The Effects of M&A on Corporate Performance in Japan:DID Analysis in the Era of Corporate Governance Reform

This study analyzes how mergers and acquisitions (M&A) affect the performance of acquired companies in Japan. The sample period includes the era in which the government of Japan promoted a series of corporate governance reforms. A difference-in-differences analysis is implemented to eliminate the endogenous effects of a corporate acquisition. Choosing a control group by propensity score matching, we find that acquisitions have significantly negative effects on employment but no significant effects on labor productivity. For acquisitions by Japanese companies, we also find no significant improvement in ROA but significant improvement in Tobin’s q. The results are consistent with the zombie company theory, which indicates that an M&A prolongs the life of an insolvent company. Acquisitions by Japanese companies are in contrast with those by foreign companies, which have positive effects on ROA.     

Analyst coverage and lawsuit risk

In this study, we use a unique, hand-collected dataset of employee lawsuits and study the impact of analyst coverage on labour relations. We find that an increase in analyst coverage lowers the work-related litigations. In addition, we show that an increased number of analysts lowers the litigation cost, measured by settlement fees and attorney fees. Our results suggest analysts have an important impact on employee relations. Our research enriches the literature on employment practices and analyst coverage.     

New evidence on the historical growth of government in Europe: The role of labor costs

We document a robust positive correlation between the size of government and the labor share of income in data from European countries covering the period 1869–1975. Following Facchini et al. (2017), we interpret this correlation as evidence that labor costs drive public spending. The long-term increase in the labor share observed over this period explains half of the overall growth of central government. The relationship holds when the labor share is instrumented with movements in technological change at the frontier. When decomposing public spending, transfers, not intensive in labor, are the only component not associated with the labor share.     

Multiple job holding as a strategy for skills development

This study investigated the training effect of multiple job holding on the activity of main jobs. First, we developed a dual-labor supply model by adding the training effect of working second jobs. The theory showed that workers with unconstrained hours hold second jobs when they develop skills via the experience of second jobs. To verify the hypotheses from the theoretical model, the causal relationship between holding a second job and the wage rate of a main job was estimated using the Keio Household Panel Survey. Difference generalized method of moments was adopted to remove time-invariant individual effects and endogenous bias. Moreover, the estimations showed heterogeneity of main jobs in terms of length of working hours, tasks, and job turnover. Full-time workers engaged in intelligent tasks and those who did not change their jobs secured training effects from second jobs but only when the comparison group was the workers allowed to hold second jobs by their employers. It was presumed that employers paid to restrict employees’ activities. On the contrary, part-time workers engaged in physical tasks were exhausted by second jobs, which decreased the wage rate of their main jobs.     

城市群产业结构与分工的测度研究——以辽中南城市群为例

城市群产业结构分工及状况如何会必然直接影响其发育程度及其国际竞争力,因此科学合理测度城市群产业结构与分工程度,具有十分重要的实践意义。运用区位熵灰色关联分析方法研究辽中南城市群2009年产业结构与分工状态,得出结论:①宏观层次上,辽中南城市群产业结构总体相似程度较高,产业结构地域分工不明确;②中观层次上,城市群各城市产业结构趋同现象虽然明显,但产业的地域分工已经开始显现;③不同产业与辽中南城市群的相似程度不同。通过上述研究,以期在实践上为辽中南城市群的产业结构调整提供参考意见。     

Fertility, female labor force participation, and the demographic dividend

We estimate the effect of fertility on female labor force participation in a panel of countries using abortion legislation as an instrument for fertility. We find that removing legal restrictions on abortion significantly reduces fertility and estimate that, on average, a birth reduces a woman’s labor supply by almost 2 years during her reproductive life. Our results imply that behavioral change, in the form of increased female labor supply, contributes significantly to economic growth during the demographic transition when fertility declines.      

Does pay affect productivity or react to it?: Examination of U.S. manufacturing

There may be a bi-directional relationship between wages and labor productivity. According to conventional theory, employers reward improvements in productivity by raising pay. It also has been argued that wage increases can provide an incentive to improve productivity. This study applies a technique by Geweke to identify the feedback between pay and productivity in U.S. manufacturing. For the 1949–1998 period, measures of directional feedback indicate that both “pay as reward” and “pay as incentive” behaviors have occurred, but the results vary across manufacturing subsectors.     

Social Security and Old Age Unemployment Risk with Efficient Wage Bargaining

I analyze a life‐cycle economy with old age productivity risk where wages, employment, and severance payments are set through efficient bargaining between risk averse unions and risk neutral firms. Allocations with limited union membership are second‐best inefficient as they generate too little labor supply in young age, too much consumption before retirement, too little employment of older workers (early retirement), and too little insurance against old age unemployment. Providing public transfers to early retirees (disability benefits or early pensions) might help to increase the degree of risk sharing at the cost of lower old age employment. Depending on whether absolute risk aversion is increasing or decreasing in consumption, these policies might or might not produce efficiency gains at equilibrium.     

企业区位决策、劳动力流动与集聚经济——基于外部性的一个初步思考

中国劳动力的流动是中国经济社会转型过程的产物,对不断变化中的劳动力流动持续进行观察与研究,具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。经济集聚是货币外部性和技术外部性共同作用的结果。劳动力流动通过本地市场放大效应、循环累积效应影响货币外部性,并通过加快技术传播速度、提高经济个体匹配成功率影响技术外部性;以外部性为纽带,劳动力流动最终影响到了企业区位决策,从而实现经济活动的集聚。     

液晶电视动态LED背光源技术及其应用

目前LED的电光效率还不够高,亮度固定的LED背光源影响到显示图像的画质不能进一步提高,而且耗能发热而影响产品可靠性。本文研究的基于FPGA技术的分区动态控制LED背光源技术,其动态对比度特性明显的提高了液晶图像画质,大大的降低了液晶显示器(电视机)的实际使用功率,为提高画质和节能做出进一步的贡献。