Yasuyuki Todo

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Waseda University

We constructed an establishment-level production network where each establishment inputs and outputs multiple products, using data that includes the firm-level production network and establishments covering nearly all Japanese entities. The network represents the manufacturing sector with 183,951 establishments across 157,537 firms and 919,982 inte...

This study examines whether positive news about firms increases their stock prices and, moreover, whether it increases stock prices of the firms' suppliers and customers, using a large sample of publicly listed firms across the world and another of Japanese listed firms. The level of positiveness of each news article is determined by FinBERT, a nat...

This chapter provides an overview of the recent progress and remaining challenges in empirical analysis of the economics of international trade, highlighting applications of the second- and third-generation empirical methods discussed in prior chapters. Notably, the economics of international trade diverges from other fields of economics, such as l...

This work analyses the interdependent link creation of patent and shareholding links in interfirm networks, and how this dynamics affects the resilience of such networks in the face of cascading failures. Using the Orbis dataset, we construct very large co-patenting and shareholding networks, globally as well as in terms of individual countries. Be...

This study simulates how the disruption of imports from various regions affects the total production of the importer economy. We particularly incorporate the propagation of the economic effect through domestic supply chains using data on more than one million firms and four million supply chain ties in Japan. Our findings are summarized as follows....

In this paper, we simulate the economic loss resulting from supply chain disruptions triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in 2011, applying data from firm-level supply chains and establishment-level attributes to an agent-based model. To enhance the accuracy of the simulation, we extend data and models in previous studies in four way...

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, many governments have imposed lockdowns. This practice has resulted in economic stagnation across broad areas because of the shock of the lockdown propagated to other regions through supply chains. Using supply-chain data for 1.6 million firms in Japan, this study examines how the economic effects of lockdowns in...

Unlabelled: This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected online purchasing behavior using data from a major online shopping platform in Japan. We focus on the effect of two measures of the pandemic, i.e., the number of positive COVID-19 cases and state declarations of emergency to mitigate the pandemic. We find that both measures pro...

Correction to: K. Tsunekawa and Y. Todo (eds.), Emerging States at Crossroads, Emerging-Economy State and International Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2859-6

Using a unique firm‐level data set from Asia, this study examines what determined the robustness and resilience of supply chain links, that is, the ability of maintaining links and recovering disrupted links by substitution, respectively, when firms faced economic shocks due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19). We find that a supply...

Utilizing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in traditional clusters of apparel and textile firms in Vietnam, this paper investigates peer effects on firm managers’ decisions to participate in seminars on export promotion. We invited 131 randomly selected firm representatives to three one-day seminars on export promotion. We use the number of rand...

We estimate the effects of a democratic school-based management (SBM) institution on social capital formation in Burkina Faso using a large-scale randomized controlled trial of the SBM combined with lab-in-the-field experiments to measure social capital. We find that this SBM significantly increased social capital in the form of public goods game c...

This paper surveys studies on how the economic effect of lockdown and other policies associated with the pandemic of Covid-19 propagates through global supply chains that were conducted during the pandemic period. In particular, this paper ­focuses on (1) studies in the early period of the pandemic that predict that the propagation effect would be...

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, many cities, states, and countries have ‘locked down’, restricting economic activities in non-essential sectors. Such lockdowns have substantially shrunk production in most countries. This study examines how the economic effects of lockdowns in different regions interact through supply chains, which are a network...

This study examines whether and how economic shocks from natural disasters propagate through supply chains to regions not directly hit by disasters. Although such propagation has been studied, less attention has been paid to heterogeneity across network characteristics of firms. Focusing on the impacts of a hurricane and using firm‐level data for m...

Diversifying supply chains has been a policy objective of the Japanese government to construct a robust and resilient economy since the spread of COVID‐19 in the final stages of the Abe Administration. Although geographically expanded supply chains incur a risk of inflows of negative economic shocks from other regions and countries, this risk can b...

