Published papers

This paper examines the institutional weaknesses in Japan’s information infrastructure revealed by the Great East Japan Earthquake and proposes a new statistical framework to support reconstruction policy and long-term disaster risk management. The disaster exposed significant information asymmetries and delays in risk communication by government and media institutions, highlighting structural deficiencies in the evaluation and disclosure of disaster-related risks. The study argues that conventional macroeconomic indicators such as GDP and capital stock are insufficient for assessing the economic impact of disasters or the progress of reconstruction. Instead, it proposes the development of “disaster accounts,” an integrated statistical system designed to quantify social losses and regional vulnerability associated with disasters. By linking economic accounts with geographic information and detailed attributes of infrastructure, population, and productive assets, the framework would allow the systematic measurement of functional losses, evacuation costs, environmental damage, and other disaster-related impacts. The paper also discusses the need for a national asset registry for infrastructure and standardized statistical concepts to ensure transparency and comparability. Establishing such an information infrastructure is essential for evidence-based reconstruction policies and for strengthening long-term societal resilience to catastrophic risks.

This paper estimates Japan’s import share elasticity and substitution elasticity between domestic and imported photovoltaic (PV) modules using price and trade data from the first quarter of 2010 to the third quarter of 2012. During this period, the import share in Japan expanded sharply from 8.3% to 32.3%. The estimated import share elasticity is −0.63, significantly below zero, while the substitution elasticity reaches 5.66, indicating a strong substitution relationship between domestic and imported products. Simulation results based on the estimated parameters suggest that even in Japan—where reliance on electricity consumption in PV production can be reduced through imported components and materials—policy-driven increases in electricity prices, such as those associated with feed-in tariff (FIT) schemes, may expand import shares and reduce exports, thereby leading to a substantial contraction of domestic production. The findings imply that achieving sustainable green growth requires not only the promotion of renewable energy but also the provision of low-carbon and affordable electricity domestically.

This paper reexamines the construction of the Japan–U.S. international input–output table from the perspective of competitiveness analysis, with the aim of improving the consistency between input structures and price evaluation. As globalization advances and cross-border intermediate transactions expand, existing international input–output tables face methodological challenges in accurately capturing production linkages and price structures across countries. Focusing on the bilateral Japan–U.S. framework, the study proposes methodological improvements to enhance the consistency of input structures and price evaluation. The results provide a more reliable statistical framework for assessing industrial competitiveness and offer a stronger empirical basis for analyzing structural changes in international production networks and related policy issues.

This paper constructs commodity- and partner-country–specific tariff matrices for Japan and the United States—covering both tariff revenues and ad valorem–equivalent tariff rates—and measures cross-country differences in industrial protection rates within the framework of the Japan–U.S. international input–output table. As indicators of protection, the study first calculates the nominal rate of protection for industry outputs and the effective rate of protection, which accounts for tariffs imposed on imported intermediate inputs. In addition, the paper introduces an extended measure of the effective rate of protection that incorporates tariffs on indirectly imported intermediate goods embodied in production networks. These measures are estimated for 2011, 2015, and 2018. The analysis shows that once tariffs on both direct and indirect imported intermediate inputs are considered, Japan’s tariff structure—traditionally protective toward sectors such as food products and agriculture, forestry, and fisheries—generates negative effective protection rates for manufacturing industries such as automobiles and machinery. These results suggest that Japan’s current tariff system may unintentionally undermine the competitiveness of manufacturing sectors. To avoid such adverse effects, the paper argues for a reassessment of the existing tariff structure so that the net effective protection rate does not produce a negative protection outcome for key manufacturing industries.

Feed-in tariffs (FIT) have been introduced as a policy instrument to promote the large-scale deployment of renewable energy. This paper argues that the likelihood of achieving the sustained economic growth expected from this policy is low. Instead, the increasing import share of photovoltaic (PV) modules has contributed to a decline in the competitiveness of domestic industries. Furthermore, to evaluate the lack of the anticipated decline in PV prices under the FIT scheme, the paper employs a search model to demonstrate that the high purchase prices guaranteed by FIT reduce competitive pressure among firms and effectively act as a price floor, thereby preventing the expected reduction in solar panel prices.

