Banks and Corporate Control in Japan

Using a large sample of Japanese firm level data, we find that Japanese banks act primarily in the short term interests of creditors when dealing with firms outside bank groups. Corporate control mechanisms other than bank oversight appear necessary in these firms. When dealing with firms in bank groups, banks may act in the broader interests of a range of stakeholders, including shareholders. However, our findings are also consistent with banks "propping up" troubled bank group firms. We conclude that bank oversight need not lead to value maximizing corporate governance.     

PRINTEPS: An Integrated Intelligent Application Development Platform based on Stream Reasoning and ROS

Although AI and service robot applications have become very popular in many domains recently, many of them are specific applications and it is still difficult to develop integrated intelligent applications such as a robot teahouse and teaching assistant robots. To develop such integrated intelligent applications, we need integrated intelligent application platforms that have AI integration and agile process facilities. From the above background, we are currently developing PRactical INTElligent aPplicationS (PRINTEPS), which is a platform for developing integrated intelligent applications by combining only five types of modules, namely knowledge-based reasoning, spoken dialogue, image sensing, motion management, and machine learning. This paper proposes a workflow editor in PRINETPS based on a service-oriented architecture and a Robot Operating System that enables real-time parallel processing for multiple robots and sensors by integrating the five types of modules. The editor also supports not only developers but also domain experts in updating workflows frequently. This paper also proposes a novel method to integrate signals acquired through image sensing with knowledge (ontologies and business rules) using C-SPARQL and Semantic Web Rule Language. To evaluate PRINTEPS, we developed a robot teahouse application including customer reception and guidance to table services using a humanoid robot with PRINTEPS. Through this case study, we demonstrated that the behaviors of the robot can be modified by changing the workflow, the ontology, and the rules.     

Technological Constraints,Firm Heterogeneity,and Location Choice of Multinational Enterprises

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the location choices of multinational enterprises and their productivity considering the North–South differences in regard to technological constraints. We find that home firms with the highest level of productivity choose to undertake foreign direct investment (FDI) in the developed countries and they choose to export to, rather than do FDI in, developing countries. This result explains why not many high tech industries exist in developing countries. Using Japanese firm level data, we also confirm that Japanese high tech firms tend to undertake FDI in developed countries, but hesitate to invest in developing countries empirically.     

A Model of Welfare Enhancing Capital Imports

This paper proposes a model of welfare enhancing capital imports in a multi‐dimensional framework. Contrary to the pessimistic conventional wisdom of capital imports and welfare, a justification is provided for the acceptance of foreign capital in developing countries.     

Japanese episodic long swings in economic growth

Prior to World War II Japanese economic growth was characterised by episodic ‘long swings,’ low frequency fluctuations in economic growth averaging about 20-25 years in duration. At the aggregate level, these inter-period growth variations dominated both shorter-term fluctuations and longer-term trend acceleration. The paper describes the long swings of the Japanese economy and re-evaluates conventional explanations.     

Human resource management in Asian subsidiaries: comparison of French and Japanese MNCs

European and Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) have expanded their activities in Asia, usually through massive mobilization of various human resources from head offices, whether expatriated or on short-term assignments, and a reliance on diverse categories of local employees. Because expatriation is costly, difficult and often limited in its results, MNCs have developed localization strategies for management positions to support their regional development. This contribution addresses such a scenario by comparing Japanese and French MNCs in eight Asian countries, based on 53 interviews across subsidiaries of 17 MNCs. We find that Japanese MNCs have not localized management positions as much as French MNCs, but they have grown more willing to do so. To compensate for the lack of local capabilities without sending more expatriates, both French and Japanese MNCs frequently send experts on short-term assignments. Finally, though human resource practices vary widely across countries, even for a given MNC, some harmonizing principles have been introduced to regional HRM strategies recently.