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The purpose of this paper is to study how related variety influences firm sales. We apply an instrumental variable method (as well as the most recent plausible instrumental variable method in robustness tests) to analyze more than 600,000 firm observations in all of Japan's 47 prefectures. We find that related variety, as a kind of regional industrial structure, has a U‐shaped relationship with firm sales. This finding enriches the related variety perspective by supplementing micro‐level evidence, revealing that the "related variety–firm sales" relationship is not linear, as most prior studies have suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the field's interdisciplinary nature, regional scientists come with a wide spectrum of backgrounds. In this paper, we study the contributions to regional science made by scholars from Japan. First, we briefly examine how Japanese regional scientists came to develop a keen sense towards urban problems. Second, we identify the most influential authors and papers via a citation analysis. The results indicate that scholarly outputs in regional science are reaching a wider audience beyond scientists, while maintaining the order of impact among them. Lastly, we focus on the new economic geography where Japanese scholars have made a significant contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional agglomeration theories cannot explain Japan's sustained reduction of regional disparities. This study employs stochastic frontier analysis to investigate the role of inter‐regional networks in improving productive efficiency using the concept of "borrowed size." Improved inter‐regional networks are a driving force for strengthening local economies and converging regional disparities. Borrowed size from large city agglomeration was highly effective in local areas. The development of transportation networks has enabled local areas to catch up to large metropolitan areas. The results suggest that the development of high‐speed transportation networks can help to reduce regional disparities in the Japanese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying the lag-augmented vector autoregression approach developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995), we analyse the causal relationships among GDP, private capital, transport user cost, and port capital in Japan, and investigates the dynamic and accumulated effects of port capital formation on other variables from 1966 to 1997. Results from our analysis indicate that the causal relationships between port capital and other variables are significant. Port capital development leads to accrual of considerable magnitudes of both flow and stock effects. We conclude that structural economic effects of forming port capital are substantial for Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]