Subcontracting Structure and Productivity in the Japanese Software Industry

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors determining the productivity of the software industry in Japan, using individual data from the Survey of the State of the Information Service Industry conducted in August 2006 by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan). This paper focuses on the relationship between the subcontracting structure and productivity in the Japanese software industry. Software enterprises are classified as prime contractors, intermediate subcontractors, end-contractors, and independent enterprise. A comparison of their productivity levels reveals that intermediate subcontractors are the least productive. However, it is observed that the intermediate subcontractors possessing a high quality of human resources measured the proportion of employees passing the Information Technology Engineers Examination (ITEE), or the intermediate subcontractors adopting the IT skill standard which defines the skills for IT human resources clearly and systematically, has a high productivity level. It can raise the productivity in software industry as a whole.     

A Microsimulation Model for Projections of Japanese Socioeconomic Structure

The Integrated Analytical Model for Household Simulation (INAHSIM) is a microsimulation model for the Japanese population that was first developed in the 1980s as a tool for household simulation. This study attempted to improve the conventional INAHSIM in order to construct a more comprehensive alternative that incorporates a larger number of social and economic elements. It also overcame the problem for simulation—the lack of kinship relations in the initial population—by imputing parent-child relationships between those parents and children who do not live together. This paper provides an overview of INAHSIM and adds certain details of the imputation that is essential for simulating the life event of “adult children resettling to care for their aged parents.” In addition, I will show the importance of the said life event in Japan by comparing the difference in the family type of elderly people between its future distribution with or without this life event. Finally, I will discuss the future possibilities for research on microsimulation models that will play an important role in policy making.     

张鹏:中国产业园区需要转型到总部经济时代

我觉得中国99%的产业园区是不及格的,虽然现在看来是盈利的,但命运是很短暂的。这就是造成我们产业空心化、经济发展模式转型过程中的障碍。     

Research Note: Analysis of the Characteristics of Victims in Information Security Incident Damages: The Case of Japanese Internet Users

In this article, the authors investigate the attributes of victims in information security incident damages for the purpose of reducing the damages. The Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan, in 2010, conducted an Internet survey targeted to Japanese Internet home users entitled, “Survey of awareness toward information security incidents” that is used in this article. Using micro data collected from this survey, they employed multinomial logit regression analysis to show factors affecting the user’s experience of the incidents of damage through particular incidents. They concluded that the overconfidence regarding information security knowledge increased the probability for phishing and spoofing.     

钱小军:企业履行社会责任是全球化时代的必然趋势

让企业社会责任与企业的商业模式相结合,让企业承担社会责任成为企业创造价值和可持续发展最有力和有效的路径。     

Technological Progress and the Wage Growth of Older Japanese Workers

Declining birth and mortality rates are leading to population aging throughout the OECD countries. This paper examines one possible consequence for national productivity – we ask: Are older workers able to take advantage of new technologies as effectively as their younger counterparts? Using Japanese data for 1973-2000, we find that if we ignore job tenure, workers beyond the age of 50 do not seem as able to benefit from total factor productivity growth as their younger colleagues. However, Japanese workers past age 50 move to lesser paying positions more frequently than is common elsewhere, and we believe that the complete answer to our question depends upon whether an inability to keep up with new technologies induces late-in-career job changes or whether the changes follow, in practice, from other factors.     

“科学视角主义”是新经济的新视角

到明年,我创办的“长城所”就有20年了。我是研究自然科学和哲学出身,别人下海,尤其做咨询,靠的是经济学的功夫,我觉得我是靠物理学的直指本原和科学哲学的方法论。下海以后,我经常提起的科学哲学家有波普尔、库恩和费耶阿本德。我用波普尔的思想更多地用于新经济,重点用于创业。我认为,创业就是一种试错。新经济之所以有生命力就在于创业被提到了新的高度。     

自主创新全球化新阶段：全球链接与创新地图

中国与世界建立全球链接,核心是中国的高新区与全球建立链接,重点是高新区的产业集群和高技术企业与全球建立链接,建立全球链接的关键是人脉网络。     

中关村软件园信用园区建设 助力科技金融服务创新

目前,中关村软件园已有65家企业使用信用评价报告,获得总额逾1.3亿元的融资。此外,借助信用园区建设,把园区信用叠加到企业信用上,帮助企业实现＂信用倍增＂效果,放大信用价值。     

2011年：中外经济五大悬念

今年中国经济可能不是最困难的一年,可能也不是最复杂的一年,但也是不轻松的一年。     

A Conjoint Analysis of Demand for the Japanese Mobile Phone Market

The Japanese mobile phone market is 55.8% of the total market in the telecommunications industry. This paper is a conjoint analysis on Japanese consumer preferences for Japanese mobile phones. The analysis in this paper is presented after a questionnaire survey was given to 3,412 Japanese mobile phone users over 15 years old. The results of this analysis show that a decline in the price of mobile phone sets, an increase in transmission speed, the application of family discounts, and the continuation of contracts with the same telecommunication companies, all raise demand for mobile networks. In addition, the author found that user groups of NTT DOCOMO, au (KDDI), Softbank, and MVNO have different utility functions. According to the estimation of Mean Willingness to Pay (MWTP) in this paper, suppliers of mobile phone networks may be able to optimize and maximize demand by adjusting attributions and their levels.     

