Details of a Researcher - Okubo Toshihiro

Papers - Okubo Toshihiro

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Bonding social capital, disaster experience, and post-disaster giving in Japan

Okubo T., Noy I.

Disasters 50 ( 2 ) 2026.04

ISSN 03613666

When are people willing to donate their time or money after a disaster? We investigate the psychological and socio-economic determinants of post-disaster giving in Japan, using a nationally representative panel survey of more than 7,000 respondents, conducted repeatedly from early 2020, including after the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. We examine how individual characteristics—including past disaster experience, social capital (trust, reciprocity, cooperation), ‘Big-5’ personality traits, and digital behaviours—influence the likelihood of engaging in various forms of post-disaster assistance, from traditional monetary donations to newer digitally-facilitated acts such as online shopping for Noto products. Our analysis finds that prior disaster experience and personal openness are consistent robust predictors of prosocial behaviour. The relationship between social capital and aid activities is more subtle. Trust and cooperation are both positively associated with post-disaster assistance, but this is not the case for reciprocity. These findings emphasise that nuanced conceptualisation of social capital is required and underscore the need for caution in assuming its universal relevance in mobilising disaster aid. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research that more precisely delineate the interplay between social, psychological, and socio-economic factors in shaping post-disaster giving.

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Quality trade and transportation costs

Toshihiro Okubo, Akira Sasahara

Economics Letters 257 2025.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 01651765

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Branch Banking and Regional Financial Markets: Evidence from Prewar Japan

Mathias Hoffmann, Tetsuji Okazaki, Toshihiro Okubo

Financial History Review 2025.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 09685650

In Japan in the 1920s, several financial crises and government policy led to bank mergers and the consolidation and expansion of branch networks. Using unique historical bank branch-level lending and deposit data, we show that branch banking integrated peripheral markets with the rest of the country, with large urban banks – those headquartered in Tokyo and Osaka – using deposit supply shocks in peripheral areas to fund lending in their core markets. While these findings support contemporary concerns about branch banking draining funds from peripheral markets, we argue that the export of liquidity by urban banks likely represented an efficient reallocation of credit, driven primarily by competition in funding markets. Faced with high-yielding lending opportunities in central prefectures, urban banks bid up deposit rates in peripheral areas, raising local banks’ funding costs. Local banks responded by lowering intermediation margins and reducing lending to traditional industries, which suggests that they shifted their lending to less risky and more efficient customers. We speculate that this competitive reallocation of capital across regions and sectors allowed banks to maintain a functional specialization in different customer segments, which may explain the continued coexistence of small relationship lenders and large integrated arm’s-length lenders in local banking markets.

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Large Fires and the Rise of Fire Insurance in Early Twentieth Century Japan

Tetsuji Okazaki, Toshihiro Okubo, Eric Strobl

Journal of Economic History 85 ( 3 ) 701 - 729 2025.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 0022-0507

We explore the role that large fires played in the early development of the Japanese fire insurance industry. Using a prefecture-level data set spanning 30 years, our econometric analysis shows that large fires led to an increase in new policies and policy renewals, consistent with historical narratives that insurance companies used these events to advertise their business. We also show that this subsequent surge in policies led to more small fires due to arson. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is more likely to have been due to moral hazard rather than adverse selection.

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Cross-border technology licensing with R&D Opportunity and Government Intervention

Ishikawa J., Okubo T.

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 76 2025.03

ISSN 08891583

Technology holders may have strategic incentive to offer licensing contracts that deter (potential) rivals from conducting their own R&D. This study develops a simple model of technology licensing from a foreign firm to a home firm, in which R&D serves as an alternative means for the home firm to enter the market. We first derive the optimal licensing fees with differentiated goods and two-part tariffs. Depending on parameter values, three types of licensing contracts can emerge: (i) by means of a fixed fee alone, (ii) by means of a royalty alone, and (iii) by means of a combination of a fixed fee and a royalty. We then specifically investigate intervention by the home government: withholding taxes on royalties and R&D subsidies. A withholding tax may improve home welfare without imposing any burden on the home firm and consumers. Committing itself to an R&D subsidy, the home government can reduce licensing fees without any cost.

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Vaccination Decisions and Social Capital in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo, Ilan Noy

SSM - Population Health 30 2025.02

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 2352-8273

The COVID-19 vaccines played a pivotal role in safeguarding many people. Yet, vaccine hesitancy remained a significant barrier to increasing coverage rates, as many high-income countries faced prolonged vaccine refusal campaigns. In Japan, vaccine doses were administered under a reservation system accessible via a website and by phone. Achieving a high vaccination coverage for a vaccine that was offered at no financial cost was surprisingly difficult in Japan as well. In many countries, vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic has been closely related to people's trust in their governments given governments' controversial social distancing mandates. In Japan, lockdowns were voluntary, and vaccinations were also not mandated. As there were no significant political conflicts about the government's policies, vaccination acceptance was influenced by more basic tenets, and we focus here on social capital, defined as cohesive links that enable a society to function effectively. Social capital, in this context, refers to community trust, collaboration, and engagement that create social bonds between individuals and society. Using a uniquely large survey, administered repeatedly through the years of the pandemic, we mostly find support, for the hypothesis that social capital matters for the vaccination decision; and that it matters even once we control for institutional trust (especially trust in the medical system). However, this general association between trust in other community members, belief in the willingness of community members to engage in reciprocal assistance, and belief in the more general willingness of the community to support individuals, were all associated differently with the vaccination decision, and with the views expressed about the vaccinations. From a policy perspective, this suggests that intra-community trust (i.e., bonding social capital), is important even in contexts when trust in governmental is not a significant concern.

