Reviews, Commentaries, etc. - NOMURA Koji

「中期目標の国内対策と国民負担」（日経BP ECOマネジメント）

Koji Nomura

(日経BP)   2009.08

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Single Work

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第三回「中期目標の国内対策と国民負担」要約
「国内対策」と「国民負担」は切り離して考えるべき
日本経済は依然として国民所得の95%を国内生産に依存している。この事実を軽視して国内生産をないがしろにすれば、いずれより深刻な停滞を招くことになる。政府が検討した6つの選択肢のうち、国内対策のあり方を考えるベンチマークとなるのは「先進国全体として1990年比25%削減」とする第2シナリオであった。
温暖化防止という国際的な公益を実現するための負担のあり方を考える際、効率と公正を切り離したうえで2段階のアプローチが有益である。第一段階として、世界全体の排出目標を設定したうえで炭素の国際価格を一律に設定することで、産業の競争条件を国際的に等しく保ちながら削減の総費用を世界で最小化できる。第二段階として、削減費用の負担を各国で再配分する。先進国がコストを負担してでも途上国での削減を推進することが望ましく、なぜなら先進国内でさらなる対策を行うよりもはるかにコスト負担を少なくできるからである。
海外クレジット利用によるマクロ経済への影響
中期目標検討委員会において第2シナリオの試算を行った地球環境産業技術研究機構（RITE）は、必要な国際炭素価格をCO2換算1tあたり88ドルと算定し、日本の国内対策として「2005年比マイナス6%」の実施が必要とした。一方、国立環境研究所は166ドル・「同マイナス10%」と、2倍近くの乖離が生じ、第2シナリオは世論調査の段階で姿を消してしまった。
KEOモデルによる試算では、日本が国内対策を炭素価格88ドルまでとし、それを上回る削減量は海外クレジット購入（1tあたり88ドル）で達成するシナリオを検討した。その結果、クレジット購入に1.0兆円の負担を要するものの、実質GDPと家計消費支出の下落率はそれぞれ0.3%と1.2%にとどまり、国内対策のみの場合（0.6%・2.3%）と比べてマクロ経済への負担はおよそ半分に低下する。
海外クレジット利用によって家計負担は大幅に減少
KEOモデルでは、中期目標を国内対策のみで達成する場合の家計負担は1世帯あたり年額17.2万円（光熱費3.3万円・ガソリン代1.5万円の負担増を含む）と試算される。海外クレジット利用を組み合わせた場合、家計の負担総額は9.8万円減少し、偶然にも政府の公表値である7.6万円と一致する。そのうち海外クレジット購入のための直接・間接負担は2.3万円（負担総額の約30%）であり、残る5.3万円が国内対策による家計負担となる。
国民に示されるべきだったもう一つの選択肢
中期目標を国内対策のみで達成するか、海外クレジット購入を組み合わせて達成するかは、家計の負担において決定的な差をもたらす。一国全体では0.9兆円もの海外への所得移転を伴うとしても、家計の負担が半分以下になるのであれば、国民は後者を選んでいたかもしれない。政府は世論調査において「真水」の国内対策のみではなく、両論を併記した選択肢を国民に与えるべきであった。国際交渉の戦略的配慮は、国民による負担の理解に先行するものではない。
2020年に現実がどうなるかといえば、企業は国際的な炭素価格を見ながら、それを超えるコストの対策を自発的に行うことを躊躇するだろう。結果として中期目標の達成は海外クレジットの購入によって賄われる可能性が高く、それは京都議定書での経験の反復になる。しかし国民負担の観点からみれば、その帰結は「真水」の計画よりもずっと負担の小さいものになる。むしろ注意すべきは政府による非効率な補助金政策や公共投資の拡大であり、そうした対策費用はモデルの試算値をはるかに超えてしまうだろう。