This paper constructs a long-term dataset describing the structure of labor input and labor input prices in the Japanese economy over the 58-year period from 1955 to 2012. Annual labor inputs are classified within a cross-tabulation defined by gender (2 categories), educational attainment (4), age (11), employment status (5), and industry (46), yielding a total of 20,240 attribute combinations. For each attribute group, labor input is characterized by the number of workers (N), average working hours (h), and wage rate (w). For employees, the product Nhw corresponds to labor income, which is consistent with compensation of employees in the Japanese System of National Accounts (JSNA). Under certain assumptions, labor income is also estimated for self-employed workers and unpaid family workers, allowing the labor component to be separated from mixed income in the JSNA framework. As a result, total labor income for all workers in the national economy can be calculated in a manner fully consistent with the aggregation of detailed labor attributes in the cross-classification table. Based on this dataset, the paper measures quality-adjusted labor input (QALI) in Japanese production activities, together with its corresponding price index. It also provides statistical measures of labor quality improvement, including both main effects and interaction effects, thereby enabling a detailed analysis of long-term changes in labor input quality in Japan.

In European countries, electricity prices roughly doubled during the 2000s. The increase progressed alongside electricity sector restructuring and the gradual liberalization of electricity markets. In Italy in particular, industrial electricity prices rose to extremely high levels: by 2014 they reached 1.7 times the level in Japan and 4.7 times that in the United States. This surge persisted for a long period until the government of Matteo Renzi, formed in February 2014, introduced major policy changes. This paper analyzes the factors behind the increase in electricity prices through a decomposition of power generation costs and examines their impact on Italy’s industrial structure. The decomposition of generation costs indicates that the drivers of rising electricity prices in Italy differed before and after the global financial crisis. During the first phase of price increases (1999–2008), most of the increase—about 91% of the total contribution—was attributable to the growing reliance on natural gas–fired power generation and the resulting expansion of fuel costs due to rising natural gas prices. By 2007, natural gas accounted for 55% of electricity generation, and 85% of total thermal power generation, creating a power mix that amplified the effects of rising natural gas prices in Italy. In the second phase (2008–2014), even though natural gas prices declined following the global financial crisis, electricity prices continued to rise. The main factor offsetting the decline in fuel costs was the expansion of financial burdens associated with renewable energy support, particularly for solar power generation. These burdens included both direct policy costs (surcharges to finance renewable energy support) and indirect system costs (balancing costs arising from the increased introduction of variable renewable energy). As a result, while wholesale electricity prices tended to decline, the purchaser price of electricity increased, creating a divergence between the two. The rise in electricity prices resulting from these energy policies significantly elevated industrial electricity prices in Italy and appears to have exerted a statistically significant negative impact on the country’s industrial structure. A simple calculation suggests that the effect corresponds to a reduction in Italy’s economic growth of roughly 0.14 percentage points per year. Since 2000, Italy has recorded the weakest economic performance among major advanced economies, and rising electricity prices are likely to have been a major contributing factor to this prolonged stagnation. The distorted energy mix that emerged in Italy was largely the outcome of decentralized decision-making under the gradual liberalization of electricity and gas markets, including investments by independent power producers and the introduction of cogeneration facilities. Given the widening international disparities in electricity prices, effective policy design requires a balanced combination of market liberalization and strategic government planning, taking into account various sources of uncertainty.

