Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Productivity in Japanese Manufacturing Firms

By using a large new enterprise-level data set, and evidence drawn from case studies, we show that Japanese employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are a pervasive and neglected institution. In 1988, more than 90% of all firms listed on Japanese stock markets had an ESOP, and close to 50% of the labour force in firms with ESOPs participated in the plan. Micro data and a production function framework are used to examine the effects on business performance of ESOPs. On average, the net effect of introducing an ESOP is to increase productivity by almost 7%.     

Optimal age‐dependent income taxation in a dynamic extensive model: The case for negative participation tax on young people

We consider optimal age‐dependent income taxation in a dynamic model where the labor‐leisure choice is the extensive margin, each household faces idiosyncratic shocks to labor productivity and a pecuniary cost to work, and there is no insurance market against the shocks. We show that the well‐known property of the optimal participation tax rate in the static model continues to hold in our dynamic economy, that is, the participation tax rates for some income groups with low consumption are likely negative. In dynamic models, the optimal participation tax rate depends on age and on labor income. Our numerical simulations suggest that a negative participation tax should be restricted to young households.     

A review and comparison of medical expenditures models: two neural networks versus two‐part models

This paper compares the two‐part model (TPM) that distinguishes between users and non‐users of health care, with two neural networks (TNN) that distinguish users by frequency. In the model comparisons using data from the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) in Taiwan, we find strong evidence in favor of the neural networks approach. This paper shows that the individuals in the self‐organizing map (SOM) network clusters can be described as several different forms of frequency distributions. The integration model of SOM and back propagation network (BPN) proposed by this paper not only permits policymakers to easily include more risk adjusters besides the demographics in the traditional capitation formula through the adaptation and calculation power of neural networks, but also reduces the incentives for cream skimming by decreasing estimation biases.     

What characterizes Chinese consumer behavior? A cross-industry analysis of the Chinese diaspora in Japan

In order to profit from China??s enormous business opportunities, international firms need to know Chinese consumer preferences. To learn more about intrinsic Chinese consumer preferences and their distinction from other Asian consumer preferences, this study analyzes differences in the formation of customer satisfaction, repurchase intent, and word-of-mouth intent between Chinese-born and locally born consumers in Japan. Verifying culture-based hypotheses, cross-industry analyses show that Chinese-born consumers pay less attention to the public brand image and risk-related switching costs, but more attention to quality expectations, perceived value, experienced usefulness, and financial switching costs than Japanese consumers. Marketing strategies should account for these preference structures.     

A REFUTATION OF THE COMMODITY EXPLOITATION THEOREM

This note is to show that the generalized commodity exploitation theorem put forward by Bowles and Gintis and Roemer is nothing but an alternative form of the Hawkins–Simon condition for given technical data, and that it has nothing to do with exploitation. That is, the Hawkins–Simon condition means a mere possibility of an economic system to produce a surplus in each commodity, and as such does not guarantee the existence of positive profits. To consider exploitation or the existence of positive profits, we need to introduce prices at which unequal exchanges may be carried out.     

A NON‐SUBSTITUTION THEOREM WITH NON‐CONSTANT RETURNS TO SCALE AND EXTERNALITIES

An input–output model with non‐constant returns to scale and externalities is presented, and it is shown that in this model the non‐substitution theorem is still valid. More precisely, the quantity side of the theorem, i.e. the proposition on efficiency, remains valid, while there can be no equilibrium prices independent of final demand.     

Growth and the Subsectoral Pattern of the Manufacturing Sector in Indonesia - A Comparative Study of 16 Countries

There is a widely held and optimistic view that, based upon the successful implementation of the product-cycle theory and the technological ladder hypothesis, ASEAN countries, the so-called Asian near NICs, will follow the Asian NICs up the ladder and take off as the second tier of NICs in the near future. To realise this ambition, each of the near NICs needs to successfully achieve two take-offs: first, rapid quantitative expansion based upon existing comparative advantage and, second, the successful transformation of their industrial structures to create dynamic comparative advantages. The Indonesian manufacturing sector recorded an average growth rate of 12% in 1980-90, but the accompanying structural changes were not great. The ‘rapid growth’but ‘modest structural change’of the Indonesian manufacturing sector raises the important problem of cultivating new leading sectors in the future. Usually the machinery subsector plays a big role in other ASEAN and NIES economies, but it still needs more momentum for development in Indonesia. This implies a strong need for the institutional and physical infrastructures, and supporting industries for the machinery subsector, as well as further diversification of the industrial structure. The purpose of this paper is to describe the features of industrialization in Indonesia in the 1980s, to measure the capacity of the transformation of the Indonesian manufacturing sector, and to discuss some policy issues related to furthering industrialization in the future. Section I contains some introductory remarks. In Section II, we implement the comparative analysis based upon two aggregate indicators. In Section III, we further analyse the structural changes at a more disaggregate level of 16 subsectors. In Section IV we concentrate on the machinery subsector, and analyse the growth potential and the necessary industrial policy in the medium or long run. In Section V we analyse the possible long-run development of a specialization pattern in the Indonesia manufacturing sector. We present the summary and conclusions with some relevant policy discussions in Section VI.