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Work from Home and Time Allocation: Evidence from Time-use Data in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Journal of Labor Research 45 ( 4 ) 598 - 630 2024.12

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted, ISSN 0195-3613

This paper investigates the impact of work from home (WFH) on time use for work, housework, leisure, and sleep in daily life. We use time-use survey data for Japan. We find that WFH tends to reduce working hours. By WFH, females spend more time on housework, while males tend to devote more time to leisure. However, WFH involves heterogeneous impacts on time reallocation among different groups. There are less conspicuous differences in time allocation by single males and females work.

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Margins, concentration, and the performance of firms in international trade: Evidence from Japanese customs data

Keiko Ito; Masahiro Endoh; Naoto Jinji; Toshiyuki Matsuura; Toshihiro Okubo; Akira Sasahara

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 75 2024.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 08891583

This study is the first to comprehensively investigate international trade at the firm-level using Japan's customs data for the 2014–2020 period. We first decompose international trade into the intensive and extensive margins and show that the intensive margin accounts for around 30% and 40% of the variation in partner country-specific exports and imports, respectively. We next find a substantial concentration of trading firms: in 2017, the top 10% of exporters accounted for 96.6% of all exports, while the top 10% of importers were responsible for 94.6% of all imports. Finally, we match the customs data with other firm-level datasets and estimate the performance premia of exporting firms. Our findings indicate that exporting manufacturing firms outperform non-exporting manufacturing firms in all aspects we consider: sales, value added, the number of employees, the capital-labor ratio, productivity, and wages. Interestingly, the exporter premia of manufacturing firms for value added, labor productivity, and total factor productivity decreased between 2014 and 2016 and then increased until 2019, whereas the exporter premium for the average wage steadily increased.

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Premature agglomeration?: Two phases of development with spatial sorting

Rikard Forslid and Toshihiro Okubo

Manchester School (Manchester School) 92 ( 6 ) 636 - 662 2024.05

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 14636786

Clusters in the developing world do, to a large extent, attract low-educated individuals, and these clusters are in some cases, characterized by urbanization without industrialization. This contrasts starkly to clusters in advanced economies that attract high-skilled individuals and entrepreneurs. In this paper, we develop a model of agglomeration and spatial sorting that is consistent with these two types of different agglomeration processes in developed and developing countries. We show that a poor country that has an agglomeration with low skilled individuals, may get stuck in this equilibrium, but that free mobility of human capital from the outset nevertheless is superior from the perspective of total social welfare.

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Non-routine Tasks and ICT tools in Telework

Toshihiro Okubo

Labour (Labour) 38 ( 2 ) 177 - 202 2023.12

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted, ISSN 11217081

Telework has spread during the pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Using a unique individual-level survey in Japan, we investigate how telework has changed the way people live and work and what impediments hamper telework use. As a result, we find that telework allows workers to spend more time on leisure and their families. Compared with routine task workers, non-routine (abstract) task workers are more suited to telework. However, once engaged in telework, non-routine task workers have fewer opportunities to communicate with coworkers, which is a serious impediment that tends to hamper work performance and compromise mental health.

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The Japanese Textile Sector and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920

Ilan Noy, Toshihiro Okubo, Eric Strobl

Journal of Regional Science (Journal of Regional Science) 63 ( 5 ) 1192 - 1227 2023.07

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 0022-4146

The ongoing global pandemic has brought into sharp relief the possible interactions between the epidemiology of a virus, the structure of the economy and society that becomes exposed to it, and the actions chosen by government, individuals, and communities to combat it or ameliorate its economic impact. Surprisingly, there has not been sufficient research on these economic and policy interactions of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic—the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century. This paper focuses on Japan, which as a minor participant of and was not directly affected by World War I. We exploit the diversity of experiences with the pandemic and its attendant policy responses across Japanese prefectures; and investigate the importance of the pandemic's toll (measured by excess mortality), and of nonpharmaceutical policy interventions (NPIs), in determining the pandemic's economic impact. We do so by focusing on the production and employment in the textile sector, given the availability of data and the general importance of the textile sector for emerging economies (as Japan was at the time). We find a significant adverse impact of the pandemic on textiles (almost 30% for an average prefectural excess mortality shock) and indeed find that the implemented NPIs were effective in ameliorating around one half of the pandemic's adverse economic consequences, especially for textile output (rather than employment). Furthermore, these NPIs were more effective when the excess mortality was higher. In this case, there was no trade-off between money and life, but rather the two were complimentary.

