{"title":"Information effects of monetary policy","authors":"Yusuke Tanahara, Kento Tango, Yoshiyuki Nakazono","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101276","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span>This study assesses two central bank announcements about monetary policy<span> and the central bank’s assessment of the economic outlook. We examine whether these two components influence macroeconomic and financial variables under the effective lower bound (ELB) of short-term nominal </span></span>interest rates in Japan. We identify two shocks: a surprise policy tightening that raises interest rates and reduces stock prices and the complementary positive central bank information shock that raises both. We find that the two shocks have different effects on the Japanese economy. In fact, a contractionary monetary policy shock decreases inflation rates, whereas a positive central bank information shock </span><em>increases</em> inflation rates. The evidence suggests that announcements conveying the central bank’s assessment of the economic outlook play a certain role in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy under the ELB. However, our study shows that the two series of shocks do not induce changes in output. This suggests that they have a limited impact on the economy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"70 ","pages":"Article 101276"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49721719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross-regional heterogeneity in health and economic outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of Japan","authors":"Shotaro Beppu , Daisuke Fujii , Hiroyuki Kubota , Kohei Machi , Yuta Maeda , Taisuke Nakata , Haruki Shibuya","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101275","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Health and macroeconomic outcomes varied substantially across prefectures in Japan during the COVID-19 crisis. Using an estimated macro-epidemiological model as well as the idea of revealed preference, we compute the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) and the conditional trade-off curve between health and economic outcomes in each prefecture. We find that there is a large heterogeneity in the MRS as well as the location and shape of the conditional trade-off curve.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"70 ","pages":"Article 101275"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49721698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Debt issuance incentives and creative accounting: Evidence from municipal mergers in Japan","authors":"Tsuyoshi Goto , Genki Yamamoto","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101259","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Creative accounting has been a considerable problem in the field of governance and has caused serious economic issues. However, how governments determine the scale of creative accounting is unknown in the existing literature.</p><p>We study whether a difference in the usage and the scale of creative accounting is determined by the intensity of the incentive to issue excessive debt. To study this, we focus on municipal mergers, a well-known setting wherein smaller merging municipalities have a stronger incentive to enjoy freeriding and issue debt since the debt burden will be shared and mainly owed by larger merging municipalities. This setting enables us to use the relative population size as a continuous treatment representing the strength of debt issuance incentives, whereas existing papers focused on binary treatments. Utilizing the data of Japanese municipal mergers, we find that governments with small relative populations, which have a strong debt issuance incentive, employed creative accounting more intensively than others. Moreover, we investigate how governments used the money obscured through creative accounting for the first time and find that it was not used to overcome financial difficulties nor increase politicians’ pecuniary gains but to increase resident welfare.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101259"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49777183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cross-country evidence on the allocation of COVID-19 government subsidies and consequences for productivity","authors":"Tommaso Bighelli , Tibor Lalinsky , Juuso Vanhala","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101246","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101246","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and related policy support on productivity. We employ an extensive micro-distributed exercise to access otherwise unavailable individual data on firm performance and government subsidies. Our cross-country evidence for five EU countries shows that the pandemic led to a significant short-term decline in aggregate productivity and the direct support to firms had only a limited positive effect on productivity developments. A thorough comparative analysis of the distribution of employment and overall direct subsidies, considering separately also relative firm-level size of support and the probability of being supported, reveals ambiguous cross-country results related to the firm-level productivity and points to the decisive role of other firm characteristics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101246"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9867907/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9464058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing carbon emissions embodied in international trade based on shared responsibility","authors":"Palizha Airebule , Haitao Cheng , Jota Ishikawa","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101260","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study the carbon emissions of the world's five highest carbon emitters under three different criteria. In particular, we explore the shared responsibility (SR) criterion, under which both producers and consumers share the responsibility for emissions. Employing the multi-region input-output model to calculate the SR based on the value-added method, we can investigate carbon emissions at both national and sectoral levels. Between 2002–2014, carbon emissions in China and India grew dramatically. SR increased by 157% in China and 116% in India. The main driving force of China's carbon emissions was the rapid growth of its exports, and the main driver of India's carbon emissions was its high carbon-intensive production technologies. Although carbon emissions had a declining trend in the USA and Japan, it could have resulted from cross-border carbon leakage. More than 40% of the five countries’ national carbon emissions under SR were attributed to “electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply”. This overwhelming share was attributable to their large amounts of production and high carbon emission intensity.