What is the impact of problem loans on Japanese bank productivity growth?
研究了问题贷款对日本银行生产率增长的影响，发现2000年代初破产和重组贷款严重制约了生产率增长，后期有所恢复但有限，并分析了区域收敛性。
Abstract This paper examines for the first time the impact of problem loans on Japanese productivity growth. We exploit a new data set of Japanese problem loans classified into two categories: bankrupt and restructured loans. We opt for a novel and flexible productivity growth decomposition that allows to measure the direct impact of these problem loans on productivity growth. The results reveal that Japanese bank productivity growth was severely constrained by bankrupt and restructured loans early in 2000s, whilst some persistence of the negative impact of problem loans on productivity growth is observed in the late 2000s. Thereafter, there is only some partial recovery in the productivity growth from 2012 to 2015. Further, we also perform cluster analysis to examine convergence or divergence across regions and over time. We observe limited convergence, though Regional Banks seem to form clusters in some regions.