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Trade, Location, and Multi-product Firms

Toshihiro Okubo

Regional Science and Urban Economics (Regional Science and Urban Economics) 100 2023.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 01660462

In this paper we study how trade liberalization affects the location and the product scope of firms. We find that the largest and most productive multi-product firms concentrate to the larger market as a result of trade liberalization. In the presence of relocation costs, we also find that these firms will expand their product scope in the larger market while firms in the smaller market will contract their product scope or expand it to a smaller degree. The adjustment of firms’ product scope can therefore be a substitute for firm relocation, and the cost of introducing new varieties becomes an important parameter, that influences the degree of agglomeration.

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The Bright and Dark Sides of a Central Bank’s Financial Support to Local Banks after a Natural Disaster: Evidence from the Great Kanto Earthquake, 1923 Japan

Toshihiro Okubo, Tetsuji Okazaki, Eric Strobl

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (Journal of Money, Credit and Banking) 56 ( 6 ) 1439 - 1477 2023.02

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 00222879

The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 caused serious damage to firms and banks in Yokohama City. We explore the role of the financial support by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) through local banks in a firm's survival and recovery from the natural disaster. We find that the small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) that had a relatively large correspondent bank with a large number of bills rediscounted by BoJ had a higher likelihood of survival but lower growth after the earthquake. Liquidity supply by the central bank for recovery from a negative shock can have both positive and negative impacts.

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Natural Disasters and Industrial Production Efficiency: Evidence from Pre-war Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Regional Studies 2023.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Are software automation and teleworker substitutes? Preliminary evidence from Japan

Baldwin R., Okubo T.

World Economy (World Economy) 47 ( 4 ) 1531 - 1556 2023

ISSN 03785920

Digital technology is reshaping workplaces by enabling spatial separation of offices, known as telework, or remote intelligence (RI) and by facilitating automation of service sector tasks via artificial intelligence (AI). This paper is the first attempt to empirically investigate whether AI and RI are complements or substitutes in the service sector. It uses a worker-level panel of surveys collected from around 10,000 workers from pre-COVID-19 pandemic to late 2022. We find preliminary evidence that suggests that AI and RI are complements rather than substitutes. The evidence comes first from the positive correlation of investments in AI-promoting and RI-promoting software at the firm and worker level, and second from the positive correlation of workers' expectations regarding telework and software automation. The evidence is far from definitive but suggests that the complement-substitution question is a fruitful line for future research.

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Networked FDI and Third-country Intra-firm Trade

Toshihiro Okubo

International Review of Economics and Finance (International Review of Economics and Finance) 83 591 - 606 2022.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 10590560

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is networked. This is beyond vertical and horizontal FDIs. Affiliates locate across multiple countries and trade among them. This paper investigates the FDI networks, using the Japanese foreign affiliate data. First, we investigate location patterns and industry patterns of foreign affiliates and find the network structure of FDI. Then, third-country intra-firm trade is explored. The third-country sales and sourcing within the firm boundary (third-country intra-firm trade) is active, but only large firms tend to construct production networks and engage third-country intra-firm trade. Firm size (size of parent and affiliates and the number of affiliates) is crucial in understanding third-country intra-firm trade.

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Traveling and Eating Out during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Go To Campaign Policies in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Japan and the World Economy (Japan and the World Economy) 64 2022.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted, ISSN 09221425

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic plunged many industries of the economy into contraction, particularly the travel, hotel accommodation, and eating/drinking industries. In Japan, some demand-inducing policies targeting such industries were implemented, known as the Go To Travel and Go To Eat campaigns. Using a unique individual-level survey, we investigate what factors make people respond to these campaign policies. We find that certain socioeconomics factors (e.g., gender, income, ICT skills) as well as noneconomic factors matter. In particular, risk attitudes, and personal traits (e.g., extraversion) crucially affect whether people traveled or dined out in response to these campaigns despite the spread of COVID-19.

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The Fiscal Costs of Earthquakes in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

International Tax and Public Finance (International Tax and Public Finance) 30 ( 5 ) 1225 - 1250 2022.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 09275940

We quantify the fiscal impacts of earthquakes in Japan. In contrast with earlier research which examined national level aggregate spending in several countries, we are able to provide a detailed examination of separate budget categories within the local governments’ fiscal accounts. We do this using detailed line-budget expenditure data, and by comparing regions and towns affected and unaffected by the damage from earthquakes. Besides the obvious - that government spending increases in the short-term (one year) after a disaster event - we observe that the share of public spending on disaster relief, at the prefecture level, increases significantly, but with no corresponding change in the other budget lines. In contrast, at the lower administrative units, we observe a decrease in the share of spending going to finance other priorities. For the bigger cities, we observe a decrease in the share of spending targeting education, while for the smaller towns, we find that spending on construction and servicing public debt goes down. This evidence suggests that while at the prefecture level fiscal policy-making is robust enough to prevent presumably unwanted declines in public services, the same cannot be said for the city/town level.

