This book is one of the first comprehensive works to fill the knowledge gap resulting from the limited number of empirical studies on interfirm networks. The in-depth empirical research presented here is based on a massive transaction relationship database of approximately 400,000 Japanese firms. This volume, unlike others, focuses on the role of interfirm networks in three different fields: (1) macroeconomic activities, (2) economic geography and firm dynamics, and (3) firm–bank relationships. The database for this work is constructed in collaboration with Japan's largest credit research company, Teikoku Data Bank, and covers a substantial portion of Japanese firms with information on firms' transaction partners, shareholders, financial institutions, and other attributes, including their locations and performance. Networks prevail in many aspects of economic activities and play a major role in explaining a wide variety of economic phenomena from business cycles to knowledge spillovers, which has motivated economists to produce a number of excellent works.  In the policy arena, there has been a growing concern on the vulnerabilities of networks based on the casual observation that idiosyncratic shocks on firms can be amplified through inter-firm connections and leads to a systemic crisis. Typical examples are the manufacturing supply-chain networks in the automobile and electronics industries which propagated regionally concentrated shocks (the Great East Japan Earthquake and floods in Thailand in 2011) into global ones. An abundance of theoretical literature on the formation and functions of networks is available already. This book breaks new ground, however, and provides an excellent opportunity for the reader to gain a more integrated understanding of the role of networks in the economy. The Economics of Interfirm Networks will be of special interest to economists and practitioners seeking empirical and quantitative knowledge on interfirm and firm–bank networks.

This book is one of the first comprehensive works to fill the knowledge gap resulting from the limited number of empirical studies on interfirm networks. The in-depth empirical research presented here is based on a massive transaction relationship database of approximately 400,000 Japanese firms. This volume, unlike others, focuses on the role of interfirm networks in three different fields: (1) macroeconomic activities, (2) economic geography and firm dynamics, and (3) firm-bank relationships. The database for this work is constructed in collaboration with Japan's largest credit research company, Teikoku Data Bank, and covers a substantial portion of Japanese firms with information on firms' transaction partners, shareholders, financial institutions, and other attributes, including their locations and performance. Networks prevail in many aspects of economic activities and play a major role in explaining a wide variety of economic phenomena from business cycles to knowledge spillovers, which has motivated economists to produce a number of excellent works. In the policy arena, there has been a growing concern on the vulnerabilities of networks based on the casual observation that idiosyncratic shocks on firms can be amplified through inter-firm connections and leads to a systemic crisis. Typical examples are the manufacturing supply-chain networks in the automobile and electronics industries which propagated regionally concentrated shocks (the Great East Japan Earthquake and floods in Thailand in 2011) into global ones. An abundance of theoretical literature on the formation and functions of networks is available already. This book breaks new ground, however, and provides an excellent opportunity for the reader to gain a more integrated understanding of the role of networks in the economy. The Economics of Interfirm Networks will be of special interest to economists and practitioners seeking empirical and quantitative knowledge on interfirm and firm-bank networks.

This is the first book to report the details of the current status of interfirm relationships in Japan. Based on a unique data set of firms, the authors describe the characteristics of interfirm transactions in a manner unprecedented in the literature. Special emphasis is placed on the nature of payment/collection between firms. Payment for interfirm transactions is usually made on account, or by payment after delivery, rather than by immediate payment. Thus, most interfirm transactions are accompanied by a provision of credit (i.e., lending/borrowing) from a seller to a buyer, referred to as trade credit. Although trade credit is used all around the world and accounts for a large portion of firms' balance sheets, researchers, lacking detailed data, have long encountered serious difficulty in clarifying how and why firms use trade credit. In this work the authors use a huge, unique data set of about 380,000 firms in Japan during the 2007-2010 period. To grasp the entirety of this enormous data set, which is tantamount to a picture of all firms currently operating in Japan, this brief summarizes descriptive statistics and conducts univariate analyses of the data. Also provided is the legal background of trade credit practice in Japan from the "law and economics" perspective. In this manner, the book furnishes vital information that can be used as a reference for future theoretical and empirical analyses of trade credit and interfirm relationships.

This Open Access book provides a detailed account of firms' research and development (R&D) management practices, and whether and how R&D management practices are associated with the success and the nature (explorative or exploitive) of innovation, using a unique survey of firms in Japan. While there is wide agreement that innovation is a key determinant for growth of firms, there are few studies that systematically and quantitatively investigate what firms do in their R&D management to create innovation. Utilizing insights from theoretical and empirical studies on innovation, the authors focus on the following four aspects of R&D management: the organizational structure of R&D, staged project management for R&D projects, compensation and incentive schemes for R&D personnel, and a firm's risk preferences and corporate culture. The authors examine whether and how R&D management practices are linked to the likelihood of firms' success in making product innovations and the choice between explorative and exploitive innovation. The book furnishes vital information that can be used as a reference for future theoretical and empirical analyses of R&D management practices and innovation. This monograph is highly recommended to academics and practitioners who seek an in-depth and detailed analysis of R&D management. This is an open access book.