Japan Project.

• Position: Of the National Bureau of Economic Research

The NBER's Japan Project, directed by Anil K Kashyap of NBER and the University of Chicago, held its spring meeting on April 18. The following papers were presented:

Charles Y. Horioka, NBER and Osaka University; Wako Watanabe, Princeton University; Hideki Fujisaki and Shohei Ishibashi, Government of Japan, "Are Americans More Altruistic than the Japanese? A U.S.-Japan Comparison of Saving and Bequest Motives"

Discussant: B. Douglas Bernheim, NBER and Stanford University

Jun-Koo Kang, Korea University, and Rene Stulz, NBER and Ohio State University, "Is Bank-Centered Corporate Governance Worth It? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Performance of Japanese Firms During the Asset Price Deflation" Discussant: Owen Lamont, NBER and University of Chicago Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh, Hebrew University, "Institutions, Economic Growth, and Country Risk: Evidence from Japanese Government Debt in the Meiji Period"

Discussant: Charles Calomiris, NBER and Columbia University

Takao Kato, Colgate University, and Motohiro Morishima, Keio University, "The Productivity Effects of Participatory Employment Practices: Evidence from New Japanese Panel Data"

Discussant: Raghuram Rajan, NBER and University of Chicago

Masaharu Hanazaki, The Japan Development Bank, and Akiyoshi Horiuchi, University of Tokyo, "Why Has Japan Suffered from the Serious Bank Crisis?"

Horioka, Fujisaki, Watanabe, and Ishibashi compare U.S.-Japan saving and bequest motives using microdata from the "U.S.-Japan Comparison Survey of Saving," conducted in 1996. The evidence is not mutually consistent, but most of it suggests that the dominant explanation of household behavior in both countries is the selfish life-cycle model. The model is far more applicable in Japan than it is in the United States. Moreover, the dynasty model is more applicable in Japan than in the United States, but it applies in only a limited way, even in Japan.

Kang and Stulz examine the determinants of firm stock-price performance from 1990 to 1993 in Japan. During that period, the typical firm on the Tokyo Stock Exchange lost more than half of its value, and banks experienced severe adverse shocks. Firms whose debt had a higher fraction of bank loans in 1989 performed worse than other firms from 1990 to 1993. Also, firms that were more bank-dependent invested less during this period than other firms. This evidence points to an adverse effect of bank-centered corporate governance, namely that firms suffer when their...