产业集群:打破移动互联营收尴尬

到2015年,中关村移动互联网产业有望实现5000亿元的产业总收入,打破中国移动互联网叫好不叫座的尴尬。     

海淀北部：将推动四个创新型产业集群发展

海淀北部地区,区位优势明显,同时具有广阔的发展空间和良好的生态环境,是建设科技园区、推动战略性新兴产业集群式发展的理想之地。     

An Advertising Strategy Using Consumption Externality and Forgetting in the Case of Japanese Electronic Books

We construct a two-period model in which a consumer recognizes the existence of goods after advertised by firms, and total sales of the first period affect the utility of each consumer’s purchase in the second period, indicating a consumption externality. Some consumers see advertisements in the first period and remember the product, whereas some forget the product in the second period. We show that the advertising volume changes given the differences in the forgetting rate. In particular, we apply our method to the data on Japan’s electronic books obtained through a conjoint analysis survey to clarify that a better strategy is to sell a product to a small number of people at a low price or to lower the price to a certain level during the early period, and then to sell the product to a specific consumer segment at a higher price after reflecting the externality.     

Investment Literacy and Individual Investor Biases: Survey Evidence in the Japanese Stock Market

In this paper, we analyzed the results of our survey on Japanese stock investor’s asset risk management and empirically examined the effect of their investment literacy on their decision-making biases. This paper revealed that the higher the investors’ investment literacy, the lower their overconfidence bias. This suggests that high investment literacy can prevent investors from being influenced by an overconfidence bias and consequently making biased decisions in investment. Therefore, efforts to improve investors’ investment literacy by enhancing social systems such as investment education could be beneficial in guiding investors to make unbiased investment decisions.     

新经济、新科技、新文化的践行者——读张亚勤博士《变革中的思索》

＂夫英雄者,胸怀大志,腹有良谋,有包藏宇宙之机,吞吐天地之志。＂这是张亚勤博士贴在新浪微博中的＂座右铭＂。在人们的视野中,张亚勤是＂神童＂、＂天才＂、＂精英＂、＂知识英雄”……可是当我们认真地拜读完他的心灵之作《变革中的思索》之后,恍然大悟,更加通透：张亚勤博士是“新经济、新科技、新文化”的思索者和践行者。     

Contributions of Econometrics to Public Policy Analysis in the Information Age

In this paper we model U.S. economic growth over the next 25 years. Despite the anticipated aging of the population, moderate population growth will provide growing supplies of labor well into the 21st century. Improvements in labor quality due to education and experience will also continue for some time, but will eventually disappear. Productivity growth for the U.S. economy will be below long-term historical averages, but labor-using technical change will be a stimulus for growth of labor demand. Year-to-year changes in economic activity will be primarily the consequence of capital accumulation. However, the driving forces of economic growth over the long term will be demography and technology. This is a revised version of the keynote speech that I delivered on 16 January 2009 at the 6th International Conference of Socionetwork Strategies, at Kansai University, Japan.     

The Substitution Effect of Mobile Games on Console Games: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Video Game Industry

In this paper, we discuss the substitution effects between mobile games and console games. We estimate such effects by a fixed-effect regression with instrumental variables using panel data of about 100,000 observations. The results showed that the substitution effects of playing smart devices on 3DS, Wii, and PSP were recognizable, but did not have significant effects on PS3, and the substitution effects on PSP were very small. Therefore, mobile games had a substitution effect on casual console games, or on console games in which the play situation resembled mobile games. In addition, the substitution effects were at most about 0.1. The substitution effects were small. Our results indicate that mobile games represent the pioneers in the new market of gaming at least during our observation period. But new games and traditional games will coexist for a while.     

The Effect of Information Communication Technology and Corporate Organizational Reforms on Productivity in Japan: Firm- level Evidence

Our main objective in this paper is to understand how Japanese firms can increase productivity by utilizing Information and Communication Technology (ICT). E-commerce, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), and SCM (Supply Chain Management) are popular in Japan, so a new type of ICT might offer an opportunity for Japanese firms to change current business relations or to start up new ones. The novelty of this paper is in its empirical study of the combination of ICT promotion and a variety of business organizational changes needed to discover which type of business organizational change is suitable for raising productivity in Japan. For workplace organization within firms, we discuss the decentralization or centralization of decision-making power and the flattening of the corporate hierarchy. For business relational changes, we discuss the outsourcing of the business process and the start up of new business relations. Our main result is that in general, the promotion of ICT has better effects in reforms related to changes in business relations among business partners, rather than to reforms within a firm. Starting up new business relations that require planning and R&D show the best chances of raising productivity using ICT promotion.