「中期目標による負担額試算は妥当か」（日経BP ECOマネジメント）

Koji Nomura

(日経BP)   2009.07

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Single Work

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第二回「中期目標による負担額試算は妥当か」要約
麻生首相の中期目標発表とその意味
2009年6月10日、麻生太郎首相は日本のGHG中期目標を「2005年比マイナス15%（1990年比マイナス8%）」と発表した。政府内で調整してきた「1990年比マイナス7%」にさらに1%の削減努力を上乗せしたものだ。首相はこの追加1%のために10兆円が必要と強調したが、これは削減コストが1tあたり10万円を超えることを意味する。当時、欧州の排出権市場価格は日本円で2000円を下回っており、日本は海外比50倍以上のコストを要する国内対策へ踏み出したことになる。排出権はすでに貿易財であり、コストに耐えられない製造業が生産を海外へシフトさせる可能性を考えれば、この50倍もの内外価格差を長期にわたって維持することは事実上不可能である。
政府の家計負担試算への批判と反論
中期目標と同時に家計負担額を提示したことは評価に値する。国民が政策の方向性を選択するために不可欠な情報だからだ。しかしその後、「試算はネガティブな側面のみを計算している」「産業構造が不変と仮定して負担を意図的に大きく見積もっている」といった批判が相次いだ。これらは全くの誤解である。経済モデルは環境対策のマイナス面だけを取り出して評価することはほぼ不可能であり、省エネ投資の拡大や価格競争力の向上といったプラス効果も当然に織り込まれている。負担の議論を「脅し」と切り捨てるべきではなく、むしろ負担を示さない議論のほうがはるかに危険である。
家計負担の解釈における三つの混乱
政府の負担額算定には複数の混乱がある。第一に、光熱費のみが示されてガソリン代が含まれていない点だ。代替交通手段の少ない地方ではガソリン代の負担増こそが深刻であり、KEOモデルの試算では年額1.8万円ほどの負担増となる。
第二は「実質所得の変化」の意味に関する混乱だ。実質可処分所得の減少は、名目所得・光熱費・ガソリン代・エネルギー消費量・その他消費財価格の変化という5つの効果に分解できる。政府が「収入の減少」と「光熱費の増加」を単純に加算したことは二重計上に等しく、実質可処分所得の減少のみが家計負担の本体に相応する。
第三は、モデルごとに可処分所得の定義が異なる点だ。特に日本経済研究センターのモデルは、炭素削減コストをすべて家計に還流した後の姿を可処分所得としているため、実際の負担感とかけ離れた楽観的な数値となっている。世論調査ではこの最小推計値が採用されていた。KEOモデルによる試算では家計負担は年額17.2万円と、政府公表値の7.6万円を大きく上回る。
米国との比較と「真水」議論の問題点
米国のリーバーマン・ウォーナー法案の評価では、日本と同程度の削減目標を国内対策のみで実施した場合、米国でも1世帯あたり年額10万円超の家計負担が試算されている。しかし国内外クレジットの利用上限を外すと、米国の家計負担は年額約2万円程度にまで縮小する。日本でも同様であり、国内対策のみでは年額17.2万円の負担が、海外での削減を活用すれば10分の1以下になる可能性がある。
最も問題なのは、政府の世論調査において「国内対策のみ（真水）」という選択肢しか国民に示されなかった点だ。海外クレジットを購入するというもう一つの重要な選択肢が提示されなかったことは、政策議論の透明性として大きな欠落であり、国民が負担の全体像を理解した上で選択できる機会が失われた。