Governments require regional or national lockdowns in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which causes large economic stagnation in wide areas because the declines of the lockdowns diffuse to other regions through supply chains. This study examines how governments mitigate the economic losses when they are obliged to implement lockdowns, using...

This study evaluates the impact of “group subsidies,” a policy intervention intended to repair and reinstall damaged capital goods and facilities of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises after the Great East Japan earthquake. Employing a propensity‐score‐matching and difference‐in‐differences approach, we find a positive effect of the subsidies on po...

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, many cities, states, and countries have `locked down', restricting economic activities in non-essential sectors. Such lockdowns have substantially shrunk production in most countries. This study examines how the economic effects of lockdowns in different regions interact through supply chains, a network of firms f...

This study quantifies the economic effect of a possible lockdown of Tokyo to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The negative effect of such a lockdown may propagate to other regions through supply chains because of supply and demand shortages. Applying an agent-based model to the actual supply chains of nearly 1.6 million firms in Japan, we simulate w...

International supply chain networks play a prominent role in shaping the economic outlook of the world. It has been a recent trend to analyse the topology of supply chain networks in order to gain a wholistic understanding about the interdependencies of firms in this regard. In this work, we undertake an extensive structural and topological analysi...

This study examines how research collaboration of firms affects the quality of their innovation outcomes using comprehensive patent data for firms in the world from 1991 to 2010. Identifying research collaboration by co-patenting relationships, we find that research collaboration with other firms, particularly with foreign firms, leads to substanti...

This study quantifies the economic effect of a possible lockdown of Tokyo to prevent spread of COVID-19. The negative effect of the lockdown may propagate to other regions through supply chains because of shortage of supply and demand. Applying an agent-based model to the actual supply chains of nearly 1.6 million firms in Japan, we simulate what w...

Network formation is often characterized by homophily, i.e. the tendency of agents to connect with others who have similar attributes. However, while most agents are homophilous, others could be heterophilous; they aim to create ties with dissimilar agents. This study provides empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis by applying a random coeff...

Social and economic networks can be a channel of negative shocks and thus deteriorate resilience and sustainability in societies. This study focuses on supply chains, or supplier–customer networks of firms and examines how these supply chains enable production losses caused by natural disasters to propagate and persist in regions not directly affec...

This study examines how production losses caused by natural disasters propagate to regions not directly hit through the supply chains of firms. We use the actual supply chains of nearly one million firms in Japan and an agent-based model to estimate the direct and total economic effects of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. We then employ the sa...

This study examines how negative shocks due to, for example, natural disasters propagate through supply chains. We apply a simulation technique to actual supply chain data covering most Japanese firms. To investigate the property of the propagation in the network, we test different types of artificial negative shocks. We find that, first, network s...

As economic globalisation increases, inclination toward domestic protectionism is also increasing in many countries of the world. To improve the productivity and the resilience of national economies, it is important to understand the drivers and the barriers of the internatiolisation of economic activities. While internatiolisation of individual ec...

Using a firm-level dataset from the manufacturing sector in Indonesia, we examine how firms’ ties with the government in receiving rents and with other firms and their managers’ trust toward foreigners and views of globalization are correlated with each other. We find that firms’ strong political ties are associated positively with the level of man...

The economic, social, and political problems that the emerging states need to overcome to attain a higher level of development share several features with issues debated a half-century ago with regard to economic development and political transformation in developing countries. Contemporary challenges, however, contain many elements that are qualit...

This article introduces two methodologies that can be largely useful to empirical analysis in international economics but have not been fully utilized in the field: randomized controlled trials and network analysis. These methods can contribute to a number of topics in international economics including learning by exporting, FDI spillovers, and int...

Agrarian communities in different regions develop diverse coping strategies to address the environmental changes they face. In this work, we test how to stimulate farmers’ social learning across diverse regions to promote informed responses to soil degradation. We invited 117 randomly selected members of 16 randomly selected Sumatran communities to...

By conducting a laboratory experiment, we investigate how consumers' purchasing behavior for certified forest coffee is affected by consumers' interest in environmental issues, the provision of information, and product labels. We contribute to the literature in the following three ways. First, we conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to contr...