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Telework in the Spread of COVID-19

Toshihiro Okubo

Information Economics and Policy (Information Economics and Policy) 60 2022.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted, ISSN 01676245

In the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), people have been requested to work from home with information and communication technology (ICT) tools, i.e. telework. This paper investigates which factors (infection of COVID-19, individual characteristics, task characteristics, and working environments) are associated with telework use in Japan. Using the unique panel survey on telework, our estimation finds that although telework use remains low in Japan, educated, high ICT-skilled, younger, and female workers who engage in less teamwork and less routine tasks tend to use telework. Working environments such as the richness of IT communication tools, digitalized offices, and flexible-hour working systems are all positively correlated with telework use.

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Social Norms and Preventive Behaviors in Japan and Germany During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Toshihiro Okubo

Frontiers in Public Health (Frontiers in Public Health) 10 2022.04

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Background: According to a recent paper by Gelfand et al., COVID-19 infection and case mortality rates are closely connected to the strength of social norms: “Tighter” cultures that abide by strict social norms are more successful in combating the pandemic than “looser” cultures that are more permissive. However, countries with similar levels of cultural tightness exhibit big differences in mortality rates. We are investigating potential explanations for this fact. Using data from Germany and Japan—two “tight” countries with very different infection and mortality rates—we examined how differences in socio-demographic and other determinants explain differences in individual preventive attitudes and behaviors. Methods: We compared preventive attitudes and behaviors in 2020 based on real-time representative survey data and used logit regression models to study how individual attitudes and behaviors are shaped by four sets of covariates: individual socio-demographics, health, personality, and regional-level controls. Employing Blinder-Oaxaca regression techniques, we quantified the extent to which differences in averages of the covariates between Japan and Germany explain the differences in the observed preventive attitudes and behaviors. Results: In Germany and Japan, similar proportions of the population supported mandatory vaccination, avoided travel, and avoided people with symptoms of a cold. In Germany, however, a significantly higher proportion washed their hands frequently and avoided crowds, physical contact, public transport, peak-hour shopping, and contact with the elderly. In Japan, a significantly higher proportion were willing to be vaccinated. We also show that attitudes and behaviors varied significantly more with covariates in Germany than in Japan. Differences in averages of the covariates contribute little to explaining the observed differences in preventive attitudes and behaviors between the two countries. Conclusion: Consistent with tightness-looseness theory, the populations of Japan and Germany responded similarly to the pandemic. The observed differences in infection and fatality rates therefore cannot be explained by differences in behavior. The major difference in attitudes is the willingness to be vaccinated, which was much higher in Japan. Furthermore, the Japanese population behaved more uniformly across social groups than the German population. This difference in the degree of homogeneity has important implications for the effectiveness of policy measures during the pandemic.

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The Resilience of FDI to Natural Disasters through Industrial Linkages

Toshihiro Okubo, Hayato Kato

Environmental and Resource Economics (Environmental and Resource Economics) 82 ( 1 ) 177 - 225 2022.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 09246460

When do multinationals show resilience during natural disasters? To answer this, we develop a simple model in which foreign multinationals and local firms in the host country are interacted through input-output linkages. When natural disasters seriously hit local firms and thus increase the cost of sourcing local intermediate inputs, most multinationals may leave the host country. However, they are likely to stay if they are tightly linked with local suppliers and face low trade costs of importing foreign intermediates. We further provide a number of extensions of the basic model to incorporate, for example, multinationals with heterogeneous productivity and disaster reconstruction.

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`By a Silken Thread': regional banking integration and credit reallocation during Japan's Lost Decade

Toshihiro Okubo, Mathias Hoffmann

Journal of International Economics (Journal of International Economics) 137 2022.02

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 00221996

Regional banking integration allows credit to be reallocated to regions with high credit demand. Using the natural experiment of Japan's lost decade, we show that this reallocation channel mitigated the real effects from the bank liquidity shock in prefectures with many bank-dependent small firms. We propose an instrument for modern-day regional banking integration that exploits the fact that regional segmentation of banking markets in Japan goes back to the institutions set up for silk export finance in the late 19th century. We illustrate how the difference between the OLS and IV estimates can provide information about unobserved cross-regional heterogeneity in bank-firm matches when only aggregate regional data is available. Our results highlight that well-integrated banking markets are important and complementary to bond markets in limiting macroeconomic asymmetries in a monetary union, in particular during major financial crises.

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Industrial cluster policy and transaction networks: Evidence from firm-level data in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Canadian Journal of Economics (Canadian Journal of Economics) 55 ( 4 ) 1990 - 2035 2022.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 00084085

Cluster policy is designed to facilitate inter-firm networking. We examine industrial clusters in Japan based on firm-level transaction data. Cluster firms significantly expand transaction networks not only with local firms but also with firms in the agglomerated core Tokyo. We confirm the robustness of the results with historical policy experience of the regions as an instrumental variable and the cluster participation in a later period for a placebo test. By disaggregating firms in their relationships with financial institutions, we find that cluster firms expanding networks with firms in Tokyo are financed mainly by regional banks.