「温暖化対策がもたらす日本経済へのインパクト」（日経BP ECOマネジメント）

Koji Nomura

(日経BP)   2009.06

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Single Work

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背景と政策の枠組み
世界的な「グリーン・ニューディール」の潮流の中、環境危機と経済危機を同時に克服しようとする気運が高まっていた。日本でも2050年までに温室効果ガス（GHG）を現状比60〜80%削減する「長期目標」が掲げられ、その通過点となる中期目標の設定が政府内で議論されていた。政府は1990年比プラス4%からマイナス25%まで6つの選択肢を用意し、国立環境研究所・日本経済研究センター・KEOモデルなど複数の研究機関に経済的影響の分析を委託した。
経済モデルが示す厳しい試算結果
各機関の分析が示したストーリーは共通している。CO2削減を強化するほど、温室効果ガスを追加的に1単位削減するコスト（限界削減費用）が逓増し、エネルギー価格が上昇する。産業部門では省エネ投資が誘発され、家計では省エネ機器への買い替えが促進されるため、需要拡大というプラス効果はある。しかし一方で、生産コストの上昇と輸出競争力の低下が産業の生産水準を押し下げ、所得の減少と家計消費の後退を招く。総合的には経済へのマイナスの影響が避けられないというのが、各モデルに共通する結論だった。
具体的な数字としては、2020年の実質GDPが「最大導入ケース（1990年比マイナス7%）」でマイナス0.5%、「1990年比マイナス15%」でマイナス2.1%、「1990年比マイナス25%」でマイナス5.6%と試算された。失業率はそれぞれ約0.3%、0.8%、1.9ポイントの悪化が見込まれ、家計の実質可処分所得は年間15万円（月1.2万円）から最大77万円（月6.4万円）もの減少という厳しい未来図が描かれた。CO2削減を強化すればするほど限界削減費用は増大し、エネルギーを大量に消費する業種への打撃は大きく、雇用や国民所得にも深刻な影響が及ぶ構図である。
「新産業創出」への期待の限界
こうした試算に対し、「環境対策から生まれる新産業の発展が織り込まれていないのではないか」という批判もあった。確かに、既存技術の普及とその生産誘発効果はモデルに組み込まれているが、想像もつかない全く新しい産業は反映されていない。しかし著者はこれに慎重な見方を示す。過去の歴史を振り返っても、わずか10年という短いスパンで開発から生産・量産化まで進み、経済全体に多大な影響を与えるほどの市場を築いた新産業の例はほとんど存在しない。現在から11年後の2020年という中期の時間軸においては、全く未知の新産業が突如として確立される可能性は極めて低く、グリーン・ニューディールに多大な期待を抱くことは難しいと結論づけている。
モデル間の差異と共通の底線
各機関のモデルは構造や前提条件が異なることから、項目によっては分析結果に差異が生じた。楽観的な見解を示した機関もある。しかし重要なのは、いずれのモデルも「経済に無視しえないマイナスの影響を与える」という一点では一致していることだ。また、2020年における限界削減費用については、技術モデルと経済モデルの間で結果が1.5倍程度の範囲に収まっており、ある種の整合性が確認された。
根拠に基づく政治決断への期待
かつて京都議定書を締結した際、日本はマイナス6%という削減目標を、コスト評価の十分な分析なしに引き受けてしまった。欧州が8%、米国が7%なら日本は6%といった具合に、実現可能性の根拠や国民負担への意識が希薄なまま数字だけを受け取った形だった。その結果、2007年度の排出量はプラス9%と目標を大きく超過した。今回、複数の研究機関が短期間のうちに集中的なモデル分析を行ったことは、「エビデンス・ベースド・ポリシー（根拠に基づく政策）」の実践として高く評価される。関係者によれば、政権交代の可能性も視野に「合理的な根拠のあるストーリーを描いておかなければならない」という必要性から、このような手間のかかる分析プロセスが設けられたという。きっかけがいかなるものであれ、モデル分析を通じて環境対策コストへの認識が政治家たちに培われたことは、非常に大きな意味を持つ取り組みであったと著者は評価している。

"Think sustainable development" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.12

