Empirical Analysis of Economic Institutions

这个项目试图回答以下两个问题。首先，为什么日本战后的经济制度一直表现不佳？其次，如何设计一种制度，使日本回到以前的高增长道路？该项目在2003财政年度进行了重大重组。两个新明确的研究目标是：1。找出上世纪90年代日本经济增长放缓的原因；2. 如何修改制度以恢复增长。为了实现这些目标，该项目设置了三个阶段的调查。A)找出宏观和行业层面的全要素生产率（TFP）发生了什么变化；B)如果TFP下降，确定可能导致它的制度变化；C)设计经济制度来应对这些变化。有七个研究小组，他们各自有自己的任务。查看他们的研究成果摘要。该小组负责协调七个小组的研究活动，组织小组组长会议、小组成员和其他学者参加的研究会议和会议，以及一个公共论坛来传播研究成果。该小组还与一家出版公司合作，出版了一系列书籍，其中大部分是关于该项目的研究目标的实证研究。

This project attempts to answer the following two questions. First, why has Japan's postwar economic institutions been performing poorly, and second, how to design a system that would lead the country back to its previous high growth path? The project went through a major re-organization in fiscal year 2003. The two newly articulated research objectives are: 1. find out why Japan's growth slowed down in the 1990s; 2. how to modify institutions to restore growth. To meet these objectives, the project set three stages of investigation. A) find out what happened to TFP (total factor productivity) at the macro and industry levels, B) if TFP fell, identify the changes in institutions that might have caused it, and C) design economic institutions to deal with those changes. There are seven research groups with their own mandates. See their abstracts of research for the accomplishments. This group, which is responsible for coordinating the research activities of the seven groups, organized meetings by group heads, research meetings and conferences attended by group members and other academics and also a public forum to disseminate research outcomes. The group also worked with a publishing company to produce a collection of books containing mostly empirical studies on the project's research objectives.