Noisy selection model and the evolution of firm size and within-firm earnings distributions: a unified approach

Striking parallels observed in the evolution of firm size and within-firm earnings distributions over time are documented. At the time of entry, the distribution of the whole sample and that of eventual survivors look similar, but the distribution of survivors subsequently shifts to the right. The left tails thins out while the right tail thickens, and the variance increases. While separate theories in industrial organization and labor literature are offered to account for this evidence, we demonstrate that it can be explained in a unified framework presented by noisy selection. In particular, we show explicitly that noisy selection implies the shift of the conditional distribution to the right because less efficient workers (firms) face higher hazard rates before their true efficiency is revealed with certainty.     

Technology Choice,Overtaking, and Comparative Advantage*

This paper argues that the basic concept of comparative advantage, used in international trade theory to establish choices of commodities exported, can also be used to explain choice of technology by a firm. A firm with a current leading position in a given technology may spurn a new technology, which is developed by a currently lagging firm, leading to future overtaking.     

Replicability of Experimental Data and Credibility of Economic Theory

Finding a data set that supports a theory is not enough for the theory to gain credibility. Credibility of a theory is established only after the initial supporting finding can be replicated by a number of follow‐up studies. Economics so far has paid little attention to replicability, presumably because the profession has been overly pessimistic about obtaining a high degree of replicability of non‐trivial theoretical predictions. By using a large data set I have collected that involves more than 4,000 subjects, I show that there is hope for economic theory to gain credibility by means of replications of laboratory data.     

THE ECONOMIC EFFECT OF HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS FOR THE U.K., GERMANY AND JAPAN

This paper attempts to estimate the marginal productivity of highway construction in the U.K., Germany and Japan during the 15 years following the first oil crisis. In addition, highway-improvement policy in Japan is evaluated using a simple macro-economic regression model. The following conclusions were obtained: in every country the marginal productivity of highway construction decreased over the period 1975-85, with the decrease most pronounced in Japan; subsequently, it increased slowly in the U.K. and Germany, with Japan leveling off though still having the highest value among the three countries; the U.K. maintained a high level of highway productivity largely as a result of a high degree of utilization. There is scope in Japan for attaining a higher level (approximately equal to that of the late 1970s) if the extent of highway utilization can be maintained by additional construction. This implies that future highway-construction policy should be of efficiency-seeking nature.     

Monopolistic Competition, Increasing Returns and International Coordination of Entry Policy

This paper presents a new model of monopolistic competition in which firms produce differentiated products under decreasing costs. This model is used to confirm and illustrate the limitations of the excess entry hypothesis, well known in the literature on industrial organization. The validity of the theorem is limited in the sense that it fails to hold in the present model if the properly defined degree of love for variety is sufficiently large. The model is extended to allow for intraindustry trade and to examine the conditions for gains (or losses) from trade in a two-country framework. It is shown how the degree of love for variety affects them. The significance and nature of international coordination of competition policy in the present setting is considered. The degree of love for variety is again shown to be of crucial importance in the characterization of the optimal policy coordination.     

The effects of Bank of Japan’s liquidity provision on the year-end premium

The premium on interbank money market rates arises over year-end periods as a result of the Japanese business practice of periodic settlement. This paper examines to what extent the Bank of Japan’s liquidity provision reduced the year-end premium in Japan. We find that the funds-supplying operations over the year-end and the fiscal year-end of 2008 had the largest effects during the period from 2006 to 2008, reflecting the fact that the Bank of Japan significantly expanded liquidity provision in response to the decrease in market liquidity under the financial turmoil.     

ENTRY AND EXIT OF FIRMS AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT EQUILIBRIUM

This paper extends the standard Keynesian model of aggregate demand and supply allowing for imperfect competition, variable returns to scale, and entry and exit of firms. It distinguishes three phases of macroeconomic equilibria, stagnant, expansive and contractive, according to whether the number of firms is fixed or endogenously determined by the position of the aggregate demand curve. Using this model we show that a large shift in the aggregate demand affects the structure of the economy irreversibly and that the real wage or labor productivity may move procyclically rather than anticyclically. We also elucidate the asymmetric effects of fiscal and monetary policies on the entry of firms and employment.