Japan project meets.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meetings - Conference notes

The NBER together with the Center on the Japanese Economy and Business, The Center for Advanced Research in Finance, the European Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Australia-Japan Research Centre held a project meeting on the Japanese economy in Tokyo on June 24 and 25. The organizers of the meeting were: Magnus Blomstrom, NBER and Stockholm School of Economics; Jennifer Corbett, Australia-Japan Research Centre; Fumio Hayashi, NBER and the University of Tokyo; Charles Horioka, NBER and Osaka University; Anil K Kashyap, NBER and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; and David Weinstein, NBER and Columbia University. The following papers were discussed:

Joe Chen, Yun Jeong Choi, and Yasuyuki Sawada, University of Tokyo, "Suicide and Life Insurance"

Discussant: Emily Oster, University of Chicago and NBER

Jose A. Lopez and Mark M. Spiegel, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Foreign Entry into Underwriting Services: Evidence from Japan's 'Big Bang' Deregulation"

Discussant: Takeo Hoshi, University of California, San Diego and NBER

Kimie Harada, Chuo University, and Takatoshi Ito, University of Tokyo and NBER, "Did Mergers Help Japanese Mega-Banks Avoid Failures? Analysis of the Distance to Default of Banks"

Discussant: Joe Peck, University of Kentucky

Kazuld Onji, Australian National University, and David Vera, Kent State University, "Tax Law Asymmetries and Income Shifting: Evidence from Japanese Capital Keiretsu"

Discussant: Yishay Yafeh, Hebrew University

Shiro Armstrong, Australian National University, "Interaction Between Trade, Conflict and Cooperation: The Case of Japan and China"

Discussant: Matthew Slaughter, Dartmouth College and NBER

Migiwa Tanaka, Bank of Japan, "Deflation in Durable Goods Markets: An Empirical Model of the Tokyo Condominium Market"

Discussant: Christopher Mayer, Columbia University and NBER

David Weinstein, and Christian Broda, University of Chicago and NBER, "Exporting Deflation ? Chinese Exports and Japanese Prices"(NBER Working Paper No. 13942)

Discussant: Shujiro Urata, Waseda University

Kiu-Sik Bae and Dong-Bae Kim, Korea Labor Institute; Hiroyuki Chuma and Isao Ohashi, Hitotsubashi University; and Takao Kato, Colgate University, "High Performance Work Practices and Employee Voice: A Comparison of Japanese and Korean Workers"

Discussant: Jesse Shapiro, University of Chicago and NBER

Chen and his co-authors investigate the nexus between life insurance and suicide behavior using OECD...