American management: Reformation or revolution? The transfer of Japanese management technology to the US

The paper discusses the transfer of management technology from Japan to the US. Before introducing formal economic analysis, ongoing changes in US management theory and practice are outlined, and then the main theoretical point is illustrated with an example from Japanese business history. Three vignettes of change in American management philosophy and techniques are given, focusing on the automotive industry. An explicit economic model of technical change and diffusion is then introduced, concluding by applying this model to predict whether the reformation is a prelude to a revolution in practice, or will fall prey to a counter-reformation

Japanese macroeconomic dilemmas: The implications of demographics for growth and stability

Japan's post-WWII baby boom and the subsequent drop in fertility resulted in a series of sharp demographic transitions. The macroeconomic impact is large. Due to labor force changes, growth in the 1990s would in any event have been in the range of 1-2%, little better than actual performance; poor monetary and fiscal policy are secondary in importance. Demographic changes also led to swings in domestic savings and investment balances and in the flow-of-funds among sectors. With hindsight it should not be surprising that policymakers made major blunders or that financial institutions incurred large losses attempting to adapt to swings in the structure of their balance sheets. Finally, Japan now faces the demographic transition to an old-age society, from a starting point of large fiscal deficits and with a large stock of government debt. Restoring fiscal sustainability on top of the need to increase revenues to cover age-related transfers will require net taxes to increase by 19% of GDP. Accomplishing that will be a major political and administrative challenge and will inevitably hold growth below its 1% potential level during the coming decade

Contracting with contracts: How the Japanese manage organizational transactions

This book seeks to pull together two approaches to institutions, those of law and organizational theory. As an economist, I stand somewhat apart from both of those approaches. Within economics, law on the one hand is presumed to provide an essential support for "market" transactions, but the nature of that support is seldom specified. On the other hand, organizational studies focus upon "hierarchy," the locus of most day-to-day economic activity in the U.S. Economics, however, typically treats organizations as a black box that is best left unopened. Here my focus is on the presumed centrality of contract law, drawing upon empirical work on the Japanese auto industry

The decline of the Japanese automobile industry: Domestic and international implications

The upheaval in the U.S. auto industry this past decade obscured a fundamental shift in the cost base of the Japanese industry. Wages there in dollar terms more than doubled, to levels slightly higher on average than in the U.S. At the same time the U.S. At the same time the U.S. industry was improving its management, bettering efficiency, quality and the vehicle design process. Now little gap remains there either. This paper explores the sources and implications of these changes in the industry in the two countries, both for assembly and parts manufacturing, and for bilateral trade

Japanese labor markets and subcontracting

This paper makes two points. The first is an empirical one, that the employees of a Japanese firm are very homogeneous; firms are observed to pull their employees from only one segment of the labor market. The second is a theoretical one, that the consideration of factor market imperfections, such as the homogeneity discussed herein, is important for developing a more complete theory of the firm. Organization functions as a substitute for markets, and its form reflects their structure and faults. In the manufacture of most products, a variety of labor inputs are required, e.g., skilled and unskilled. But homogeneity means that a firm is constrained from employing differing types of workers at different wages. Hence, for static efficiency, a firm will subcontract processes which require workers who are, in the labor market, paid less (or more) than its own employees. Following this introduction, Section II presents an overview of theories of the firm, highlighting the contribution of this research to that theory. A brief description of subcontracting in Japan is also included. Section III is the first of two on labor markets; it contrasts the range of (market) wages found in Japan with the relative homogeneity of the workforce in Japanese firms. Because of their aggregate nature, standard statistical sources are incapable of providing detail at the firm level; case studies are utilized as an essential, complementary data source. Section IV delves into the sources of this homogeneity, primarily through a review of the literature on labor relations in large Japanese firms. Section V raises several issues which are beyond the scope of this paper, including generalizations to the US labor market. Section VI briefly summarizes the paper

Ultraviolet Observations of Super-Chandrasekhar Mass Type Ia Supernova Candidates with Swift UVOT

