A substantial fraction of international trade is facilitated by wholesalers, who enable manufacturers to indirectly export their products to foreign markets. Using large-scale Japanese interfirm transaction network data, this paper investigates the features of both direct and indirect exporters as well as international wholesalers. As predicted by a simple Melitz-type trade model with indirect export alternative, the sorting pattern is confirmed in our data, and the distributions of sales and labor productivity are ordered for direct, indirect, and non-exporters in terms of first order stochastic dominance. Multinomial logit analysis is also consistent with the model, which assumes lower fixed cost and higher marginal cost for indirect exporters compared to direct exporters. We also find that the number of suppliers raises the probability of direct exporting implying a cost sharing mechanism of firms with more suppliers. On the other hand, the number of customers raises the probability of exporting in general (both indirect and direct) implying a higher product appeal and broader demand base for firms who have more customers. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study investigates the localization of establishment-level knowledge creation using data from a Japanese patent database. Using distance-based methods, we obtain the following results. First, Japanese knowledge-creating establishments defined by patenting experience are significantly localized at the 5% level, with a localization range of approximately 80 km. Second, localization is observed for all patent technology classes, and the extent of localization has a positive relationship with the level of technology measured by R&D investment. Finally, the extent of localization is stronger for establishments that are more productive in terms of both the number of patents and the number of citations received, i.e., quantitatively and qualitatively. These results indicate that geographical proximity is important for knowledge spillover, particularly for establishments that demand external knowledge intensively. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nakajima, Kentaro, Saito, Yukiko Umeno, and Uesugi, lichiro-Measuring economic localization: Evidence from Japanese firm-level data
This paper examines location patterns of Japan's manufacturing industries using a unique firm-level dataset on the geographic location of firms. Following the point-pattern approach proposed by Duranton and Overman (2005), we find the following. First, about half of Japan's manufacturing industries can be classified as localized and the number of localized industries is largest for a distance level of 40 km or less. Second, several industries in the textile mill products sector are among the most localized, which is similar to findings for the UK, suggesting that there exist common factors across countries determining the concentration of industrial activities. Third, the distribution of distances between entrant (exiting) firms and remaining firms is, in most industries, not significantly different from a random distribution. These results suggest that most industries in Japan neither become more localized nor more dispersed over time and are in line with similar findings by Duranton and Overman (2008) for the UK. Fourth, a comparison with the service sector indicates that the share of localized industries is higher in manufacturing than in services, although the extent of localization among the most localized manufacturing industries is smaller than that among the most localized service industries, including financial service industries. J. Japanese Int. Economies 26 (2) (2012) 201-220. Faculty of Economics, Tohoku University, 27-1 Kawauchi, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 980-8576, Japan; Fujitsu Research Institute, New Pier Takeshiba South Tower, 16-1 Kaigan 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0022, Japan: Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, 2-1 Naka, Kunitachi-shi, Tokyo 186-8603, Japan. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we have proposed a bubble burst model by focusing on transaction volume incorporating a traffic model that represents spontaneous traffic jam. We find that the phenomenon of bubble burst shares many similar properties with traffic jam formation on highway by comparing data taken from the U.S. housing market. Our result suggests that transaction volume could be a driving force of bursting phenomenon. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.

In this study, we investigate interfirm networks by employing a unique data set containing information on more than 800,000 Japanese firms, about half of all corporate firms currently operating in Japan. First, we find that the number of relationships, measured by the indegree, has a fat-tail distribution, implying that there exist "hub" firms with a large number of relationships. Moreover, the indegree distribution for those hub firms also exhibits a fat tail, suggesting the existence of "super-hub" firms. Second, we find that larger firms tend to have more counterparts, but the relationship between firms' size and the number of their counterparts is not necessarily proportional; firms that already have a large number of counterparts tend to grow without proportionately expanding it. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.