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101260"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49777186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does inheritance taxation reform promote to build inexpensive rental housing?","authors":"Naoto Mikawa , Shohei Yasuda , Norifumi Yukutake","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101255","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The inheritance taxation reform of 2015 in Japan substantially increased the amount of tax levied on large inheritances. This potentially served as a good incentive for people to build inexpensive low-rise apartments for tax savings, which increased the number of low-cost apartments. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of inheritance taxation reform on housing rents. Using the difference-in-differences method, we reveal that the inheritance taxation reform decreased the housing rents of wooden or light steel-framed apartments by 1.3%. Moreover, our results indicate that while the rental of slightly older housings belonging to the treatment group decreased, the rental of new housing belonging to the treatment group did not change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101255"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49777185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID-19 and the employment gender gap in Japan","authors":"Taiyo Fukai , Masato Ikeda , Daiji Kawaguchi , Shintaro Yamaguchi","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101256","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101256","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected female employment in Japan. Our estimates indicate that the employment rate of married women with children decreased by 3.5 percentage points, while that of those without children decreased by only 0.3 percentage points, implying that increased childcare responsibilities caused a sharp decline in mothers’ employment. Further, mothers who left or lost their jobs appear to have dropped out of the labor force even several months after school reopening. In contrast to women, the employment rate of married men with children was not affected, which hindered progress in narrowing the employment gender gap.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101256"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9995392/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9465522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joshua Aizenman , Yothin Jinjarak , Mark M. Spiegel
{"title":"Fiscal capacity and commercial bank lending under COVID-19","authors":"Joshua Aizenman , Yothin Jinjarak , Mark M. Spiegel","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101261","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101261","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We investigate the implications of government indebtedness for the efficacy of expansionary government spending in encouraging commercial bank lending growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our sample is a large cross-section of over 3000 banks from 71 countries. To address the likely endogeneity of government assistance, we instrument for extra-normal spending using disparities in pre-existing national political characteristics. Our results indicate that bank lending did respond to fiscal capacity, as higher public debt going into the crisis weakened the expansionary effects of higher spending on bank lending at economically and statistically significant levels. Moreover, this sensitivity was higher among weaker banks, suggesting sensitivity to the perceived implications of spending for government assistance going forward. We also found greater sensitivity in high-income economies and for small and medium-sized banks. Our results are robust to a variety of robustness tests, including perturbations in specification, sample, and estimation methodology.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101261"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10065058/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9467785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The China shock and job reallocation in Japan","authors":"Masahiro Endoh","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101257","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates the characteristics of manufacturing job reallocation in Japan induced by import shocks from China during 1996–2016. Three types of import shocks are considered: direct, upstream, and downstream. Some salient features of job reallocation include decrease in total jobs from direct import, increase in small establishments’ jobs from downstream import, and job changes mainly induced establishments’ entry and exit. The sizeable difference of implied job changes in industry-level analysis and those in region-level analysis attributes to the local reallocation and aggregate demand effects determined by regional characteristics. The total job effect of three import shocks is negative in all cases examined. The method of decomposing job changes into detailed job flows and further into industry and regional factors, proposed in this study, enabled obtaining a clearer view of job reallocation and how import shocks travel through labor market.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101257"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49777184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global GDP growth","authors":"Joseph E. Gagnon , Steven B. Kamin , John Kearns","doi":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101258","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jjie.2023.101258","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper describes one of the first attempts to gauge the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global trajectory of real GDP over the course of 2020 and 2021. It is also among the first efforts to distinguish between the role of domestic variables and global trade in transmitting the economic effects of COVID-19. We estimate panel data regressions of the quarterly growth in real GDP on pandemic variables for 90 countries over the period 2020 Q1 through 2021 Q4. We find that readings on the number of COVID-19 deaths had a very small effect in our aggregate sample. On the other hand, changes in the stringency of the lockdown measures taken by governments to restrict the spread of the virus were an important influence on GDP. The economic effects of the pandemic differed between rich and poor countries: COVID-19 deaths exerted a somewhat greater drag on GDP in advanced economies, although this difference was not statistically significant, whereas lockdown restrictions were more injurious to economic activity in emerging and developing economies. In addition to these domestic pandemic effects, global trade represented a significant channel through which the economic effects of the pandemic spilled across national borders. This finding underscores how globalization makes each country vulnerable not only to medical contagion from the COVID-19 pandemic, but to economic contagion as well.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47082,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Japanese and International Economies","volume":"68 ","pages":"Article 101258"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10030258/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9465935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}