An International Comparison of the TFP Levels and the Productivity Convergence of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese Listed Firms (Extended Version)

Focusing on Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese firms in the manufacturing sector, this paper examines productivity catch-up at the firm level using the distance from the technology frontier as a direct measure of the potential for catch-up. We also examine the role of absorptive capacity for technological catch-up by including variables such as R&D expenditure and foreign ownership in our empirical estimation. We find that the national frontier has a stronger pull on domestic firms than the regional frontier, which is in line with findings by Bartelsman, Haskel and Martin (2008). This result indicates that policies to raise the technology level of national frontier firms are beneficial for all firms in that country.productivity, catch-up, absorptive capacity

An International Comparison of the TFP Levels and the Productivity Convergence of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese Listed Firms

In this paper, we analyzed productivity catching up at the firm level in the Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing sector using the distance from the global technological frontier as a direct measure of the potential for technological frontier. We also examined the role of the absorption capacity for the technological catch-up by including the variables, such as R&D expenditure and foreign ownership in our empirical estimation model. Our main results can be summarized as follows. First, although Japanese firms enjoy the highest average TFP level in many industries, their TFP growth rate has been relatively low during the past two decades. Taiwanese and Korean firms have achieved considerably high TFP growth in certain industries, and the some firms in the industries almost caught up or exceeded the Japanese firms' TFP level. The average TFP level of Chinese firms is still much lower than that of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese firms in many industries. Second, in Korea, the TFP levels of low-performing firms are approaching those of the national frontier firms at a more rapid pace than in other countries. In addition, Korean firms try to catch up the global frontier once they reached to the national frontier level TFP. Chinese firms are very slow in catching up and the only engine of the knowledge creation is firms located in the trade-oriented coast. Third, in the all four countries, the speed of the convergence of the firms far from the national frontier is faster than the firms near the frontier.

Information and Export Decisions: Bank’s Role as a Conduit of Information

This paper examines how firms’ decision to start exporting is affected by the availability of information on export markets. Unlike existing studies which focus on information sharing among firms, we are interested in the information provided by firms’ main bank. Specifically, using a unique dataset containing information on both Japanese firms’ export activities and their main banks’ experience in transacting with other exporting firms, we examine whether main banks act as a conduit of information on export markets. We find that information spillovers through main banks positively affect client firms’ decision to start exporting (extensive margin), implying that information on foreign markets provided by banks substantially reduces the fixed entry cost of exporting. On the other hand, we do not find any evidence that information provided by banks has an effect on the export volume or on the growth rate of exports (intensive margin). Our results highlight that channels of information spillovers other than those examined in the literature so far may be of considerable importance

A study on how to promote students’ global awareness in the English classroom

The purpose of this research is to promote global awareness amongst students and to discover how the effective use of maps, task based learning and oral presentations could improve their understanding of the world and enhance their global awareness, given that considerable concern has been expressed about deficiencies in global awareness among Japanese students. The area of global awareness develops students’ understanding of human societies from a global perspective. The study took place from April to July in 2019 and consisted of a pre-questionnaire and a test on a group of students. This was drawing a map of the world from memory. Then an intense study involving a textbook and students’ own research in various projects and teacher input followed. Towards the end, all students did a presentation on a country they chose. The students were then asked to answer a post-questionnaire and repeat the original evaluation by drawing a world map. This study will deal with an introduction, a literature review, methodology, results, discussion and conclusion

Estimation Procedures and TFP Analysis of the JIP Database 2006 Provisional Version