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Natural disasters and regional industrial production efficiency: evidence from pre-war Japan

Mohan P., Okubo T., Strobl E.

Regional Studies (Regional Studies) 57 ( 10 ) 2054 - 2072 2022

ISSN 00343404

In this paper we investigate whether destruction due to natural disasters induces industries to increase their regional production efficiency using the case of pre-war Japan, a setting of frequent disasters and technological upgrading. To this end we compile a regional sectoral dataset of natural disaster destruction and production for machinery and textiles. We then employ a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach to estimate the role of disaster events on changes in production efficiency. Our results show that earthquakes led to increases in efficiency for both machinery and textiles, although they were substantially greater for textiles due to the recovery persisting longer. Overall earthquakes contributed 6.8% of efficiency gains in textiles and 3.1% in machinery. However, allowing events to compound in their impact showed that such gains were dampened when there were damaging earthquakes in subsequent years. In contrast, for climate-related natural disaster events there is only weak, if any, evidence that these played a significant role in determining productive efficiency.

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Who got vaccinated for COVID-19? Evidence from Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Vaccines (Vaccines) 9 ( 12 ) 2021.12

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Vaccination has been critical to reducing infections and deaths during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. While previous studies have investigated attitudes toward taking a vaccine, studies on the determinants of COVID-19 vaccination behavior are scant. We examine what characteristics, including socioeconomic and non-economic factors, are associated with vaccination behavior for COVID-19 in Japan. We use a large nationwide online survey with approximately 10,000 participants. As of September 2021, 85% of the respondents said that they had received or would receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Employing logistic regression analysis on vaccination behavior, we found that vaccination rates are higher among those who are older, married, educated, and/or work in a large company. On the other hand, vaccination rates tend to be lower among the self-employed, younger women, and those with poor mental health. Income did not significantly correlate with vaccination. Medical workers were found to have a relatively high rate of vaccination. Although attitude towards risk and time preference were not crucial factors for vaccination, fear of infection, infection prevention behavior, and agreement with government policies on behavioral restrictions in crisis situations positively correlated with vaccination.

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Importing, Outsourcing and Pollution Offshoring

Toshihiro Okubo

Energy Economics (Energy Economics) 103 2021.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 01409883

Focusing on Japan over the period 1988–2013, this paper provides the first test of the extent to which pollution offshoring has occurred for this major industrial economy. In so doing, we identify whether the composition of domestic production, imports, overall trade patterns and overseas outsourcing has become more or less pollution intensive. We then focus on the role played by overseas outsourcing in pollution offshoring. Utilising a unique dataset of approximately 4000 Japanese firms for the period 2009–13, we use propensity score matching and difference-in-differences to examine how a firm's CO2 emissions intensity is affected by its decision to outsource some of its production overseas. Our results indicate that the composition of Japanese imports appear to have become dirtier and the carbon embodied within Japanese imports is larger and has grown more rapidly than the carbon embodied within exports. We also find that relative to a control group, the growth rate of pollution intensity of firms that begin overseas outsourcing is 7.3 percentage points lower in the year that they start overseas outsourcing and 7.7 percentage points lower in the following year, suggesting that outsourcing is one route through which pollution offshoring is occurring. New importers also experience slower emissions growth but the reduction is less than for new outsourcers.

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Individual Preferences on Trade Liberalization: Evidence from a Japanese Household Survey

Toshihiro Okubo

Review of World Economics (Review of World Economics) 158 ( 1 ) 305 - 330 2021.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 16102878

This paper studies an individual’s preference on trade liberalization using a Japanese household survey, the Keio Household Panel Survey. As a result, we show that preferences toward trade liberalization are affected by economic factors (income, gender, family, asset, and job status) as well as noneconomic factors (noncognitive factors and behaviroal biases). We find that male, educated, and people with smaller family prefer trade liberalization. Furthermore, people who prefer liberty to equality and have less local patriotism, tend to be positive to trade liberalization.

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Agglomeration of Low-productive Entrepreneurs to Large Regions: A Simple Model

Toshihiro Okubo

Spatial Economic Analysis (Spatial Economic Analysis) 16 ( 4 ) 471 - 486 2021.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 1742-1772

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Public Preferences on Immigration in Japan

Toshihiro Okubo

Japan and the World Economy (Japan and the World Economy) 58 2021.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted, ISSN 09221425

This paper examines the factors affecting Japanese attitudes toward immigration. Using individual-level survey data, we investigate the impact of both economic/socioeconomic (cognitive) and noneconomic (or noncognitive) factors, the latter including behavioral bias, communication skills, social stance and subjective well-being. The results indicate that individuals that are male, richer, more educated, younger and from smaller families tend to agree with immigration. More importantly, noneconomic factors also matter, with those that have lower time preference, better English language skills and overseas experience tending to be more positive to the perception of immigration. In addition, individuals trusting neighborhoods rather than the government, that make donations to society and that keep in good health tend to be more positive toward immigration.