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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Asia has been a fast-growing region. During 2000–2005, the Asian economy (including PR China) grew at 6.0% on average per year, compared with 2.5% in the USA and 1.6% in the EU15. Within the region, the performance was dominated by PR China, which achieved spectacular growth of 8.3% and 9.1% on average per annum in the periods of 1995–2000 and 2000–2005, respectively. Together with its size, it contributed to over 50% of the region's growth in both periods (see the accompanying chart). The pressure that the region's fast growth has put on the world's resources and the environment is well documented. Is this fast pace of growth sustainable?
Sustainability is the question of our ability to maintain the current level of well-being in the future. Currently, conventional economic statistics are simply inadequate to illuminate the issue, and GDP as a welfare measure is questionable. GDP is fundamentally an aggregate measure of production within a country. Key factors that have significant bearing on individual well-being, such as income inequality, household disposable income, environmental degradation, and changes in wealth, are omitted. The gap between our welfare concerns today and what we are measuring is so sizable that GDP measures alone are deemed inappropriate when sustainable development is considered. Currently, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, set up by the French President, attempts to find how the inadequacies of GDP measures can be feasibly addressed (see http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr).
Among others, GDP net of depreciation has been put forward as a better welfare measure than GDP because allowances set aside for replenishing the capital stock are not available for consumption and in turn do not contribute to the current level of well-being. The same concept is useful in thinking sustainability, with capital stock extended to include natural resources, physical capital, and human and social capital. The World Bank operationalizes the concept of "net adjusted savings" (NAS) as net saving (i.e., GDP minus consumption minus depreciation) plus education expenditures minus the consumption of natural resources and the monetary evaluations of damages resulting from CO2 emissions. Based on International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates in CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion (2007), CO2 emissions in Asia (including PR China) grew at an average 7.8% annually during 2000–2005, compared with an economic growth rate of 6.0%. Part of the environmental cost of PR China's fast growth is reflected in the staggering acceleration in its CO2 emissions from an average increase of 0.3% per annum during 1995–2000 to 10.2% a year during 2000–2005.
In gauging sustainability, the NAS approach has two major limitations. First, it is not equipped to analyze the impact of any irreversible events in the natural world. Second, any meaningful sustainability measures need to balance future risks against the uncertainty of future advancements, resource discoveries, and preferences of future generations.
Given our current knowledge, it is high time that sustainability concerns were more explicitly incorporated into national economic policy frameworks. Building a workable, coherent intellectual and statistical framework is an important step toward this goal.

"The evolving role of the service sector" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.11

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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Traditionally, technological advances tend to favor manufacturing more than services, resulting in the former sector being the engine of productivity growth in an economy. Services, in contrast, have been perceived as the technologically stagnant sector. If its relative claim on resources in the economy is rising, overall productivity growth will be dragged down to the rate prevailing in the stagnant sector. When this so-called Baumol's disease takes root, economic growth is doomed to decline.
In recent years, however, a cure for Baumol's disease has started surfacing in empirical evidence, which points to the emerging capability of some service industries to capitalize on information and communication technologies (ICT) and achieve productivity growth. J.E. Triplett and B.P. Bosworth (FRBNY Economic Policy Review, September 2003) declared that, "Baumol's disease has been cured." This assertion was based on their findings that in the USA, labor productivity growth in the service industry equaled the economywide average in the latter half of the 1990s, driven by an unprecedented surge in total factor productivity growth. In short, services are no longer the sick industries in terms of productivity growth.
The pervasive nature of ICT has meant that its impact is not reserved for manufacturing but also can transform service industries. ICT is also seen as a disruptive technology, productivity assimilation of which often requires a major overhaul of business practices. The role of ICT in service industries is twofold. First, it provides an enabling technological platform to create and launch new service products. As ICT fundamentally improves the efficiency of data and information processing, its effective exploitation not only leads to an expansion of product possibilities but also creates new business formats and new industries selling service functionality. Second, by providing a cost-effective, time-efficient, borderless medium to store, present, and transmit information, ICT networks together with digitalization have helped make information and knowledge more marketable and breach the physical barrier of national boundaries. If supported by trade liberalization efforts, the international market offers these IT-using service industries new business opportunities and scope to reap economies of scale, which are unavailable to traditional services.
The service sector accounts for the biggest share of total value added in Asian countries, independent of their stage of development (Table 8, APO Productivity Databook 2008). The accompanying figure shows contributions of the service sector to labor productivity growth during 2000–2005, which were particularly prominent in India, accounting for just under 90%. At 5.8% on average per year, services were the sector with the highest labor productivity growth in India. This is consistent with the well-documented economic surge of India in the 1990s via its IT-based high-tech information services, which flourish on human rather than physical capital. By providing new ways to compete, modern ICT has allowed India to take an unusual path in economic development, bypassing a stage when manufacturing steers. Rather than being a laggard sector, service industries can be a leading sector driving productivity growth and development if ICT can be successfully assimilated and exploited.