(Introduction) The purpose of this paper is to explain the preliminary version of the newly compiled Japan Industrial Productivity Database (JIP 2006) and report some results of our growth accounting analysis based on this database. The JIP 2006 contains information on 108 sectors from 1970 to 2002 that can be used for total factor productivity analyses. These sectors cover the whole Japanese economy. The JIP Database was compiled as part of the RIETI (Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry) research project "Study on Industry-Level and Firm-Level Productivity in Japan." The original version of the JIP Database (ESRI/Hi-Stat JIP Database 2003) was compiled in a collaboration between ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan) as part of its research project on "Japan's Potential Growth" and Hitotsubashi University as part of its Hi-Stat project (A 21st-Century COE Program, Research Unit for Statistical Analysis in the Social Sciences). The authors are grateful to ESRI and members of the Hi-Stat team for the support and cooperation provided for our present RIETI project. At this moment, the major data available are sectoral capital service input indices and labor service input indices, including information on real capital stocks and the nominal cost of capital by type of capital and by industry, the nominal and real values of sectoral gross output and intermediate input, as well as some supplementary tables, such as statistics on trade, inward and outward FDI, and Japan's industrial structure. All real values are based on 1995 prices. For growth accounting, nominal labor costs and nominal capital services for 108 industries are also estimated. The sum of these two values for each industry is not adjusted to be equal to the value added of that industry at factor cost base. The final version of the JIP 2006 is scheduled to be released by November, 2006. The final version will include nominal and real annual input-output tables, detailed information on ICT capital services and some additional statistics, such as R&D stocks and capacity utilization rates at the detailed sectoral level. For scholars familiar with the JIP 2003, we here briefly summarize the main differences between and the main similarities of the 2006 and 2003 versions of the JIP. 1. The JIP 2003 is based on the 1968 SNA, while the JIP 2006 is based on the 1993 SNA. The capital stock of the JIP 2006 includes order-made software, plant engineering, and assets accumulated by the search for minerals. The JIP 2003 uses SNA statistics as control totals. Following Japan's present SNA statistics, capital stock in the preliminary version of the JIP 2006 does not include prepackaged and in-house software. However, the final version of the JIP 2006 will include two sets of statistics, one in which capital stock does not include prepackaged and in-house software and one in which it does. 2. In the case of the JIP 2006, labor input data include detailed information on labor input cross-classified by categories of labor. The paper is organized as follows: In the next section, we report the estimation procedures of our annual input-output tables. In Sections 2 and 3, we explain the capital service input data and the labor input data of the JIP 2006, respectively. Finally, in Section 4, we analyze Japan's sectoral and macro TFP growth.

Advance Requests of In-patients and Their Families regarding Medical Intervention Practices at the End of Life

Much emphasis is being placed nowadays on Advance Care Planning（ACP）. Under this circumstance, we report on the “advance-request form” prepared by our hospital, along with some relevant considerations. ［Intended Persons and Method］A total of ５３９ newly admitted patients and their families were asked to sign and submit the “advance-request form,” indicating their preferences on the following three kinds of end-of-life interventional practices:（ １）cardiac massage,（２）endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation, and（３）use of vasopressors. ［Results］Completed questionnaires were returned by ２１５ male and ３２４ female patients（average age :８２．３ years）. Of the responders, ７２（１４％）indicated their desire for all the three of the aforementioned interventions（［１］,［２］, and［３］）,６５（１２％）indicated their desire for only（１）, ４５（８%）indicated their desire for only（１）and（３）, １４（３%）indicated their desire for only（３）, while the remaining３４１（６３%）requested that none of these to be implemented. Of all the patients, ８７（１６％）patients were able to make their own decisions. ［Conclusion］About ３０％ or more patients and their families indicated their desire for some kind of life-sustaining treatment at the end of life. We believe that ACP only prioritizes a patient’s right to self-determination and that the practice of ACP should not lead to withholding of life-sustaining treatment

Amendment of the Japanese Consensus Guidelines for Autoimmune Pancreatitis, 2013 II. Extrapancreatic lesions, differential diagnosis

Published online: 25 March 2014ArticleJOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY. 49(5):765-784 (2014)journal articl

急性期看護学実習における模擬電子カルテを用いた学内実習

報告Reports　本学看護学部における急性期看護学実習は、2021 年８月から９月の新型コロナウイルス感染症（Corona Virus Disease；COVID-19）の感染拡大により学内実習となった。本学内実習は、模擬電子カルテMedi-EYE（Medi-LX）上の患者の看護過程を展開しながら、立案した看護計画を演習において実践し評価することで、周術期看護を学修するものである。学生は、模擬電子カルテに日々追加される情報を基に、患者の回復過程や予測される合併症、必要な看護を具体的に考え、模擬電子カルテの操作や演習などの体験を通し、周術期にある患者に必要な看護を学修できていた。今後は、学生のレディネスや臨床状況を反映した模擬電子カルテの情報整理・演習内容の検討、学修効果の評価が課題である