Among Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) exist a class of overluminous objects whose ejecta mass is inferred to be larger than the canonical Chandrasekhar mass. We present and discuss the UV/optical photometric light curves, colors, absolute magnitudes, and spectra of three candidate Super-Chandrasekhar mass SNe--2009dc, 2011aa, and 2012dn--observed with the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. The light curves are at the broad end for SNe Ia, with the light curves of SN~2011aa being amongst the broadest ever observed. We find all three to have very blue colors which may provide a means of excluding these overluminous SNe from cosmological analysis, though there is some overlap with the bluest of "normal" SNe Ia. All three are overluminous in their UV absolute magnitudes compared to normal and broad SNe Ia, but SNe 2011aa and 2012dn are not optically overluminous compared to normal SNe Ia. The integrated luminosity curves of SNe 2011aa and 2012dn in the UVOT range (1600-6000 Angstroms) are only half as bright as SN~2009dc, implying a smaller 56Ni yield. While not enough to strongly affect the bolometric flux, the early time mid-UV flux makes a significant contribution at early times. The strong spectral features in the mid-UV spectra of SNe 2009dc and 2012dn suggest a higher temperature and lower opacity to be the cause of the UV excess rather than a hot, smooth blackbody from shock interaction. Further work is needed to determine the ejecta and 56Ni masses of SNe 2011aa and 2012dn and fully explain their high UV luminosities.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Data available on the Swift supernova website http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/sne/swift_sn.htm

THE 1999aa-LIKE TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA IPTF14BDN IN THE ULTRAVIOLET AND OPTICAL

We present ultraviolet (UV) and optical photometry and spectra of the 1999aa-like supernova (SN) iPTF14bdn. The UV data were observed using the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) and constitute the first UV spectral series of a 1999aa-like SN. From the photometry we measure $\Delta m_{15}({\it B})\,=\,0.84 \pm0.05$ mag and blue UV colors at epochs earlier than $-5$ days. The spectra show that the early-time blue colors are the result of less absorption between $2800 - 3200 \,\AA~$ than is present in normal SNe Ia. Using model spectra fits of the data at $-10$ and $+10$ days, we identify the origin of this spectral feature to be a temperature effect in which doubly ionized iron group elements create an opacity 'window'. We determine that the detection of high temperatures and large quantities of iron group elements at early epochs imply the mixing of a high Ni mass into the outer layers of the SN ejecta. We also identify the source of the I-band secondary maximum in iPTF14bdn to be the decay of Fe III to Fe II, as is seen in normal SNe Ia.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. Accepted to Ap

The clinical and genetic spectrum of autosomal-recessive TOR1A-related disorders.

In the field of rare diseases, progress in molecular diagnostics led to the recognition that variants linked to autosomal-dominant neurodegenerative diseases of later onset can, in the context of biallelic inheritance, cause devastating neurodevelopmental disorders and infantile or childhood-onset neurodegeneration. TOR1A-associated arthrogryposis multiplex congenita 5 (AMC5) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder arising from biallelic variants in TOR1A, a gene that in the heterozygous state is associated to torsion dystonia-1 (DYT1 or DYT-TOR1A), an early-onset dystonia with reduced penetrance. While 15 individuals with TOR1A-AMC5 have been reported (less than 10 in detail), a systematic investigation of the full disease-associated spectrum has not been conducted. Here, we assess the clinical, radiological and molecular characteristics of 57 individuals from 40 families with biallelic variants in TOR1A. Median age at last follow-up was 3 years (0-24 years). Most individuals presented with severe congenital flexion contractures (95%) and variable developmental delay (79%). Motor symptoms were reported in 79% and included lower limb spasticity and pyramidal signs, as well as gait disturbances. Facial dysmorphism was an integral part of the phenotype, with key features being a broad/full nasal tip, narrowing of the forehead and full cheeks. Analysis of disease-associated manifestations delineated a phenotypic spectrum ranging from normal cognition and mild gait disturbance to congenital arthrogryposis, global developmental delay, intellectual disability, absent speech and inability to walk. In a subset, the presentation was consistent with fetal akinesia deformation sequence with severe intrauterine abnormalities. Survival was 71% with higher mortality in males. Death occurred at a median age of 1.2 months (1 week - 9 years) due to respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, or sepsis. Analysis of brain MRI studies identified non-specific neuroimaging features, including a hypoplastic corpus callosum (72%), foci of signal abnormality in the subcortical and periventricular white matter (55%), diffuse white matter volume loss (45%), mega cisterna magna (36%) and arachnoid cysts (27%). The molecular spectrum included 22 distinct variants, defining a mutational hotspot in the C-terminal domain of the Torsin-1A protein. Genotype-phenotype analysis revealed an association of missense variants in the 3-helix bundle domain to an attenuated phenotype, while missense variants near the Walker A/B motif as well as biallelic truncating variants were linked to early death. In summary, this systematic cross-sectional analysis of a large cohort of individuals with biallelic TOR1A variants across a wide age-range delineates the clinical and genetic spectrum of TOR1A-related autosomal-recessive disease and highlights potential predictors for disease severity and survival

Competitive Ties

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