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Teleworker performance in the COVID-19 era in Japan

大久保敏弘

Asian Economic Paper (Asian Economic Papers) 20 ( 2 ) 175 - 192 2021.04

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 1535-3516

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Natural disasters, firm survival, and growth: Evidence from the Ise Bay Typhoon, Japan

Okubo T., Strobl E.

Journal of Regional Science (Journal of Regional Science) 61 ( 5 ) 944 - 970 2021.03

ISSN 00224146

This paper investigates the damage impact of the 1959 Ise Bay Typhoon on firm survival and survivor performance in Nagoya City, Japan. We combine firm-level data with a local damage proxy storm surge-induced flooding. We find that firms in retail and wholesale were less and those in manufacturing more likely to survive after being flooding. There was some evidence of spillover effects from nearby regions on firm exit. Surviving firm performance was heterogeneous across sectors in that some (manufacturing and construction) upgraded and others (retail and wholesale) their capital. Indirect impacts from nearby regions were both positive and negative, contingent on the sector of operation.

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Preferences for nuclear power in post-Fukushima Japan: Evidence from a large nationwide household survey

Toshihiro Okubo

Energies (Energies) 13 ( 11 ) 2020.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

© 2020 by the authors. Utilizing the data of a large nationwide household survey conducted in 2014, we investigate public preferences on nuclear power in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear accident and the role of four sets of factors: (1) household/individual socioeconomic characteristics, (2) psychological status, (3) geographical aspects, and (4) Fukushima accident-related experiences. The preferred energy mix, according to the averaged responses from the survey, includes 0.59 for renewables, 0.29 for fossil fuels, and 0.12 for nuclear-much more skewed towards the renewables than the actual national share of renewables of less than 0.2. Male, older, unmarried, less educated, high-income people, and government party supporters have a preference towards a higher share of nuclear power, except if they live near nuclear power plants. The experience of blackout and aversion to nuclear power during the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 lowers the share of nuclear power in the preferred mix.

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Regional Variations in Exporters’ Productivity Premium: Theory and Evidence

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of International Economics (Review of International Economics) 27 ( 3 ) 803 - 821 2019.07

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 09657576

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The international trade literature confirms that the average productivity of exporters is higher than that of nonexporters, while economic geography studies establish that urban firms tend to be more productive than rural ones. By introducing region-specific transportation costs in a Melitz-type heterogeneous-firm trade model, the theory predicts that the minimum threshold productivity level for export is higher but that for survival by serving the local market is lower in the periphery region than in the core. Using Japanese plant-level panel data, we find evidence supporting the theoretical prediction that exporters in the peripheral regions, especially those distant from the core, have large productivity premiums.

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GVC journeys: Industrialisation and deindustrialisation in the age of the second unbundling

Baldwin R., Okubo T.

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies (Journal of the Japanese and International Economies) 52 53 - 67 2019.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Accepted, ISSN 08891583

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. Offshoring and participation in global value chains (GVCs) are critical to understanding the rapid deindustrialisation of G7 nations and the rapid industrialisation of a handful of developing nations. This paper distinguishes between trade in final goods and trade in parts to track the shifting pattern of the location of manufacturing. We introduce a simple empirical measure of comparative advantage in parts on one hand and in final goods on the other. We illustrate how this distinction can help organise thinking on the patterns of industrialisation and deindustrialisation—namely the ‘GVC journeys’ of advanced and emerging economies. We also provide one simple model. The model highlights the interactions of trade costs and the knowledge transfers to accompany offshoring of parts production and assembly, which we call trade-led versus knowledge-led globalisation.

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Quantifying the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies (Journal of the Japanese and International Economies) 51 110 - 128 2019.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 08891583

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. This paper provides a quantitative analysis of the new EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), the biggest bilateral deal that both the EU and Japan have concluded so far. It employs a generalized variant of the Eaton–Kortum (2002) model, featuring multiple sectors, input-output linkages, services trade, and non-tariff barriers (NTBs). It uses the results of an econometric ex post analysis of a related existing FTA, the one between the EU and Korea, to approximate the expected reductions in the costs of NTBs. This approach yields long-run welfare effects for Japan of about 18 bn USD per year (0.31% of GDP) and of about 15 bn USD (0.10%) for the EU. On average, the agreement does not appear to harm third countries. 14% of the welfare gains inside the EPA stem from tariffs, the remaining 86% from NTB reform, and the services sector account for more than half. In the EU, value added in the agri-food sector goes up most, while in Japan the manufacturing and services sectors gain.

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Creative destruction of industries: Yokohama City in the Great Kanto Earthquake, 1923

Okazaki T., Okubo T., Strobl E.

Journal of Economic History (Journal of Economic History) 79 ( 1 ) 1 - 31 2019.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Accepted, ISSN 00220507

© 2019 The Economic History Association. The Great Kanto Earthquake occurred on 1 September 1923 and inflicted serious damage on Yokohama City. About 90 percent of the factories in Yokohama City were burnt down or completely destroyed. However, these manufacturing industries appear to have swiftly recovered in the aftermath of the damage. This article investigates the role of creative destruction due to the Great Kanto Earthquake. Using firm-level data on capital (horsepower of motors) before and after the earthquake, we find substantial creative destruction, that is, upgrade of machine technology and/or survival of efficient firms. We find further collaborating evidence of this at the prefecture level.

