Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the real dimension of the price dynamics in Japan between 1980 and 2000. We use a panel industry dataset to analyze the impact of institutional and structural factors on the heterogeneous price dynamics of 10 manufacturing sectors. Although the evolution of unit labor costs seems to be the driving force, our structural analysis underlines the importance of the increasingly competitive environment, as captured by rising import penetration. Along with the decline of bargaining power of the workforce, this is at the orig...
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