Kazuma Edamura

Does the Stock Market Evaluate Intangible Assets? An Empirical Analysis Using Data of Listed Firms in Japan

Following Corrado et al. (2009), we measure intangible assets at the listed firm level in Japan. Compared to the conventional Tobins Q, the revised Q including intangibles is almost 1 on average, as suggested by Hall (2000 and 2001). The standard deviation of the revised Q is smaller than that of the conventional Q. Estimation results based on Bond and Cummins (2000) show that greater intangible assets increase firm value. In particular, in the IT industries, on average, Tobins Q is higher than that in the non-IT industries, and the stock market reflects the value of intangibles in the IT industries. These results suggest that the government should adopt policies that promote investment, including intangibles in the IT industries, and change in the industry structure in Japan.

Has the Management Quality in Korean Firms Caught Up with That in Japanese Firms? An Empirical Study Using Interview Surveys

Bloom and Van Reenen (Quarterly Journal of Economics 122:1351–1408, 2007) show that differences in management practices are related to productivity differences at the firm level. In this paper we conducted a similar interview surveys on management practices in Japanese and Korean firms in 2008 and 2012. We find that overall management scores as an average of organizational and human resource management scores in Japan are higher than those in Korea. However, the second survey shows that the gap in management scores between two countries has shrunken over time. In addition, average management quality in Korean large firms has surpassed that in Japanese large firms, which are consistent with the literature comparing big businesses in Korea and Japan. This study also compares additional aspects of the management style, such as speed in decision-making and the role of various communication channels, which are not done in the previous literatures.