The Industrial Organization of the Japanese Bar: Levels and Determinants of Attorney Income

Minoru Nakazato, John Ramseyer and Eric Rasmusen ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Using micro-level data on attorney incomes in 2004, we reconstruct the industrial organization of the Japanese legal services industry. These data suggest a somewhat bifurcated bar, with two sources of unusually high income: talent in Tokyo, and scarcity elsewhere. The most talented would-be lawyers (those with the highest opportunity costs) pass the bar-exam equivalent on one of their first tries or abandon the effort. If they pass, they tend to opt for careers in Tokyo that involve complex litigation and business transactions. This work places a premium on their talent, and from it they earn appropriately high incomes. The less talented face lower opportunity costs, and willingly spend many years studying for the exam. If they eventually pass, they disproportionately forego the many amenities available to professional families in Tokyo and opt instead for careers in the under-lawyered provinces. There, they earn scarcity and monopoly rents not available in the far more competitive Tokyo market.

Keywords: lawyers; Japan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-09-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1444/1/MPRA_paper_1444.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Industrial Organization of the Japanese Bar: Levels and Determinants of Attorney Income (2008)
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:pra:mprapa:1444

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().