Both the United Kingdom and Germany have achieved economic growth decoupled from CO₂ emissions since the late 1970s and late 1980s, respectively. In the United Kingdom in particular, improvements in energy productivity accelerated after 2000 to 3.1% per year, doubling from the 1.6% annual rate observed in the 1990s. Although the United Kingdom’s economic growth rate of 1.7% per year is relatively high among advanced economies, roughly half of the observed decoupling in recent years can be attributed to substantial improvements in energy productivity within production activities. In Germany, improvements in energy productivity have been roughly half the magnitude observed in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, with renewable energy now accounting for approximately one-third of electricity generation, Germany has adopted an ambitious energy policy centered on the principle of “Efficiency First.” Japan’s Long-term Energy Supply and Demand Outlook toward 2030 similarly sets a target of approximately 2.3% annual improvement in energy productivity, comparable to the energy-saving efforts observed in Japan after the oil shocks. Assessing the feasibility of this target requires careful consideration of the experiences of both the United Kingdom and Germany. At the macro level, national energy productivity is a composite indicator reflecting structural changes in production, shaped by economic conditions such as energy prices and growth patterns. In Germany, although numerous firm-level energy-saving initiatives are often highlighted, the observed 1.5% annual improvement in energy productivity during 2000–2014 does not exceed historical trends. Moreover, industry-level analysis in this paper indicates that more than two-thirds of the improvement can be attributed to structural changes in the industrial composition of the economy. During this period, wage restraint limited domestic demand expansion in Germany, and roughly half of economic growth depended on external demand. Even in Germany—where manufacturing has performed relatively well compared with the United Kingdom—little evidence is found of substantial improvements in energy productivity within individual manufacturing industries. In the United Kingdom, the headline 3.1% annual improvement in energy productivity during 2000–2014 is reduced to 1.5% per year once structural effects are controlled for. The remaining improvements are largely associated with developments in the service sector. However, because energy productivity in services is strongly influenced by cyclical fluctuations in output, adjustments that remove the effect of production expansions not directly associated with energy demand indicate that more than two-thirds of the observed macro-level improvement also reflects structural changes in production. Looking forward, the slowdown in economic growth following Brexit, driven by reduced immigration inflows, slower expansion in services, and potential structural shifts toward manufacturing, is likely to significantly reduce the pace of future improvements in energy productivity in the United Kingdom.

What lessons can be drawn from Japan’s postwar economic experience for achieving a “virtuous cycle between the environment and economic growth”? This paper analyzes the interaction between environmental performance and economic efficiency from a productivity perspective, using extended industry-level productivity statistics for Japan (1955–2016) constructed for energy consumption analysis. The study measures energy productivity improvement (EPI) and total factor productivity (TFP) to examine the circular relationship between environmental outcomes (EPI) and economic performance (TFP). The first direction of the relationship runs from the economy to the environment. EPI can be decomposed into the contributions of capital and labor inputs per unit of energy use, together with TFP. Throughout Japan’s postwar growth process, technological change has generally been characterized by labor shallowing, whereby each unit of labor requires greater energy input to sustain output. This phenomenon reflects two underlying shifts: substitution from labor to capital, and increased energy use required to operate capital equipment. Although these changes tend to depress EPI directly, they raise labor productivity and TFP, offsetting the negative effect and ultimately contributing to improvements in energy productivity. In the long run, Japan’s postwar gains in EPI were driven primarily by TFP growth, reflecting improvements in overall production efficiency rather than energy-saving investment alone. The second direction runs from the environment to the economy. TFP growth can be interpreted as the combined outcome of changes in labor productivity, capital productivity, and energy productivity. After the oil shocks, high EPI was achieved particularly in energy-intensive industries; however, as inexpensive energy-saving technologies became exhausted, subsequent energy-saving investments increasingly reduced capital productivity, leading to episodes of negative TFP growth. In recent decades, improvements in EPI within the service sector have often resulted from the reversal of labor shallowing, achieved at the cost of lower labor productivity and weaker TFP growth. These findings suggest that pursuing improvements in energy productivity alone does not necessarily lead to broader gains in overall production efficiency, highlighting the difficulty of achieving a true virtuous cycle between environmental performance and economic growth.

