Journal of the Japanese and International Economies
Опубликовано на портале: 30-01-2003
Masahiro Abe, Souichi Ohta
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
2001.
Vol. 15.
No. 4.
P. 437-464.
Throughout the 1990s, and particularly in the mid- to late-1990s, the Japanese employment
situation went from bad to worse. We investigate the causes of rising unemployment
in Japan, using data on individual workers from the Special Survey of the Labor Force
between 1988 and 1999. This research focuses on the effect of labor market segmentation
by industry on labor flows. Our findings reveal that unemployment in the construction
industry and, more recently, in the service industry has contributed greatly to the
national unemployment rate. We also find that most successful job transfers occur
within the same industry, even though workers may experience some periods of unemployment.
Finally, our results show that labor market conditions in each industry affect the
probability that a worker will fall into unemployment as well as the probability
that an unemployed worker will find new employment. These findings suggest that the
Japanese labor market is segmented by industry and this segmentation contributed
to the worsening unemployment in Japan.


Опубликовано на портале: 24-12-2003
Nagaoka Sadao, Kumura Fukunari
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
1999.
No. 13.
P. 397-423 .
This paper analyzes the competitive impact of the recent import liberalization of
the Japanese oil product market. In response to the import liberalization in March
1996, not only did the market price of gasoline decline sharply but also its domestic
production kept rising and did not decline relative to imports. Moreover, its price
fell substantially before the actual liberalization of the import. This paper demonstrates
both theoretically and empirically that the theory of implicit cartel can explain
such features of the impact of import liberalization very well. The paper also identifies
the significantly positive welfare impact of such liberalization due to the expansion
of supply in a market with a large tax wedge between price and cost and, possibly
more importantly, due to the transformation of competitive conduct from unproductive
investment for cartel-rent shifting into price cuts.


Опубликовано на портале: 05-01-2003
John M. Abowd
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
2001.
Vol. 15.
No. 4.
P. 419-436.
Using individual data on compensation, matched with establishment and firm data on
performance and inputs, authors compare the French and American pay systems. The
compensation measures are decomposed into components related to measured individual
characteristics, establishment enterprise effects, and a residual.

Опубликовано на портале: 30-01-2003
Yuji Genda, Masako Kurosawa
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
2001.
Vol. 15.
No. 4.
P. 465-488.
Using retrospective data of young people's work experience in Japan, this paper found
that initial labor market conditions, i.e., when workers first enter the labor market
after permanently leaving school, have a significant lasting impact on the employment
experiences of workers in their teens and twenties. An increase in the unemployment
rate at the time of labor market entry reduces the probability of gaining full-time
regular employment and, more important, increases the future probability of workers
of leaving employers by lowering the quality of job matches. It was also found that
the vocational guidance or recommendations workers received at school could be effective
in raising the quality of job matches. The adverse effect of initial unemployment
rates on employment opportunities was most profoundly observed among female college
graduates.


Опубликовано на портале: 24-01-2004
Michele Belot, Jan C. van Ours
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
2001.
Vol. 15.
No. 4.
P. 403-418.
The development of the unemployment rate differs substantially between OECD countries.
In this paper we investigate to what extent these differences are related to labor
market institutions. In our analysis we use data of eighteen OECD countries over
the period 1960-1994 and show that the way in which institutions interact is important.


Опубликовано на портале: 11-01-2003
David G. Blanchflower
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.
2001.
Vol. 15.
No. 4.
P. 364-402.
The paper studies the labor markets of 23 transition countries from eastern and central
EuropeAlbania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, East Germany,
Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania Macedonia, Moldova,
Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. It uses new
micro-data from a large number of surveys on over 200,000 randomly sampled individuals
from these countries for the years 19901997. The microeconometric structure of unemployment
regression equations in the nations of eastern Europe appears to be similar to the
industrialised west. Estimation of east European wage curves produces a local unemployment
elasticity of between 0.1 and 0.3. This is somewhat larger in absolute terms than
has been found elsewhere. On a variety of attitudinal measures, eastern Europeans
said they were less contented than their western European counterparts. The strongest
support for the changes that have occurred in eastern Europe is to be found among
men, the young, the most educated, students, and the employed and particularly the
self-employed. Support for market reforms is particularly low amongst the unemployed
who were found to be particularly unhappy on two well-being measures

