Export-biased Productivity Increase and Exchange Rate Regimes in East Asia and Europe

Kaldor's policy proposal on exchange rate, which is based on his export-led growth model, is unilateral. By introducing the institutional analysis of wages and exchange rates into Kaldor's model and measuring productivity growth based on input-output tables, we theoretically and empirically clarify how export-biased productivity increase supported export-led growth and gave rise to inflation or accumulative trade imbalance in Japan, Korea, China, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We then propose an exchange rate regime based on multilateral coordination for East Asia, whose growth is strongly characterized by export-biased productivity increase

Analyse comparative des conditions nécessaires à l’intégration monétaire

Introduction En général, les débats sur l’intégration monétaire asiatique tournent autour des obstacles politiques comme le manque de consensus, en particulier entre le Japon, la Corée et la Chine. D’autre part, la théorie des zones monétaires optimales domine les débats économiques, avec pour objectif la symétrie des effets à court terme de chocs exogènes communs dans ces pays. Mais nous nous distinguons de ces analyses des conditions économiques nécessaires à l’intégration monétaire en choi..

Increasing Wage Inequality in Japan since the End of the 1990s : An Institutional Explanation

Using the factor decomposition of micro data, in this paper we examine the validity of the SBTC (skill-biased technological change) and the outsourcing hypotheses regarding the continued rise in wage inequality that first emerged within each age group at the end of the 1990s in Japan. We conclude that these hypotheses are invalid. In Japan, the labour market liquidity is low and wages are chiefly determined on the basis of the wage system of each enterprise; although the demand shifts towards skilled labour owing to information technology (IT) and globalisation, this shift is not likely to directly lead to the wage increase of skilled workers. The influence of IT and globalisation on wages is mainly reflected in the institutional reactions of enterprises. These institutional reactions are influenced not only by IT and globalisation, but also by various internal and external changes in the enterprise, such as ageing of the employees and deregulation. We present the following institutional hypothesis to explain the cause of the rising income inequality since the end of the 1990s in Japan. The most important cause is the reforms in the wage system, such as the introduction of a performance-based wage system and the weakening of the spring labour offensive system. We examine the validity of this ‘wage institution view’ using the factor decomposition of micro data

Growth Regimes in Japan and the United States in the 1990s

Régimes de croissance au Japon et aux Etats-Unis dans les années 1990À partir du concept kaldorien de « causalité cumulative », on peut identifier les causes de la stagnation au Japon et de la croissance économique élevée aux États-Unis durant les années 90. À cette fin, nous commençons notre étude par une analyse descriptive des régimes de productivité du travail et de la norme de consommation. En suite, nous estimons séparément ces régimes dans ces deux pays, durant deux périodes : les années 80 et les années 90.Selon notre évaluation, on observe une contraction de la dynamique de la demande au Japon qui est à l’origine de la stagnation. Aux États-Unis, on constate à la fois une augmentation du régime de demande et de productivité qui explique les niveaux élevés de la croissance. Les causes des modifications des régimes sont en suite clarifiées par l’analyse empirique.Based on Kaldor’s concept of ‘cumulative causation’, the causes of the economic stagnation in Japan and the high economic growth in the United States in the 1990s are clarified. For this purpose, we formalize mathematically and descriptively two-way routes between labour productivity growth and demand growth; these routes are known as ‘demand regime’ and ‘productivity regime’. Next, we separately estimate these regimes in these two countries, for two periods: the 1980s and the 1990s. According to our estimation, a leftward shift of the demand regime led to the economic stagnation in Japan in the 1990s, and a rightward shift of the demand regime and an increase in the slope of the productivity regime led to the high economic growth in the United States. The causes of these shifts have been empirically clarified

Infective larvae of Cercopithifilaria spp. (Nematoda: Onchocercidae) from hard ticks (Ixodidae) recovered from the Japanese serow (Bovidae)

Hard ticks taken from the Japanese serow, Capricornis crispus, in Yamagata Prefecture, Honshu, harboured infective larvae of onchocercid filariae after incubation from the 22nd to the 158th day. Haemaphysalis flava and H. japonica contained one to eight filarial larvae; females, males and a nymph of the ticks were infected. The 44 infective larvae recovered were 612–1,370 μm long, and 11 of them, 930–1,340 μm long, were studied in detail. The larvae possessed the morphologic characteristics of the larvae of the genus Cercopithifilaria, namely an oesophagus with a posterior glandular part, no buccal capsule and a long tail with three terminal lappets. Five types (A to E) of infective larvae were identified based on the morphologic characteristics. While to date five species of Cercopithifilaria have been described from the Japanese serow, a specific identification of the larvae found in this study was generally not possible. Only type E larvae could be tentatively assigned to Cercopithifilaria tumidicervicata, as they had a cervical swelling similar to that of the adults of this species. A key for the identification of the five larval types is presented. The study presents circumstantial evidences indicating that H. flava and H. japonica may transmit Cercopithifilaria spp. to Japanese serows. It also suggests the possibility that such filarial larvae will be found in hard ticks anywhere, because Cercopithifilaria is distributed worldwide, though this genus generally goes unnoticed, as its microfilariae occur in the skin, not in the blood, of host animals