乾 友彦

Using panel data on Japanese mothers, this paper estimates the impact of fertility on maternal labor supply using twins as an instrument for the total number of children. We find that having twins actually has a longer term positive impact on maternal labor force participation in Japan. To understand this result, we present evidence that the effects of age and cost of children can generate this finding, are particularly salient in Japan and differ in important ways between twins and non-twin families of the same size. Implications for fertility and labor supply policy in Japan are discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

While studies on effort (e.g., Carbonaro, 2005; Kariya, 2000, 2013) have revealed relationships among students' effort (e.g., self-reported learning time), socioeconomic status, and school-related factors (e.g., tracking) through secondary education data, whether and how the effort gap emerges and widens in the early years of compulsory education have not been researched. This study investigates the beginning of inequality in effort by using four waves (from first- to fourth-grade students) of the Longitudinal Survey of Babies in the 21st Century, collected in Japan. The results indicate that college-educated parents tend to employ parenting practices that directly and indirectly shape children's learning time; inequality in effort exists, and it becomes exacerbated partly because of parenting differences in a society with a relatively equal elementary education system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

本論文では, 1982年から2008年までの『法人企業統計調査』の企業レベルの個票データを利用し, 製造業と非製造業のTFPの動向を観察した. 以下の分析結果を得た. 製造業に比べ, 非製造業のTFP上昇率は非常に低かった. 産業内においてTFP格差が存在し, その格差が持続的であった. 生産性動学の結果からは, 製造業を中心にTFP上昇率の加速が観察された.Using unique Japanese firm-level data from the Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry for 1982-2008, we observed TFP trends in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Our results can be summarized as follows. First, TFP growth in the non-manufacturing industry was lower than that of the manufacturing industry. Second, there was productivity dispersion and it persists in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Third, our results, which are based on productivity dynamics, show that the acceleration of TFP growth rate mainly occurred in the manufacturing industry.

Are watching television (TV) and playing video games really harmful for children's development? By using a unique longitudinal dataset with detailed information on children's development and health, we examined the causal effect of hours of TV watched or of video games played on school-aged children's problem behavior, orientation to school, and obesity. The results suggested that the answer to the question is yes, but the magnitude of the effect is sufficiently small to be considered as negligible. The results were robust to within-twin-fixed effects. (JEL I10, I20)

This paper examines whether privatizing Chinese state-owned enterprises increases the probability of exporting and, if so, what factors generate such an effect. Using firm-level data for the Chinese manufacturing sector for the 2000-2007 period, we find that privatization positively affects a firm's productivity, size, and decision to export, whereas we find that it negatively affects the level of a firm's long-term debt. We also find that Chinese firms are more likely to export when the productivity level, firm size, or the level of long-term debt increases. Taken together, these two sets of results suggest that privatization positively affects the likelihood that a firm will export by improving productivity and increasing firm size, whereas it negatively affects such a likelihood by lowering the long-term debt level of the firm. However, a quantitative analysis reveals that the effects of privatization that occur through these three channels are only slight. Therefore, we conclude that the positive effect of privatization on the likelihood of exporting is mainly the result of unobservable factors that are most likely related to changes in attitude about the profits and risks associated with privatization.

<p> P. ブルデューの文化的再生産論は日本社会においても教育達成の格差生成メカニズムの一つとして研究され，各家庭における文化資本の偏在，それに家庭の文化資本と子の教育達成の関係について知見が蓄積されてきた。近年，教育選抜の早期化によって社会階層と教育達成の関連強化が懸念されているが，早期家庭内社会化によって文化資本が世代間相続する過程については未だに実証的に明らかにされていない。そこで本稿は厚生労働省による21世紀出生児縦断調査の個票データを用い，文化的行為である読書に着目し，文化資本の世代間相続という動的な過程をハイブリッド固定効果モデルによって検討した。<BR> 分析の結果，父母の学歴と世帯所得は，父母それぞれの一ヶ月あたりの雑誌・マンガを除く読書量という文化的行為を分化していた。また，これらの学歴と世帯所得によって異なる父母の読書量は，子ども間の読書量格差と関連していた。そして，父母の読書量の変化は，観察されない異質性を統制しても子の読書量の変化と関係していた。親の学歴は制度化された文化資本，世帯所得は経済資本であり，それらの資本量の差が読書行為を分化し，親子の文化的行為が関連している──小学校1，2，4年生の3時点の縦断データに基づいた本稿の結果は，子ども間の文化資本格差，それに先行研究が考慮しなかった観察されない異質性を統制した上で，文化的行為の世代間相続を実証的に示している。</p>