"The process of technology assimilation" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.10

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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Technological transfer plays a key role in economic development. Part of the technological advancement is embodied in capital goods, which can be acquired through investment. But how to master the embodied technology to yield its full productivity potential in the host country is largely tacit and requires learning by doing. This process of technology assimilation can be slow, disruptive, and costly. How successful a country can be in this respect depends on its social and technological capabilities. Empirically, assimilation rates vary across countries, resulting in diverse development experience and outcomes.
As mentioned previously in this column, the Asian miracle was credited largely to input accumulation rather than to total factor productivity growth. Focusing on level comparisons of Asian and US manufacturing for the period 1963–1997, Marcel P. Timmer (Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2002; 16: 50–72) observed that labor productivity levels achieved by the Republic of China and Republic of Korea in 1997, even after a period of capital intensification, were lower than what the USA had achieved at similar levels of capital intensity. In other words, capital accumulation might have created the potential but was itself not a sufficient condition for performance; the same amount of capital was used more productively in the USA in the late 1980s than in the Republic of Korea and Republic of China in the 1990s. Although capital intensity was not covered in the APO Productivity Databook 2008, the accompanying chart shows that labor productivity at the whole economy level in the Republic of China was 79% that of the USA in 2005, whereas the Republic of Korea's in 2005 was 85% and 55% of the US 1975 and 2005 levels, respectively.
The USA's superior assimilation ability was also apparent in comparisons with Europe. The divergent productivity performance in the latter half of the 1990s was largely attributed to the failure of Europe to reap productivity gains from ICT investments compared with the USA. Empirical evidence therefore suggests that soft investment in organizational change, managerial skills, and human capital is required to complement the accumulation effort.
Given the diminishing possibilities for further productivity improvements with a particular technology, sustained growth must involve the continual introduction of new technology, new goods, and new activities. However, the pace of the climb up the technological ladder can be too fast if insufficient time is allowed for the assimilation process and learning costs are too high to be beneficial to productivity growth. On the other hand, countries can also be stagnant in productivity growth with the existing technology when the pace of technological change is too slow and new opportunities are not created. The right balance is difficult to judge a priori, and different industry sectors even within a country can display diverse capabilities in adopting new technologies and pushing the frontier. In general, flexibility of a country in resource allocation and factor markets with a well-educated workforce will be conducive to the process.

"Setting agriculture in order—an important step toward development"(Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.09

