"Why Did "Zombie" Firms Recover in Japan?"

The Japanese economy experienced prolonged recessions during the 1990s. Previous studies suggest that evergreen lending to troubled firms known as "zombie firms" distorted market discipline in terms of stabilizing the Japanese economy and caused significant delays in the economy's recovery. However, the eventual bankruptcy of zombies was rare. In fact, a majority of the "zombie" firms substantially recovered during the first half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why zombie firms recovered in Japan. We first extend the method of Caballero, Hoshi, and Kashyap (2008) and identify zombies from among the listed firms. Subsequently, we investigate the nature of corporate restructuring that was effective in reviving zombie firms. Our multinomial logistic regressions suggest that reducing the employee strength of zombie firms and selling its fixed assets were beneficial in facilitating their recovery. However, corporate restructuring without accounting transparency or by discouraging incentives for managers was ineffective. In addition, corporate restructuring lacked effectiveness in the absence of favorable macroeconomic environment as well as substantial external financial support.

Why Did ?Zombie? Firms Recover in Japan?

The Japanese economy experienced prolonged recessions during the 1990s. Previous studies suggest that evergreen lending to troubled firms known as ?zombie firms? distorted market discipline in terms of stabilizing the Japanese economy and caused significant delays in the economy?s recovery. However, the eventual bankruptcy of zombies was rare. In fact, a majority of the ?zombie? firms substantially recovered during the first half of the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why zombie firms recovered in Japan. We first extend the method of Caballero, Hoshi, and Kashyap (2008) and identify zombies from among the listed firms. Subsequently, we investigate the nature of corporate restructuring that was effective in reviving zombie firms. Our multinomial logistic regressions suggest that reducing the employee strength of zombie firms and selling its fixed assets were beneficial in facilitating their recovery. However, corporate restructuring without accounting transparency or by discouraging incentives for managers was ineffective. In addition, corporate restructuring lacked effectiveness in the absence of favorable macroeconomic environment as well as substantial external financial support.

A fluctuation-response relation of many Brownian particles under non-equilibrium conditions

We study many interacting Brownian particles under a tilted periodic potential. We numerically measure the linear response coefficient of the density field by applying a slowly varying potential transversal to the tilted direction. In equilibrium cases, the linear response coefficient is related to the intensity of density fluctuations in a universal manner, which is called a fluctuation-response relation. We then report numerical evidence that this relation holds even in non-equilibrium cases. This result suggests that Einstein's formula on density fluctuations can be extended to driven diffusive systems when the slowly varying potential is applied in a direction transversal to the driving force.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Anomalous time correlation in two-dimensional driven diffusive systems

We study the time correlation function of a density field in two-dimensional driven diffusive systems within the framework of fluctuating hydrodynamics. It is found that the time correlation exhibits power-law behavior in an intermediate time regime in the case that the fluctuation-dissipation relation is violated and that the power-law exponent depends on the extent of this violation. We obtain this result by employing a renormalization group method to treat a logarithmic divergence in time.Comment: 6 page

CompDP: A Framework for Simultaneous Subgraph Counting Under Connectivity Constraints

The subgraph counting problem computes the number of subgraphs of a given graph that satisfy some constraints. Among various constraints imposed on a graph, those regarding the connectivity of vertices, such as "these two vertices must be connected," have great importance since they are indispensable for determining various graph substructures, e.g., paths, Steiner trees, and rooted spanning forests. In this view, the subgraph counting problem under connectivity constraints is also important because counting such substructures often corresponds to measuring the importance of a vertex in network infrastructures. However, we must solve the subgraph counting problems multiple times to compute such an importance measure for every vertex. Conventionally, they are solved separately by constructing decision diagrams such as BDD and ZDD for each problem. However, even solving a single subgraph counting is a computationally hard task, preventing us from solving it multiple times in a reasonable time. In this paper, we propose a dynamic programming framework that simultaneously counts subgraphs for every vertex by focusing on similar connectivity constraints. Experimental results show that the proposed method solved multiple subgraph counting problems about 10-20 times faster than the existing approach for many problem settings

Gender Differences of Plaque Characteristics in Elderly Patients with Stable Angina Pectoris: An Intravascular Ultrasonic Radiofrequency Data Analysis

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relation between gender and plaque characteristics assessed by virtual histology-intravascular ultrasound (VH-IVUS) in patients with stable angina pectoris. Preinterventional VH-IVUS image was available for analysis in 88 men and 60 women patients. Women had significantly smaller vessel volume (12.7 ± 3.9 versus 14.5 ± 4.2 mm3/mm, P = .01) and smaller plaque volume (8.4 ± 3.5 versus 9.7 ± 3.5 mm3/mm, P = .04). However, these differences were no longer significant when corrected for body surface area (BSA). In VH-IVUS analysis, women had significantly higher dense calcium when corrected for BSA in the culprit lesion (volume: 0.32 ± 0.26 versus 0.44 ± 0.40 mm3/mm/BSA, P = .03; proportion: 8.2 ± 6.1 versus 11.2 ± 7.6%, P = .009). VH-IVUS analysis of plaque components in elderly patients with stable angina showed that women had higher calcium contents compared with men