In Japan, like many other industrialized countries, output volatility declined dramatically in the 1980s. In order to investigate the cause of this decline, we decompose the variance of output growth by frequency. Our important findings are: (1) The total variance of output growth decreased, which resulted from a reduction in the volatility at business-cycle frequencies; (2) At business-cycle frequencies, the variance of production fell by a larger percentage than did the variance of sales; and (3) In stark contrast, at high frequencies, the variance of production increased, while the variance of sales decreased. These features of production at different frequencies cannot be explained by changes in the sales process and cost-shock process. Instead, improved business practices--such as the adoption of the just-in-time technique--played a direct role in stabilizing the business cycles, while increasing output volatility at high frequencies. J. Japanese Int. Economies 23 (1) (2009) 1-19.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.