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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Asia is a diverse region with countries at different stages of economic development. Part of this diversity is reflected in the national industrial composition. Economic data suggest that the more an economy relies on its agricultural sector, the lower its per capita GDP. Although the actual path of economic development may vary, an effective redeployment of resources from the agricultural sector appears to be an element common to a country's development outcome.
The accompanying chart shows national industrial composition of total value added in 2005 (Figure 13 in the APO Productivity Databook 2008). The share of agriculture ranged from 44.8% in Lao PDR to 1.4% in Japan. The data suggest a negative correlation between the size of the agricultural sector and the relative per capita GDP against the USA. That is, the lowest income group tends to have the largest agricultural sector, whereas the top group has the smallest.
Agricultural employment in Asia accounted for 45% of total employment in 2005, compared with 1.1% for the USA. In Asia, agriculture generally has a higher employment share than its corresponding value-added share, implying that the sector's labor productivity level lags behind that of the wider economy. In 2005, per-worker value added in agriculture was only 31% of that in the nonagricultural sector on average. Assuming other things being equal, this difference in the industrial structure alone, i.e., the relatively less productive sector having a much greater weight, explains 10–20% of Asia's 84% labor productivity shortfall against the USA.
In the context of long-term trends, this snapshot of cross-country comparisons in 2005 reflects regional progress rather than weakness. Despite the widespread variations, nearly all countries studied are making concerted efforts to shift resources from agriculture, and most experienced positive labor productivity growth between 2000 and 2005, ranging from 1.1% in Japan to 5.8% in Malaysia (Table 11 in the APO Productivity Databook 2008). The trend of a long-term relative decline of agriculture is unmistakable.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the Green Revolution and rural reforms preceded economic reforms and the subsequent takeoff in China and India in the 1980s (see for example, Sachs, J., The End of Poverty, 2005). The boost in rural income was significant when agriculture's share in total employment was around 70% in both countries in the 1970s. The subsequent emergence of high-performing new sectors (particularly manufacturing in China and IT services in India) held the key to the productive absorption of resources displaced from agriculture and spurred overall growth. By 2005, agriculture's employment share had fallen to 53.7% and 44.8% in India and China, respectively. However, the corresponding value-added share of 18.3% and 12.6% still suggests significant slack in agriculture in these two economies, despite their rapid economic growth. Underemployment, and informal production and employment, are suspected to be prevalent in agriculture in these fast-transforming Asian economies. Given the size of the sector, their impact on economic measurement could be significant.

"The role of structural shifts in productivity enhancement" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.08

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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Productivity gains from structural shifts could be highly significant in economic development. More specifically, it has been argued that the rapid shift of capital and labor into the "modern sector" of higher labor productivity played a pivotal role in the Asian Miracle by preventing a decline in the return on capital despite the sustained high investment ratios in these high-performing economies (see, for example, Nelson, R. and Pack, H., The Asian Miracle and Modern Growth Theory, Economic Journal, 1999; 109: 416–436).
Since the 1960s, a handful of East Asian economies, notably Singapore, the Republic of China, Hong Kong, and the Republic of Korea, have managed to set themselves off on a path of impressive growth. With their real per capita GDP growing at a pace of 4–5% per year on average, these economies outperformed other comparable developing countries in the 1960s and stand out as the only region that has managed to catch up to the living standards of the advanced countries. The accompanying figure (Figure 5 in the APO Productivity Databook 2008) shows how these economies rapidly closed the per capita income gap with the USA from 1975, against the background of little progress made by the region as a whole. Because of its potential policy significance, what has been the recipe for the Asian Miracle has been a subject of vigorous academic debate.
Among other views, narrowing the "idea gap" was put forward as an explanation by Paul Romer (Idea Gaps and Object Gaps in Economic Development, Journal of Monetary Economics, 1993; 32: 543–573). He argued that underlying the success of the East Asian economies was their ability to adopt existing technologies from the advanced economies. If true, this represented a less costly approach to economic development than the accumulation view whereby the road to prosperity is through savings and investment, in other words, forgone current consumption, which many poor countries cannot easily afford.
Empirical evidence, however, has lent little support for this view. East Asia's rapid growth has been found to be largely driven by factor accumulation, with total factor productivity (TFP) growth accounting for only one-fourth of the region's growth in labor productivity between 1960 and 1994 (Collins, S. and Bosworth, B., Economic Growth in East Asia: Accumulation versus Assimilation, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1996; 2: 135–203). The main lessons from East Asia's success therefore are not about which policies best promote TFP growth. Rather, the focus should be on how to achieve and sustain high rates of savings and investment, defying the law of diminishing returns.
With an investment ratio of over 20% of GDP, Nelson and Pack (1999) argued that the success of the fast-growing Asian economies lay in their extraordinary ability to absorb and assimilate technologies superior to their own at a rapid pace sustained over a long period without slowing. This process involved uncertainty and economic risk in an essential way. To sow the seeds of success, a favorable policy environment was first required to nurture learning, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Subsequently, it was the shift of resources into the more modern, capital-intensive technologies through aggressive entrepreneurship and progressive learning that held the key to sustaining high rates of return on capital and in turn investment, which drove growth. In other words, the observed dramatic shift in the product mix and firm size in these Asian economies should be seen as an integral part of their success story which ran far deeper than simply factor accumulation.

