02014cas a2200265 a 4500 AALejournalIMF019375 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781498317474 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Colacelli, Mariana. Productivity Drag from Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Japan / Mariana Colacelli, Gee Hee Hong. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2019. 1 online resource (21 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students Productivity growth in Japan, as in most advanced economies, has moderated. This paper finds supportive evidence for the important role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in explaining Japan's modest productivity growth. Results show a substantial dispersion in firm-level productivity growth across sectors and even across firms within the same sector. SMEs, on average, exhibit lower productivity growth than non-SMEs in Japan, with smaller and older SMEs showing particularly low productivity growth. Estimates suggest that boosting productivity growth in all of the worst-performing SMEs could improve overall productivity growth by up to 1.8 percentage points. The SME credit guarantee system, SME financing constraints, demographic factors, and lack of intangible capital investment are discussed as contributors to the slow productivity growth of Japan's small and old SMEs. Mode of access: Internet Japan imf Hong, Gee Hee. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2019/137 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2019/137/001.2019.issue-137-en.xml IMF e-Library