Chinese cross-border outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been expanding rapidly since the mid-2000s with target firms in developed countries. The primary motives for such M&As are expansion into new markets and sourcing of knowledge and strategic assets. This study is the first attempt to examine the effects of Chinese outbound M&As on firm performance by applying propensity score matching estimations to a large set of firm-level data. We find that the sales, productivity, and tangible as well as intangible assets of the acquiring firms increase substantially after M&A transactions, which suggest that Chinese firms on average achieve their intended goals of outbound M&As. Further, outbound M&As do not increase research and development (R&D) intensity, implying complementarity, rather than overlapping, between R&D activities of the acquiring and acquired firms. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper investigates whether birth weight itself causes individuals' future life chances. By using a sample of twins in Japan and controlling for the potential effects of genes and family backgrounds, we examine the effect of birth weight on later educational and economic outcomes. The most important finding is that birth weight has a causal effect on academic achievement around the age of 15, but not on the highest years of schooling and earnings. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

本論文は、銀行の生産性に関する計測手法を提案するとともに、取引銀行の生産性が顧客企業の設備投資に対して与える影響について検討したものである。第一に、銀行のアウトプット計測に関して提唱されているFISIMアウトプット（間接的に計測される金融仲介サービス）がリスク量を勘案していない、との批判を踏まえて、FISIMアウトプットへリスク調整を行った上で、営業費用との比率を用いて銀行の生産性を計測する。第二に、この生産性パネルデータに加えて、企業と銀行の財務データおよび両者間のローン取引データを用いることで、取引銀行の生産性と顧客企業の設備投資との関係を実証的に分析する。具体的には、高い設備投資機会を有するにも関わらず、強いキャッシュフロー制約に直面している企業が円滑な設備投資を行うために、生産性の高い銀行との取引関係が重要であるとの結果が得られた。この結果は、企業ダイナミクスやパフォーマンスの決定要因として、取引銀行などの関係主体の特性を考慮する必要があることを示唆している。This paper proposes one measure of bank productivity and studies how it affects the sensitivity of client firm's capital investment with respect to investment opportunity. As a direct measure of bank-level productivity, we employ the risk-adjusted profit of an individual bank, which is considered as output in a modified version of FISIM (Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured) concept, per its operating cost. The panel estimations for an extended investment equation based on Q-theory show that cash-flow constrained firm's capital investment becomes more sensitive to investment opportunity in statistically and economically significant levels as they hold the relationships with more productive banks. These results imply that it is necessary to relate firm performances to the characteristics of related parties to the firm.特集 新しい金融経済学

In the literature there is substantial evidence that a plant is more likely to be closed down if it is owned by a firm with other plants or is owned by a multinational enterprise (MNE). But does ownership or multi-plant status matter for which plants are closed? Using Japanese data we study plant closure by multi-plant MNEs and non-MNEs. We show that both organisational forms raise the probability of plant exit and that plants that are relatively small and capital unintensive relative to the rest of the firm are significantly more likely to exit.

In this paper we examine empirically the effect of market competition on firm productivity improvements using data drawn from the Japanese manufacturing sector. We find that a non-linear relationship between competition and productivity growth induced by R&D activity as suggested by Aghion et al. (2005) holds for Japanese manufacturing firms. We also SLOW that greater market competition widens technology differences across firms, and firms facing more intense competition are more productive than other firms. Our empirical results imply that productivity improvement through R&D activity depends on not only a competitive environment but also technological differences between firms. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.