IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osp/wpaper/13e005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

It's Not Structural Change, but Domestic Demand: Productivity Growth in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Akira Kohsaka

    (Professor, School of International Studies, Kwansei Gakuin University)

  • Jun-ichi Shinkai

    (Specially Appointed Researcher, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of structural change in productivity growth in Japan, focusing on her recent "lost decades", with reference to the United States. Japan is now known to have a sharp slowdown in productivity growth in the 1990s, when we find a slowdown in intra-industry productivity growth is the main cause. We also find that the contribution of inter-industry reallocation of employment is almost zero in the 1990s and even significantly negative in the 2000s. Interestingly, the same holds true in the US, too. We will argue that structural change or the lack of it may not be responsible for the lost decades in Japan, and that these contrasting outcomes between Japan and the US come from a common factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Akira Kohsaka & Jun-ichi Shinkai, 2013. "It's Not Structural Change, but Domestic Demand: Productivity Growth in Japan," OSIPP Discussion Paper 13E005, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    • Handle: RePEc:osp:wpaper:13e005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.osipp.osaka-u.ac.jp/archives/DP/2013/DP2013E005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "Does the "New Economy" Measure Up to the Great Inventions of the Past?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 49-74, Fall.
    2. Kyoji Fukao & Tsutomu Miyagawa & Hak Kil Pyo & Keun Hee Rhee, 2012. "Estimates of Total Factor Productivity, the Contribution of ICT, and Resource Reallocation Effects in Japan and Korea," Chapters, in: Matilde Mas & Robert Stehrer (ed.), Industrial Productivity in Europe, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Kyoji Fukao & Hyeog Ug Kwon, 2006. "Why Did Japan'S Tfp Growth Slow Down In The Lost Decade? An Empirical Analysis Based On Firm‐Level Data Of Manufacturing Firms," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 57(2), pages 195-228, June.
    4. Margaret S. McMillan & Dani Rodrik, 2011. "Globalization, Structural Change and Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 17143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Fumio Hayashi & Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "The 1990s in Japan: a lost decade," Chapters, in: Paolo Onofri (ed.), The Economics of an Ageing Population, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Dale Jorgenson & Koji Nomura, 2007. "The Industry Origins of the US-Japan Productivity Gap," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 315-341.
    7. Fumio Hayashi & Edward C. Prescott, 2002. "The 1990s in Japan: A Lost Decade," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(1), pages 206-235, January.
    8. Matilde Mas & Robert Stehrer (ed.), 2012. "Industrial Productivity in Europe," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14369.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Akira Kohsaka & Jun-ichi Shinkai, 2018. "Industrial Convergence in East Asia," OSIPP Discussion Paper 18E009, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kyoji Fukao & YoungGak Kim & HyeogUg Kwon, 2021. "The Causes of Japan’s Economic Slowdown: An Analysis Based on the Japan Industrial Productivity Database," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 40, pages 56-88, Spring.
    2. Kyoji Fukao, 2013. "Explaining Japan's Unproductive Two Decades," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 8(2), pages 193-213, December.
    3. Betts, Caroline, 2021. "Accounting for Japan's Lost Score," MPRA Paper 109285, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Otsu, Keisuke & Saito, Masashi, 2013. "Organizational dynamics and aggregate fluctuations: The role of financial relationships," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 3044-3058.
    5. Kazuo Ueda, 2012. "Deleveraging and Monetary Policy: Japan since the 1990s and the United States since 2007," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 177-202, Summer.
    6. Betts, Caroline, 2021. "How many (more) lost decades? The great productivity slowdown in Japan," MPRA Paper 106503, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Ichiro Muto & Nao Sudo & Shunichi Yoneyama, "undated". "Productivity Slowdown in Japan's Lost Decades: How Much of It Can Be Attributed to Damaged Balance Sheets?," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 16-E-3, Bank of Japan.
    8. Yosuke Okada, 2005. "Competition and Productivity in Japanese Manufacturing Industries," NBER Working Papers 11540, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Masami Imai & Jonah Wolfson & Binghui Zheng, 2017. "Japan's Lost Decade: Did Decline in Innovation Lead to Loss of Competitiveness in Japanese Industries?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(2), pages 1318-1326.
    10. FUKAO Kyoji & IKEUCHI Kenta & KWON Hyeog Ug & YoungGak KIM & MAKINO Tatsuji & TAKIZAWA Miho, 2015. "Lessons from Japan's Secular Stagnation," Discussion papers 15124, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Pablo Agnese, 2013. "Offshoring and productivity revisited: A Time-Series Analysis [Zur Debatte um Offshoring und Produktivität: Eine Zeitreihenanalyse]," Duesseldorf Working Papers in Applied Management and Economics 23, Duesseldorf University of Applied Sciences.
    12. Agnese, Pablo, 2009. "Japan and her dealings with offshoring: An empirical analysis with aggregate data," MPRA Paper 16505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Kyoji Fukao & Victoria Kravtsova & Kentaro Nakajima, 2014. "How important is geographical agglomeration to factory efficiency in Japan’s manufacturing sector?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 52(3), pages 659-696, May.
    14. Agnese, Pablo & Sala, Hector, 2009. "The fading 1990s in Japan: Driving forces behind the unemployment upsurge," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 428-439, June.
    15. ADACHI Yusuke & OGAWA Hikaru & TSUBUKU Masafumi, 2019. "Productivity Dynamics during Major Crises in Japan: A Quantile Approach," Discussion papers 19015, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    16. Kazuo Ueda, 2011. "Japan's Deleveraging since the 1990s and the Bank of Japan's Monetary Policy: Some Comparisons with the U.S. Experience since 2007," CARF F-Series CARF-F-259, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    17. Nicholas Oulton, 2013. "Medium and long run prospects for UK growth in the aftermath of the financial crisis," Discussion Papers 1307, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    18. Okada, Yosuke, 2005. "Competition and productivity in Japanese manufacturing industries," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 586-616, December.
    19. KIYOTA Kozo, 2010. "Productivity, Markup, Scale Economies, and the Business Cycle: Estimates from firm-level panel data in Japan," Discussion papers 10040, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    20. Edge, Rochelle M. & Laubach, Thomas & Williams, John C., 2007. "Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2421-2438, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Japan's lost decades; productivity growth; structural change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osp:wpaper:13e005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akiko Murashita (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iposujp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.