This paper investigates the impacts of informational and motivational seminars on export promotion targeting small and medium enterprises in the traditional apparel and textile clusters in Vietnam. To control for biases due to self‐selection, we conducted a randomised controlled trial and invited randomly selected firms to participate in 1‐day semi...

Using a unique firm-level dataset for the manufacturing sector in Indonesia, we examine how firms’ political connections affect their access to finance and performance. We determine individual firm's political connections by identifying whether the government owns shares in the firm, whether politicians are on its board of directors, and whether hi...

Organizations create networks with one another, and these networks may in turn shape the organizations involved. Until recently, such complex dynamic processes could not be rigorously empirically analyzed because of a lack of suitable modeling and validation methods. Using stochastic actor-oriented models and unique longitudinal survey data on the...

Shade coffee certification programs that aim to conserve the forest and to prevent forest degradation have attracted an increasing amount of attention. However, such programs’ impact on forest degradation remains unclear because of the absence of empirical evidence. In addition, there is heated debate about whether certification programs create an...

Using a large firm-level panel dataset for Japan, this paper examines the effects of the structure of supply chain networks on productivity and innovation capability through knowledge diffusion. We find that ties with distant suppliers improve productivity (as measured by sales per worker) more than ties with neighboring suppliers, which is likely...

Using both firm-level and city-level data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics and unique information on investment promotion agencies (IPA) in China, the present paper evaluates whether IPA affect foreign direct investment (FDI) from the perspective of both intensive and extensive margins; that is, re-investment by incumbent foreign-owne...

The dynamic drivers of interfirm interactions across space have rarely been explored in the context of disaster recovery; therefore, the mechanism through which shocks propagate is unclear. This paper uses stochastic actor-oriented modeling to examine how trade networks among the 500 largest Japanese companies evolved during 2010 and 2011, i.e. bef...

The privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in transition economies has often been found to improve employment and productivity of privatized SOEs, despite policymakers’ fears regarding possible job cuts. This positive effect can be enhanced if privatization also promotes firms’ exports. A recent firm-level analysis of China reveals that pri...

Limited access to agricultural information constrains the well-being of farmers in developing countries and leads to environmental deterioration. Although new information-communication technologies (ICTs) are expected to alleviate this problem, the importance of physical mobility is rarely considered. This study explores the roles of motorized tran...

The importance of networks for social-ecological processes has been recognized in the literature; however, existing studies have not sufficiently addressed the dynamic nature of networks. Using data on the social learning networks of 265 farmers in Ethiopia for 2011 and 2012 and stochastic actor-oriented modeling, we explain the mechanisms of netwo...

This study empirically examined the effects of the participatory approach on the adoption of new varieties and agricultural practices. Particularly, we focused on the social network structure and examined how the introduced technologies diffused through networks in rural Ethiopia. Our empirical results indicate that if farmers knew and trusted fell...

Recent heterogeneous-firm models of international trade suggest that productivity determines whether firms engage in export activity and foreign direct investment. In practice, however, many productive firms are not internationalized, whereas many unproductive firms are, which suggests that there are factors other than productivity that influence f...

Chinese cross-border outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been expanding rapidly since the mid-2000s with target firms in developed countries. The primary motives for such M&As are expansion into new markets and sourcing of knowledge and strategic assets. This study is the first attempt to examine the effects of Chinese outbound M&As on fi...

Mobile phones are spreading to remote areas of the globe, leading to the following question: “What is the potential of the new communication technologies for increasing individuals' access to information and the diffusion of attitudes and practices across rural areas of developing countries?” We have donated phones to 234 farmers selected by strati...

This paper investigates the effects of social network structure on the diffusion of agricultural technologies using household-level panel data from Ethiopia. We correct for possible biases due to the endogeneity of social networks using a social experiment in which we provide mobile phones to randomly selected households. We find that the diffusion...