"Why labor productivity matters" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.07

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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"For the fact is that the key both to long-term economic growth and to sustained differences in economic performance between countries seems to be the ability to get more for less—to have output grow faster than input." Paul Krugman (International Affairs, 1995; 71(4): 717–732)Productivity is one of the main economic performance indicators that government policymakers often monitor. In simple terms, productivity measures units of output per unit of input. As resource constraints are prevalent in all economies in one form or another, whatever the income level, the capability of an economy to drive productivity growth, i.e., output growing faster than input, is seen as cardinal for ensuring future prosperity.In 2005, GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity [PPP]) of APO member countries as a whole was only around 15% of that of the USA. Despite rapid economic growth of the group in recent years, the gap persists. The accompanying chart shows that for most APO countries, the substantial per-capita GDP gaps with the USA are predominantly explained by their relatively poor labor productivity performance. This is why identifying the sources of labor productivity growth is crucial to a country's development efforts.There are different techniques for productivity analysis. The APO Productivity Databook uses the growth accounting framework, the international standard for compiling productivity estimates. In this approach, economic growth is decomposed into contributions of input growth and total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Within the same framework, labor productivity growth can be traced back to its sources in capital deepening, improvement in labor quality, and TFP growth. Although full analysis of these sources was not performed in the Databook 2008 (the current plan is that sources of productivity growth will be analyzed at least for some countries in Databook 2009) as theoretically established channels of labor productivity growth, they highlight areas where potential policy levers could be applied to raise labor productivity.Another perspective is the industry origins of productivity growth, which offer insight into the dynamics of an economy and the sectors contributing most to the productivity drive. Furthermore, productivity growth for the whole economy can be decomposed into the intrasectoral effect (productivity gains within the industry sectors) and the intersectoral effect (the change in the resource allocation of production). The latter is positive when high-performance industry is growing relative to other sectors in the economy.Empirical evidence of the "Asian Miracle" has suggested that input growth (especially capital accumulation) was behind the success story of Asian Tigers, i.e., Hong Kong, Singapore, Republic of Korea, and Republic of China, that experienced more than a four-fold increase in per capita income over the 35-year period from the mid-1960s. Labor productivity growth was largely explained by capital deepening with TFP growth playing a surprisingly small role in its success. The lessons to be learned are therefore why those countries can mobilize input better than other countries and how they can achieve and sustain high rates of saving and investment. Nelson and Pack (Economic Journal, 1999; 109(457): 416–436) highlighted that among other factors, the possibility to shift into highly productive sectors is a crucial element of this productive assimilation of factor inputs.

"International comparisons of productivity: a panoramic view for decision making" (Reading Productivity and Economic Trends)