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Natural Disasters and Spatial Heterogeneity in Damages: The Birth, Life and Death of Manufacturing Plants

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Economic Geography (Journal of Economic Geography) 19 ( 2 ) 373 - 408 2019.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 14682702

© The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com. In this paper, we use the 1995 Kobe earthquake as a natural experiment to examine the impact of a large exogenous physical shock on local economic activity. For the first time we are able to control for local spatial heterogeneity in the damage caused by a natural disaster using geo-coded plant location and unique building-level surveys. In a survival analysis of manufacturing plants, our results show that building-level damage significantly affects a plant's likelihood of failure and this effect persists for up to 7 years. Further analysis demonstrates that the plants most likely to exit as a result of earthquake damage are the least productive which is suggestive of a cleansing effect as the average productivity rate of the remaining plants increases. We also find that continuing plants experience a temporary increase in productivity following the earthquake consistent with a 'build back better' effect. In terms of local regeneration our results indicate that plant births increase in areas with more severe damage consistent with redevelopment plans for Kobe.

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Comments on Technical Change, Exports, and Employment Growth in China: A Structural Decomposition Analysis

Okubo Toshihiro

ASIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS 18 ( 2 ) 47 - 48 2019

ISSN 1535-3516

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Why are Firms that Export Cleaner?International trade, Abatement and Environmental Emissions

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management) 91 166 - 183 2018.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 00950696

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. This paper proposes a detailed mechanism for why exporting firms may have a lower emission intensity when emissions are subject to an environmental tax. This mechanism of our model is supported by Swedish firm-level data. Our mechanism runs through firms’ endogenous investments in abatement. Firms’ abatement investments depend on their production volumes, since a larger scale allows them to spread the fixed costs of abatement investment across more units. Production volumes increase in firm productivity and, as a consequence, firms’ emission intensity is negatively related to firm productivity. Exporting also leads to higher production volumes and thereby to a lower emission intensity. Thus, trade has an effect on emissions independently of firm productivity. Trade therefore leads to higher but cleaner production. The overall effect of trade on emissions is neutral in our model. Trade liberalization does not affect aggregate emissions in our benchmark case of symmetric countries.

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Market Size in Globalization

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of International Economics (Journal of International Economics) 111 34 - 60 2018.04

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted, ISSN 00221996

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. A salient feature of the current globalization is a loss of manufacturing in developed countries and rapid industrialization in middle-sized developing countries. This paper aims to construct a simple three-country trade and geography model with different market sizes and non-constant wage rates. The large country fosters industrial agglomeration (geographical concentration) in the early stage of globalization, but loses manufacturing in the later stage of globalization. When losing manufacturing, the large country might be worse off. Thus, the large country might have an incentive to implement welfare-maintaining policies to prevent a loss of manufacturing. All of these results can be explained by market sizes.

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Trade Liberalization, Transboundary Pollution and Market Size

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 4 ( 3 (Part 1) ) 927 - 957 2017.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

On the Stability of Intra-industry Trade

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 45 1 - 12 2017.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Greenhouse-Gas Emission Controls and Firm Locations in North-South Trade

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Environmental and Resource Economics 67 ( 4 ) 637 - 660 2017.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Public Preferences for Alternative Electricity Mixes in Post-Fukushima Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Energy Economics 65 262 - 270 2017.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Pre-Disaster Planning and Post-Disaster Aid: Examining the impact on plants of the Great East Japan Earthquake

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 21 291 - 302 2017.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Ecological Modernization in Japan: The Role of Interest rate Subsidies and Voluntary Pollution Control Agreements

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Asian Economic Papers 15 ( 3 ) 66 - 88 2016.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Product Quality and Intra-industry Trade

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Singapore Economic Review 61 ( 4 ) 2016.10

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Multi-plant Operation and Corporate Headquarters Separation: Evidence from Japanese Plant-level Panel Data

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Japan and the World Economy 39 12 - 22 2016.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The Impact of the Euro on the Quality of Trade: Evidence from the European Union

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

The Manchester School 84 ( 4 ) 506 - 527 2016.07

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Big is Beautiful when Exporting

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of International Economics 24 ( 2 ) 330 - 343 2016.04

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Export of Recyclable Materials: Evidence from Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Asian Economic Papers 15 ( 1 ) 134 - 148 2016.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Greenhouse-gas Emission Controls and International Carbon Leakage through Trade Liberalization

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

International Economy 19 1 - 22 2016

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Well-being Effects of a Major Natural Disaster: The Case of Fukushima

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 116 500 - 517 2015.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The Decline in Average Family Size and its Implications for the Average Benefits of Within‐household Sharing

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Oxford Economic Papers 67 ( 3 ) 760 - 780 2015.05