This paper uses firm-level data to examine how supply chain networks affected the recovery of firms from the Great East Japan Earthquake. Extensive supply chains can negatively affect recovery through higher vulnerability to network disruption and positively through support from trading partners, easier search for new partners, and general benefits...

Using firm-level data for Japan, this chapter examines the determinants of export and foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions. We contribute to the literature by employing a mixed logit model to incorporate any unobserved firm heterogeneity and by paying special attention to the quantitative significance of the determinants. We find that although...

This study examines the effect of social networks on the decision to purchase consumer products among 337 rural households in Indonesia. In particular, we focus on two types of products: gas stoves and probiotic drinks. The two types are different in that the benefits of the use of gas stoves are easily observed by users, whereas the benefits of pr...

By using firm-level data on the Japanese manufacturing industry, we examine and compare the characteristics of internationalized Japanese firms, namely firms that engage in exports and/or foreign direct investment (FDI), with those from selected European countries. We find that the productivity of internationalized firms is higher than that of dome...

This article analyses roles of social and extension networks in adoption of resource-conserving practices among Ethiopian farmers. We gathered data from 297 randomly sampled households on their agricultural practices, social networks, access to the extension, and geographical location. After examining general determinants of practising resource-con...

In recent years, shade coffee certification programs have attracted increasing attention from conservation and development organizations. Certification programs offer an opportunity to link environmental and economic goals by providing a premium price to producers and thereby contributing to forest conservation. However, the significance of the con...

While detailed data are available on people’s travel behavior in industrialized countries, little is known about the spatial characteristics of activities of those living in vast infrastructure-poor areas in the developing world where walking is still the dominant form of transport. We have interviewed 297 randomly selected inhabitants of Tiyo Dist...

As countries develop, they undergo a structural transformation from agriculture to manufacturing and services as well as a spatial transformation from rural to urban. Historically, this process has been far from uniform across countries, with some fostering rural diversification out of agriculture and others undergoing rapid agglomeration in mega c...

A rather unique panel tracking more than 3,300 individuals from households in rural Kagera, Tanzania during 1991/4-2010 shows that about one in two individuals/households who exited poverty did so by transitioning from agriculture into the rural nonfarm economy or secondary towns. Only one in seven exited poverty by migrating to a large city, altho...

Many African countries have adopted community-based forest management (CBFM) to prevent deforestation. However, empirical studies have not reached a consensus on the effectiveness of CBFM. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the establishment of participatory forest management associations in Ethiopia. We used remote sensing data...

This paper examines whether or not privatization of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) increases the probability of exporting, and, if so, what channels generate such effect. Using firm-level data for the Chinese manufacturing sector for the period 2000-2007, we find that privatization has a positive effect on exporting decisions, productivity,...

This study estimates the effect of farmer field schools in rural Ethiopia on income from agriculture. The farmer field schools were established in association with participatory forest management associations for forest protection funded by Japanese aid. We employ a difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach to correct for possibl...

This study examines a specific channel of technology diffusion from multinational enterprises to domestic firms in less developed regions: research and development (R&D) activities of multinational enterprises in the host country. Using firm‐level panel data from a Chinese science park, known as China's “Silicon Valley,” we find that the R&D stock...

The paper finds that placer gold mining operation has significant impact on the surface water quality, which varies from mine to mine depending on the types of gold recovery technologies applied. Only primitive gold recovery technologies are dominating in the Zaamar goldfield. We assume that the mines with foreign ownership have cleaner technologie...

This study examines the effect of Japanese aid-funded technical assistance programs on the Indonesian foundry industry funded, applying difference-in-differences propensity score matching estimation to a unique firm-level dataset. The major finding is that the average effect of the aid programs on the change in the reject ratio is negative and sign...

This paper explores the impact of offshoring, or contracting out of business activities to foreign providers, on firm productivity, using Japanese firm-level data for the period 1994-2000. We find that offshoring has generally a positive effect on productivity growth. This effect is robust to controlling for the possible endogeneity of offshoring w...