Eunice Lau and Koji Nomura

APO News (Asian Productivity Organization)   2008.06

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Joint Work

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We are faced with economic decisions every day, whether as consumers, workers, entrepreneurs, or government policymakers. Generally, the better the information we have, the better are our decisions and in turn their outcomes. We may be well aware of our immediate surroundings but a panoramic view often requires some research effort. When we broaden our view, we may discover options and possibilities that we did not even know existed, relevant lessons to be learned from others' experience of our actions or inaction, and benchmark performances to aspire to.
As a key indicator of economic performance, productivity analysis is useful in focusing on issues at hand. In particular, when a country is catching up with the world leaders in GDP per capita, significant productivity growth is an essential element in the process. A good understanding of the key drivers and dynamics of productivity growth is therefore beneficial to a country's development efforts.
Some APO member countries may already have their own programs of productivity analysis, but such programs may not sufficiently take into account the regional and global contexts. This is a gap that the APO Productivity Databook seeks to fill to complement national programs. Through international comparisons, widespread global or regional economic trends can be distinguished from factors unique to individual economies, and benchmark performances can be identified and analyzed to focus on potential adaptations. In this manner, international comparisons highlight the ways countries are able to learn from and cooperate with each other.
In the APO Productivity Databook 2008, a new analytical framework was developed to enable cross-country comparisons for the first time in this series. Furthermore, to provide a more complete regional and global perspective, the economic performances of APO member countries were compared with those of the People's Republic of China, USA, and EU15 for reference. Countries are ranked according to their GDP and per capita GDP. To reflect their diversity, countries covered in the publication were divided into groups based on relative per capita GDP and how fast they were catching up with the USA, the world leader. Regional economic growth was dissected into country origins. Changes in per capita GDP were traced back to the causal components, i.e., labor productivity and the labor utilization rate. To understand further the dynamics of an economy, we analyzed the industry origins of each country's economic growth and labor productivity.
This monthly column in the APO News will present the findings from the analyses contained in the APO Productivity Databook 2008 in bite-sized form, focusing on one specific topic each month and expanding on its implications where possible. International comparisons of productivity, however, are not a precise science but fraught with measurement difficulties and issues. Although the APO Productivity Databook 2008 represents an important milestone in APO productivity research efforts, there is still room for improvement. More specifically, the work of the APO Productivity Databook project team continues in two broad directions: 1) more thorough data investigation and harmonization to improve cross-country data comparability and in turn the quality of the results; and 2) an expanded scope of the analytical framework for completeness. Admittedly, a "perfect" data set is an unattainable dream. Nevertheless, improved knowledge of the underlying statistics should enable us to judge data limitations better and in turn to interpret the results with greater confidence. The medium-term goal is to build an APO productivity database comparable with other international databases in terms of quality, opening up the possibility for the majority of countries in the Asia-Pacific to be included in future international studies of productivity performance.

"International Comparison of Productivity and Analysis of Competitiveness in Pacific Rim Countries" (in Japanese)

Koji Nomura, Dale W. Jorgenson, Masahiro Kuroda, and Kazushige Shimpo

Academic Frontier Research Result Report 2008 (G-SEC, Keio University)     22 - 23 2008.04

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (bulletin of university, research institution), Joint Work

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Backed by the price competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, it was only some 20 years ago that more than a few economists held the expectation that the Japanese economy would soon surpass the United States in per-capita GDP or labor productivity. In the last decade of the 20th century, the United States achieved improvements in labor productivity through capital deepening in both IT hardware and software, as well as through technological progress itself, and succeeded in the industrialization of information technology. At present, measured against the market economy as a whole, Japan's labor productivity is estimated to lag behind that of the United States by approximately 30%. This project has worked to construct an internationally comparable productivity database and to examine national accounts frameworks that enhance such comparability, with the aim of analyzing the factors behind this competitive disadvantage and its industrial sources.

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「周回遅れの統計精度」 （経済教室）

野村浩二

Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei Inc.)   2008.03

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Single Work

「米国市場の知らない"Made in Japan"」

野村浩二

『三田評論』 (慶應義塾大学出版会)   2005.08

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (other), Single Work

書評　藤川清史著『グローバル経済の産業連関分析』

野村浩二

『イノベーション＆IOテクニーク』 (環太平洋産業連関分析学会)   1999.07

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (scientific journal), Single Work

「日本の潜在成長力」 （経済教室）

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei Inc.)   1999.01

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work

「実証経済分析と統計資料（10）生産者行動の計量モデル」

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

『統計』 (日本統計協会)   1998.05

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work

「実証経済分析と統計資料（9）生産関数の計測」

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

『統計』 (日本統計協会)   1998.04

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work

「加工統計作成の観点からみた一次統計の問題点」

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

『ECO-FORUM』 (統計研究会)   1998.03

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work

「実証経済分析と統計資料（8）生産者内部均衡図式」

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

『統計』 (日本統計協会)   1998.03

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work

「実証経済分析と統計資料（7）要素相対価格と投入構造」

黒田昌裕, 野村浩二

『統計』 (日本統計協会)   1998.02

Article, review, commentary, editorial, etc. (trade magazine, newspaper, online media), Joint Work