This paper evaluates the potential economic impacts of realizing Society 5.0 for SDGs in Japan using the JES5 model, a general equilibrium framework built upon an extended input–output system. The analysis quantifies the structural transformations associated with the social implementation of technological innovation. Taking a business-as-usual (BaU) economy in 2030 as the baseline, the study assesses the economic and social effects of introducing 57 future technologies, examining both their individual and combined impacts on economic growth, employment, industrial structure, and productivity. The results suggest that the realization of Society 5.0 could raise Japan’s GDP growth through expanded investment and value creation while mitigating the long-term decline in the manufacturing sector’s share of value added. Furthermore, by contributing to improvements in labor productivity, the implementation of these technologies may help narrow the productivity gap with advanced economies and strengthen the long-term growth foundations of the Japanese economy.

This paper develops a more appropriate output indicator for education services within Japan’s System of National Accounts (JSNA) by designing the Education Services Production Database of Japan (ESJ) and reporting the construction of long-term data covering 1955–2017. The ESJ provides a detailed and time-series–consistent dataset for school education services. The database consists of four main components: output data (e.g., number of students and instructional hours), quality-related production data on the supply side of education services (such as numbers of teachers, staff, classes, land, and capital facilities), expenditure data, and SNA-concept data developed as processed statistics. All data series are defined using a cross-classification by education level (e) × program (p) × institutional provider (o). Additional disaggregation is provided by region (r) for primary and secondary schools and by academic field (s) for universities. In total, all school education services in Japan are classified into 3,426 basic categories. Beyond primary statistical observations such as enrollment, the ESJ constructs processed output indicators including total student instructional hours—the total number of hours of instruction received by all students in a year, adjusted for long-term absenteeism—and total teacher instructional hours, representing the total instructional time delivered by teachers annually. At the level of each basic category, education service production is further divided into four types of activity: (1) core educational activities, (2) supporting activities, (3) research and development (R&D), and (4) school meal services. The framework also estimates capital stock and nominal consumption of fixed capital, which are not directly observable in school accounting data. Through this structure, the ESJ enables the estimation of education service output consistent with SNA production concepts and provides a statistical foundation for improved measurement of education services in Japan’s national accounts.

This paper constructs a long-term time-series of the Extended Input–Output Table for Education Services (EIOT), covering 1955–2017 in both nominal and real terms. Using this framework, the study evaluates the accuracy of education service output estimates in Japan’s System of National Accounts (JSNA) and explores ways to improve the measurement of education services currently based on the input method. The EIOT developed in this study consists of two complementary structures. The first is a provider-based EIOT, in which the row sectors correspond to the commodity classifications in the standard input–output tables, while the column sectors disaggregate the education sector (public and private) into more detailed institutional providers. The second is a skill-based EIOT, which redefines the composite services produced by education providers according to distinct educational activities. Education services are a non-market output provided by different institutional sectors—public, national, and private—and include not only core educational activities but also complementary functions such as school meals and research activities. As a result, their measurement within the SNA framework involves a complex statistical process. The analysis suggests that the current JSNA estimates of domestic education service output may have been systematically underestimated by approximately ¥2–3 trillion since the 1980s, partly reflecting instability in benchmark estimates used in the basic input–output tables. Furthermore, since 1994, the JSNA estimates appear to show an excessive decline in the value-added price index, leading to a potential overestimation of the growth rate of education service output. By applying the input method within both the provider-based and skill-based EIOT frameworks, and by evaluating structural changes in education services from multiple perspectives, the paper reassesses the effectiveness of the input method as an approach to measuring education service output in national accounts.

This paper examines the measurement of price and quantity indices that reflect changes in the quality of education within Japan’s System of National Accounts (JSNA). The analysis is based on long-term time-series estimates from two newly constructed datasets: the Education Service Output Database (ESJ), which provides cross-classified data on school education services, and the Extended Input–Output Table for Education Analysis (EIOT). Using these datasets, the study systematically applies five methodological approaches: (I) the simple output quantity method, (II) the output quantity method, (III) the input method, (IV) a hybrid method, and (V) the hedonic method. Three observable indicators are defined to measure the output of education services. From the consumer perspective, these include the number of students (adjusted for changes in absenteeism) and total student instructional hours; from the producer perspective, total teacher instructional hours are used. Based on these indicators, price and quantity indices for Japanese education services are estimated for the period 1955–2017, allowing an assessment of appropriate measurement approaches. Estimates derived from the output quantity and input methods allow the construction of an indirect quality index, which serves as an indicator of changes in the quality of education services. This index is compared with multiple direct quality indices observed in the ESJ and with an aggregated quality index obtained through the application of the hedonic method. For public primary and junior high schools, the hedonic estimates of quality-adjusted price and quantity indices exhibit long-run trends similar to those obtained using the hybrid method. The hybrid approach applies the output quantity method to core educational activities (a1) and the input method to supporting activities (a2). The results suggest that this hybrid method provides a practical and effective alternative to the conventional input method for measuring education services in national accounts.

