Business Groups and the Big Push: Meiji Japan's Mass Privatization and Subsequent Growth

Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) and others posit that rapid development requires a 'big push' -- the coordinated rapid growth of diverse complementary industries, and suggests a role for government in providing such coordination. We argue that Japan's zaibatsu, or pyramidal business groups, provided this coordination after the Meiji government failed at the task. We propose that pyramidal business groups are private sector mechanisms for coordinating and financing 'big push' growth, and that unique historical circumstances aided their success in prewar Japan. Specifically, Japan uniquely marginalized its feudal elite; withdrew its hand with a propitious mass privatization that rallied the private sector; marginalized an otherwise entrenched first generation of wealthy industrialists; and remained open to foreign trade and capital.

Measuring Firms’ R&D Effects on Technical Progress: Japan in the 199

One of the important public policy issues in science and technology is to ascertain if and how firms' investments in research and development (R&D) contribute to technical progress at firm and industry levels. Griliches (1979) made a pioneering contribution to our understanding of economic growth by pointing out that accumulation of firms' investments in R&D and creation of knowledge will lead to technical progress. In this paper we present a method based on index number theory for estimating technical progress and then apply it for estimating technical progress for Japanese manufacturing firms in the 1990s. Estimated technical progress is then used to test the above Griliches hypothesisR&D; Japan; technical progress; economic growth

The Rise and Fall of the Zaibatsu: Japan\u27s Industrial and Economic Modernization

Throughout the past century, the rise and fall of the zaibatsu and the operations of their direct successors has not only shaped Japan’s economic and financial landscape but also has been instrumental in the modernization of the world economy. Many of these corporations traced their roots to Japan’s premodern era, and were directly responsible for the transformation of a nation of rice farmers into an industrial powerhouse in the years prior to World War II. Following Japan’s defeat, these monopolistic corporations were dismantled by the Keynesian economists of the Allied occupation and were reorganized into the keiretsu system, which exists in Japan to this day. The paper examines the roots of the modern Japanese economy and the zaibatsu themselves, and goes on to follow their history and impact on Japan to the present day

Purifying Japan's Banks: Issues and Implications

We use a simple real options framework and empirical data to establish that although Japanese banks hold borrowers’ shares, their interest is more aligned as a contractual claimant than a residual claimant of corporations. We then explain why the Japanese model of corporate governance was useful during the 'catching up' growth of that country's postwar reconstruction decades, but became problematic subsequently. The interests of shareholders, creditors, workers, and managers are more readily aligned because such growth entails investment in known-technology physical capital- intensive projects with highly predictable cash flows. Once on the technological frontier, 'keeping up' growth requires risk taking and a tolerance for 'creative destruction'. This is better accommodated by entrusting corporate governance to firms' true residual claimants, their shareholders.

The Effects of Child-Bearing on Married Women's Labor Supply and Earnings: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment

Married women's decisions about child-bearing and market work are importantly interrelated. Although there are many estimates of the effects of fertility on female labor supply few of them have adequately addressed the problems of simultaneity inherent in these choices. In this paper, we use exogenous variations in fertility due to twin births to measure the impact of an unanticipated child on married women's labor supply and earnings. We find that the short-run effects of an unanticipated birth on labor supply are appreciable and have increased in magnitude as more mothers enter the labor market. It also appears that the impact of unanticipated births on earnings and wages has changed from 1980 to 1990. In 1980 reduced labor supply caused a temporary drop in earnings, but in 1990 earnings and wages remained depressed well after the labor supply effects of a twin birth had disappeared.

Microwave imaging of mesoscopic percolating network in a manganite thin film

Many unusual behaviors in complex oxides are deeply associated with the spontaneous emergence of microscopic phase separation. Depending on the underlying mechanism, the competing phases can form ordered or random patterns at vastly different length scales. Using a microwave impedance microscope, we observed an orientation-ordered percolating network in strained Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 thin films with a large period of 100 nm. The filamentary metallic domains align preferentially along certain crystal axes of the substrate, suggesting the anisotropic elastic strain as the key interaction in this system. The local impedance maps provide microscopic electrical information of the hysteretic behavior in strained thin film manganites, suggesting close connection between the glassy order and the colossal magnetoresistance effects at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages,4 figure

SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR MARRIED FEMALE LABOR: RURAL AND URBAN DIFFERENCES IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES

This study examined the supply of and demand for married female labor in the southern United States. Special attention was given to differences in labor force participation, labor supply, and quantities of labor supplied and demanded across rural and urban areas. Once state effects were accounted for, decisions to change participation were found not to vary by urban-rural designation. Differences in demand were fully captured by an intercept shifter and the variations in hours supplied by married females between urban and rural areas. Labor supply varied greatly with the effects of key determinants (number of children, work force experience, family income) being strongly different in rural areas. Different policies are needed to promote female labor supply in rural areas as opposed to urban areas.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital,

Corporations

A corporation is an artificial person created for an economic purpose, as described in various aspects of the Theory of the Firm. Recent historical and comparative research shows that corporations in most countries come in groups, each controlled by a single principal. This has implications for various "theories of the firm". The perception that firms ought to be run to maximize shareholder value, though commonplace in financial economics, is also problematic in application.