program will also examine the types of policies required to improve productivity and facilitate investment via empirical analyses using these databases and firm/business-level data.