Although Japan does not directly import electricity, a reduction in the domestic production of electricity-intensive final and intermediate goods—combined with increased imports of those goods—can be interpreted as a form of indirect electricity import. This paper develops an indicator of such dependence, termed Effective Import Dependency (EID), which reflects both the structure of final demand and the international division of labor. Using this framework, the study measures changes in Japan’s electricity EID. Over the long observation period from 1960 to 2015, three major phases can be identified in Japan’s electricity EID: an increase following the first oil shock, a decline beginning in the 1980s, and a renewed rise from the mid-1990s onward. During the most recent phase, the electricity EID of the Japanese economy nearly doubled from 10.3% in 1995 to 21.9% in 2015. This trend suggests that the stagnation of domestic electricity demand in recent decades has partly reflected the expansion of indirect electricity imports. Stricter energy-saving policies may appear to reduce domestic electricity and energy consumption. However, if such reductions are achieved primarily through the expansion of indirect imports, they risk accelerating industrial hollowing-out and contributing to prolonged economic stagnation.

In recent years, rising energy prices and the commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 have renewed expectations for improvements in energy efficiency. In the Japanese economy following the global financial crisis, electricity demand declined and energy productivity appeared to improve. To assess the sustainability of this trend, this paper analyzes the structural determinants of changes in energy productivity based on a long-term productivity account for the period 1955–2019, together with a consistent energy account constructed within the same framework. Simple macro indicators suggest that gross energy productivity growth accelerated markedly—from 1.3% per year during the high-growth period (1955–1973) to 2.7% per year in the post–oil shock period (1973–1990). Policymakers often expect that such improvements could be replicated in the future. However, when controlling for changes in energy quality and industrial structure, the analysis shows that the true peak in energy productivity improvement occurred during the first period, at 1.4% per year, declining to 1.3% in the second period, and falling to nearly zero during the third period (the post-bubble stagnation era, 1990–2008). In the fourth period following the global financial crisis (2008–2019), energy productivity recovered modestly to 0.5% per year, but this improvement depended heavily on structural shifts at the product level, including the relocation of production overseas, while technological efficiency gains remained limited. Looking ahead, the paper’s projections—based on a set of plausible assumptions—suggest that the achievable pace of energy productivity improvement would be roughly 1.0% per year, even when measured using gross indicators that incorporate electrification and structural change. This figure is less than half of the government’s policy targets. For effective policy design, it is therefore essential to understand the structural drivers of reductions in energy consumption, ensuring that the gap between policy targets and economic realities is not closed through further industrial hollowing-out.

This paper examines measurement issues in Japan’s national accounts (JSNA) and discusses how recent structural changes in the economy should be captured statistically. Although GDP remains the central indicator for assessing economic activity, shifts in industrial structure and the expansion of new forms of economic activity have created increasing challenges for accurate measurement. The paper conceptualizes Japan’s SNA as a comprehensive statistical system that includes annual and quarterly national accounts, input–output tables, and price statistics. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistency across these components while improving GDP estimation methods. By introducing the studies included in this special issue and discussing developments in benchmark revisions, annual estimates, and quarterly accounts, the paper outlines directions for improving the accuracy of Japan’s GDP statistics and advancing research on economic measurement.