In this paper, perceptions of actors on changes in crop productivity, quantity and quality of water, and determinants of their perception are analyzed using descriptive statistics and ordered logit model. Data collected from 297 Ethiopian farmers and 103 agricultural professionals from December 2009 to January 2010 are employed. Results show that t...

This paper investigates whether and how foreign aid facilitates foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into less developed countries. We employ a large data set of source-recipient country pairs and conduct gravity equation-type estimation. Our empirical methodology enables us to examine an effect through which aid from a donor country promotes FDI...

This paper employs a firm-level panel data set for a high-tech cluster in China to examine knowledge spillovers from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to domestic firms, focusing on the role of MNEs’ employment of educated workers. We find that knowledge of MNEs spills over to domestic firms in the same industry through MNEs’ employment of workers w...

Using French data, we find that the share of immigrants in the population has no significant impact on crime rates once immigrants' economic circumstances are controlled for, while finding that unemployed immigrants tend to commit more crimes than unemployed nonimmigrants.

This paper investigates the causes of R&D activities of overseas subsidiaries using firm-level panel data for Japanese multinationals. We distinguish between overseas innovative R&D (basic and applied research) and adaptive R&D (development and design) and examine how the intensity of each type of R&D is determined, using Amemiya Generalized Least...

This paper employs a firm-level panel data set for a high-tech cluster in the People's Republic of China to examine knowledge spillovers from multinational enterprises (MNEs) to domestic firms, focusing on the role of MNEs' employment of educated workers. We find that knowledge within MNEs spills over to domestic firms in the same industry through...

This paper examines US safeguards applied to the motorcycle market in the 1980s. After receiving temporary protection by means of a maximum tariff of over 45%, Harley-Davidson sales recovered dramatically. Simulations, based on structural demand and supply estimates, indicate that while safeguard tariffs did benefit Harley-Davidson, they only accou...

Using firm-level data for the Japanese manufacturing sector, we examine characteristics of internationalized firms, i.e., firms engaging in export and/or foreign direct investment (FDI), and compare these characteristics with those for selected European countries. We find that internationalized firms are a few and that their productivity is higher...

During the 1960s and 1970s, foreign direct investment (FDI) and the activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in less developed countries (LDCs) were generally viewed unfavourably, often being considered exploitative and as leading to worsening labour market conditions and job losses. However, there was a gradual shift in perception during the...

This paper explores what factors determine the nature, extent, and location of Japanese multinationals' R&D activities abroad. Taking advantage of a rich micro-level dataset from the survey on Japanese overseas subsidiaries, the study distinguishes between two types of overseas R&D: basic/applied research and development/design. We find several dif...

During the 1960s and 1970s, foreign direct investment (FDI) and the activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in less developed countries (LDCs) were generally viewed unfavourably, often being considered exploitative and as leading to worsening labour market conditions and job losses. However, there was a gradual shift in perception during the...

This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level data for Japanese multinational enterprises. Based on survey responses, we classify each overseas subsidiary's R&D as either 'innovative R&D,' which we hypothesize is likely to lead to the acquisition of foreign kn...

Using a unique firm-level dataset from China's "Silicon Valley," we investigate how multinational enterprises (MNEs) affect local entrepreneurship and R&D activities upon entry. We find that R&D activities of MNEs in an industry stimulate entry of domestic firms into the same industry and enhance R&D activities of newly entering domestic firms. By...

In the present paper we investigate the causal effect of becoming a multinational on home performance for a large panel of Japanese firms for the period 1995-2002. We adopt matching techniques in combination with a difference-in-difference estimator to evaluate the causal effect of establishing a foreign affiliate on productivity, output and employ...

This paper investigates whether and how foreign aid facilitates foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into less developed countries. We employ a large data set of source-recipient country pairs and conduct gravity equation-type estimation. Our empirical methodology enables us to distinguish among three effects of aid on FDI: a positive "infrastruct...

This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level panel data for Japanese multinational enterprises. We distinguish between overseas R&D for the utilization and acquisition of foreign advanced knowledge, or innovative R&D, and overseas R&D for the adaptation of te...