Measuring productivity dynamics in Japan: a quantile approach

Yusuke Adachi (), Hikaru Ogawa and Masafumi Tsubuku ()
Additional contact information
Yusuke Adachi: Kokugakuin University
Masafumi Tsubuku: Daito Bunka University

Empirical Economics, 2022, vol. 63, issue 1, No 7, 242 pages

Abstract: Abstract This paper presents an approach for estimating changes in firms’ productivity. We apply the quantile approach, which estimates the changes in the productivity distribution of surviving firms. Using this method, the paper clarifies productivity dynamics in terms of both average change and dispersion in Japan from 1987 to 2014. The main results of the analysis are as follows: During a boom or normal period, the productivity distribution shifts to the right and the productivity dispersion decreases. Conversely, during a recession, the productivity distribution shifts to the left and the productivity dispersion expands. The analysis also gives quantitatively significant results. During the historically rare global financial crisis of 2008, the weighted (simple) average of manufacturing productivity in Japan fell by only 0.2% (5.4%). We identified that this counter-intuitive result was due to a significant change in the shape of the productivity distribution and found that the crisis would reduce productivity by more than 22% if the effects of changing the shape of the distribution were adjusted.

Keywords: Productivity dynamics; Economic fluctuations; Quantile approach; Productivity distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 L60 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-021-02136-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:empeco:v:63:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s00181-021-02136-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... rics/journal/181/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00181-021-02136-x

Access Statistics for this article

Empirical Economics is currently edited by Robert M. Kunst, Arthur H.O. van Soest, Bertrand Candelon, Subal C. Kumbhakar and Joakim Westerlund

More articles in Empirical Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().