Tomohiko Inui

Using both firm-level and city-level data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics and unique information on investment promotion agencies (IPA) in China, the present paper evaluates whether IPA affect foreign direct investment (FDI) from the perspective of both intensive and extensive margins; that is, re-investment by incumbent foreign-owned firms and total new FDI inflows into the city, respectively. After controlling for potential determinants of FDI and correcting for biases due to endogeneity, we find that, in general, IPA do not necessarily increase FDI in either case. However, IPA are found to promote re-investment by large foreign-owned firms. The results imply difficulty in the dissemination of information about the business environment to foreign investors.

This paper examines the determinants of firm survival in export markets by explicitly taking into account the impact of firms' previous export market experience and their product differentiation. Utilizing a 16-year panel data set for Japanese manufacturing firms, we employ panel probit estimation to examine the likelihood of exit from export markets. The results of our estimations show, first, that the exit probability from export markets decreased over the export duration. Second, the probability of exiting from export markets tended to be lower when firms were more R&D intensive both prior to and after starting exporting. The first result implies that exporting experience plays an important role in firms' survival in export markets. Our second result implies that firms producing differentiated products likely have a greater incentive to make upfront investments to start exporting, and these investments, in turn, enable such firms to survive in export markets for a longer period.

The objective of this article is to measure the causal effect of education on earnings using a large dataset of twins compiled in Japan with wide-ranging socioeconomic information. Recent research conducted in China showed that, contrary to the case in Western countries, ability bias is large in estimating the return to education. It is argued that the low rate of return in China is in part due to the competitive and exam-oriented education system, which is similar to the system in Japan. The empirical results in our study show that the estimated rate of return to education using the sample of identical twins in Japan is 9.3 percent even after omitted ability bias and measurement errors in self-reported schooling were corrected. Our findings suggest that the conventional OLS estimate is not significantly contaminated by potential biases in Japan.

Using the 2011 Word Input-Output Database (WIOD), we examine the economic impact of Korean reunification on Japan, China, the United States, and Russia by industry. We conduct a standard Leontief-type analysis with the assumption of supply constraints in the unified Korea. The results of our analysis show that Korea's major trade partners would experience a substantial increase in GDP and employment through Korea reunification. In particular, we found that China would benefit the most from Korea reunification.