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Interregional Labour Migration and Real Wage Disparities: Evidence from Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Papers in Regional Science 94 ( 1 ) 67 - 87 2015.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Which Firms are Left in the Periphery? Spatial Sorting of Heterogeneous Firms with Scale Economies in Transportation

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Regional Science 55 ( 1 ) 51 - 65 2015.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

On the Impact of Competition on Trade and Firm Location

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Regional Science 54 ( 5 ) 731 - 754 2014.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work

International Environmental Outsourcing

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of World Economics(Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv) 150 639 - 664 2014.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Firms

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Spatial Economic Analysis 9 ( 3 ) 309 - 326 2014.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Networked FDI: Sales and sourcing patterns of Japanese foreign affiliates

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

The World Economy 37 ( 8 ) 1051 - 1080 2014.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Skew Productivity Distributions and Agglomeration: Evidence from plant-level data

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Regional Studies 48 ( 9 ) 1514 - 1528 2014.08

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Spatial Sorting with Heterogeneous Firms and Heterogeneous Sectors

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Regional Science and Urban Economics 46 ( 3 ) 42 - 56 2014.06

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Asian Fragmentation in the Global Financial Crisis

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

International Review of Economics and Finance 31 114 - 127 2014.05

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

International Trade, Offshoring and Heterogeneous Firms

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of International Economics 22 ( 1 ) 59 - 72 2014.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Firms: A Spatial Analysis

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 65 ( 2 ) 290-309 2013.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Energy-saving Regulations and Commodity Prices

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 15 ( 1 ) 93-132 2013.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Firms Location under Heterogeneous Demand

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Regional Science and Urban Economics 42 ( 6 ) 961-974 2012.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

New Aspects of Intra-industry Trade in EU Countries

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

The World Economy 35 ( 9 ) 1126-1138 2012.09

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

On the Development Strategy of Countries of Intermediate Size-An Analysis of Heterogeneous Firms in a Multi-region Framework

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

European Economic Review 56 747-756 2012.05

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Anti-agglomeration Subsidies with Heterogeneous Firms

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Regional Science 52 ( 2 ) 285-299 2012.05

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Business Cycle, Currency and Trade, Revisited

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Pacific Economic Review 17 ( 1 ) 160-180 2012.03

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Industrial Relocation Policy, Productivity and Heterogeneous Plants: Evidence from Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Regional Science and Urban Economics 42 ( 1 ) 230-239 2012.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Why Has the Border Effect in the Japanese Machinery Sectors Declined? The role of business networks in East Asian-machinery trade

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Economic Integration 26 ( 4 ) 651-671 2011.12

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Ricardian Comparative Advantage and Geographical Concentration

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of Development Economics. 15 ( 4 ) 620-637 2011.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

The Intranational Business Cycle in Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Oxford Economic Papers 63 ( 1 ) 111-133 2011.01

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Environmental Product Standards in North-South Trade

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Review of Development Economics 15 ( 3 ) 458-473 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Does international trade really lead to business cycle synchronization? A panel data approach

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Manchester School 79 ( 2 ) 318-332 2011

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Trade, Environmental Regulations and Industrial Mobility: An Industry-level Study in Japan

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Ecological Economics 69 ( 10 ) 1995-2002 2010.11

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Environmental and Trade Policies for Oligopolistic Industry in the Presence of Consumption

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

International Economy 14 58-77 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The UK Intranational Business Cycle

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Forecasting 29 ( 1 ) 71-93 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

The spatial selection of heterogeneous firms

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of International Economics 82 ( 2 ) 230-237 2010

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Tax Reform, Delocation and Heterogeneous Firms

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Scandinavian Journal of Economics 111 ( 4 ) 741-764 2009

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Firm Heterogeneity and Ricardian Comparative advantage within and across sectors

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Economic Theory 38 ( 3 ) 533-559 2009

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Globalisation and Business Cycle Transmission

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

North American Journal of Economics and Finance 20 ( 2 ) 91-99 2009

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Trade Liberalisation and Agglomeration with Firm Heterogeneity -Forward and Backward Linkages

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Regional Science and Urban Economics 39 ( 5 ) 530-541 2009

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Shake Hands or Shake Apart? International Relationship of Japan with Global Blocs

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Economie Internationale 113 35-64 2008

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Intra-industry Trade, Reconsidered: The Role of Technology Transfer and Foreign Direct Investment.

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

The World Economy 30 ( 12 ) 1855-1876 2007

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Trade Bloc Formation in Interwar Japan-A Gravity Model Analysis

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 21 214-236 2007

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Heterogeneous firms, agglomeration and economic geography: spatial selection and sorting.

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

Journal of Economic Geography 6 323-346 2006

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

Border Effect in the Japanese Market – A Gravity Model Analysis

TOSHIHIRO OKUBO

Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 18 ( 1 ) 1-11 2004

Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

Econometric Analysis of Trade Diversion under NAFTA

OKUBO TOSHIHIRO

North American Journal of Economics and Finance 14 3-24 2003

Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted

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