This paper revisits Japan’s postwar economic growth experience and examines how, since the late 1980s, the exchange rate has frequently remained at levels that can be characterized as an “excessively strong yen.” It further investigates how the cost reductions required within the domestic economy under such currency conditions were achieved. The analysis reveals that the Japanese economy, which had been managed as a “high-pressure economy” until the mid-1980s, gradually shifted toward a “low-pressure economy.” This transition brought about persistent wage suppression and stagnating productivity, which in turn became the underlying source of the deflationary pressures that have weighed on the Japanese economy for decades. The paper concludes by discussing how Japan might restore economic vitality by pursuing a strategic transition back toward the conditions associated with a high-pressure economy.

This paper analyzes the sharp decline in Japan’s steel production since late 2018, examining both direct trade flows (exports and imports) and indirect trade embodied in downstream manufactured products. The contraction in production broadly coincides with a period during which decarbonization policies (carbon neutrality policies) were strengthened in Europe and Japan, and when the search for and promotion of deep decarbonization intensified. During this phase, even industries such as steel—where significant technological constraints make large-scale emission reductions particularly difficult—have been required to undertake more ambitious mitigation efforts than in the past. Although the availability of data for capturing very recent structural changes in the steel sector remains limited, the observed production decline appears to reflect an unintended interaction and reinforcing cycle between two factors: environmental regulations that implicitly tolerate the relocation of production overseas and the strengthening of those regulations, which further encourages such relocation. The acceleration of decarbonization policies that fail to confront these realities is exerting serious pressure on the industrial foundation of the Japanese economy, whose comparative strength has long been rooted in energy-intensive basic materials industries.

The government seeks to strengthen industrial competitiveness through GX (Green Transformation), yet the fundamental conditions required for its realization remain unmet. At present, decarbonization technologies remain high-cost, while disparities in the burden of greenhouse gas emission reductions among major economies continue to widen. Over the past quarter century, the deepening of global supply chains has been accompanied by carbon leakage, whereby production shifted from countries with relatively high reduction burdens—such as Japan and Europe—to countries with lower burdens, including China. As a result, global CO₂ emissions continued to rise even as some advanced economies tightened domestic climate policies. Since the late 2010s, the acceleration of decarbonization policies in advanced economies has broadened these distortions, particularly affecting energy-intensive manufacturing sectors. Although the green demand generated by GX policies may provide temporary benefits to certain firms, it is unlikely to constitute a sustainable source of real market demand. Once policy-driven demand weakens, Japan risks further industrial hollowing out, accompanied by declining productivity due to the adoption of high-cost technologies. In anticipation of a potential shift away from current decarbonization policies, firms will need to adopt balanced and resilient corporate strategies.

Global energy markets have experienced persistent dispersion in real energy prices, creating structural competitiveness pressures that standard indicators often fail to capture in real time. These pressures have intensified as energy-intensive sectors face asymmetric exposure across advanced and emerging economies. This study addresses two critical gaps in international energy cost competitiveness. The first is a frequency gap: conventional indicators such as the Real Unit Energy Cost (RUEC) are typically published with delays of 2–5 years, limiting their usefulness for timely policy evalua-tion. Here, both RUEC and the Real Price Level Index for energy (Real PLI)—the ratio of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for energy to that for GDP—are measured with only a 2–3-month lag for nine countries—four in Asia, four in Europe, and the U.S. The second is a competitiveness gap that calls for policy responses. Real PLIs indicate that the energy price disadvantages of Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK have widened from 1.76–2.91 times the U.S. level before the pandemic to 2.14–3.28 times by Q3 2025, with the gaps relative to China and India also widening. Once coun-try-specific thresholds are exceeded, output in energy-intensive and trade-exposed (EITE) industries tends to contract disproportionately. These findings highlight that sustainable transitions require not only internationally differentiated burden-sharing but also structural reforms to avoid persistent widening of energy price gaps. The Real PLI framework provides a timely indicator of competitiveness and an early-warning tool, signaling when growing asymmetries may undermine policy feasibility. Policy implications include the need to monitor real energy price dispersion as a core source of competitiveness risk, to strengthen structural measures that stabilize marginal en-ergy costs, and to design transition pathways that account for heterogeneous adjust-ment pressures across countries.