DOCSLIB.ORG

The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema a Thesis

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema a Thesis The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Jordan G. Parrish August 2017 © 2017 Jordan G. Parrish. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema by JORDAN G. PARRISH has been approved for the Film Division and the College of Fine Arts by Ofer Eliaz Assistant Professor of Film Studies Matthew R. Shaftel Dean, College of Fine Arts 3 Abstract PARRISH, JORDAN G., M.A., August 2017, Film Studies The Undead Subject of Lost Decade Japanese Horror Cinema Director of Thesis: Ofer Eliaz This thesis argues that Japanese Horror films released around the turn of the twenty- first century define a new mode of subjectivity: “undead subjectivity.” Exploring the implications of this concept, this study locates the undead subject’s origins within a Japanese recession, decimated social conditions, and a period outside of historical progression known as the “Lost Decade.” It suggests that the form and content of “J- Horror” films reveal a problematic visual structure haunting the nation in relation to the gaze of a structural father figure. In doing so, this thesis purports that these films interrogate psychoanalytic concepts such as the gaze, the big Other, and the death drive. This study posits themes, philosophies, and formal elements within J-Horror films that place the undead subject within a worldly depiction of the afterlife, the films repeatedly ending on an image of an emptied-out Japan invisible to the big Other’s gaze. Keywords: Big Other, Death Drive, Gaze, J-Horror, Japanese Cinema, Lost Decade, Psychoanalysis. 4 Dedication To my family. 5 Acknowledgments I’d like to thank my teachers, Ofer Eliaz and Erin Schlumpf, my family, David, Jeannie, Jaxon Parrish, and Judy Randolph for their feedback, advice, and support. This thesis would not have been possible without them. 6 Table of Contents Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Dedication ........................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ 6 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction: Undead Subjectivity, J-Horror, and the Afterlife .......................................... 9 The Invisible Crisis of the J-Horror Movement ............................................................ 9 Daddy Issues ............................................................................................................... 16 A Lost Decade ............................................................................................................. 23 Chapter Overviews ...................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 1: How to Cure an Invisible Wound: Kiyoshi Kurosawa and the Cure for Visibility ........................................................................................................................... 35 Ethereal Subjectivity ................................................................................................... 35 The Invisible Wound of Cure ..................................................................................... 40 The Detective’s Locked Room ................................................................................... 45 Cutting Language Open .............................................................................................. 51 The Invisible Emptiness of Pulse ............................................................................... 56 Face to Face with Facelessness ................................................................................... 62 Conclusion: The Bottled Message of Lost Decade Japan ........................................... 66 Chapter 2: False Histories and Guilt Complexes in Hideo Nakata’s Melodramatic Horror Films ................................................................................................................................. 68 The Invisible Border between Horror and Melodrama ............................................... 68 Supernatural Guilt and Worldly Shame ...................................................................... 76 Removing the Boundary between Fiction and Reality in Ring ................................... 79 Breaking the Fifth Wall .............................................................................................. 85 Dark Water and the Return to Birth Trauma .............................................................. 91 Framing the Law ......................................................................................................... 98 Conclusion: The Invisible Gift of Shame ................................................................. 103 Chapter 3: The Screaming Point of History in Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge 107 Aphasia and the Screaming Point ............................................................................. 107 7 Atemporality and the Undead Father ........................................................................ 111 The Circularity of Space ........................................................................................... 116 The End of Time ....................................................................................................... 127 The Muteness of Speech ........................................................................................... 133 Conclusion: The Case of the Missing Mother Tongue ............................................. 138 Conclusion: Flight 7500’s Performance for the Blind .................................................... 141 The Transnational Flight of J-Horror ........................................................................ 141 The Invisible Passengers ........................................................................................... 144 No One is Watching .................................................................................................. 151 Embracing Emptiness ............................................................................................... 158 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 165 8 List of Figures Page Figure 1. Empty Japan in Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997). ............................................... 9 Figure 2. Deserted Tokyo in Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001). ....................................... 10 Figure 3. The Empty Road at the End of Ring (Hideo Nakata, 1998). ............................. 10 Figure 4. The Abdndoned Complex in Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002). ................... 10 Figure 5. The Invisible Japan of Ju-On: The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2002). ............. 11 Figure 6. The Cover of Japan after Japan (Ed. Harry Harootunian, et. al., 2007). ......... 11 Figure 7. The Non-Space of Japan in Cure. ...................................................................... 44 Figure 8. The Separate Rooms of Cure. ......................................................................... 47 Figure 9. Characters Trapped with the Frame in Pulse.. .................................................. 57 Figure 10. The Godlike Perspective in Pulse. ................................................................... 67 Figure 11. Seen by an Invisible Gaze in Ring. .................................................................. 83 Figure 12. “Don’t Look at the Camera.” (Ring). .............................................................. 85 Figure 13. The Gaze of the Complex in Dark Water. ....................................................... 95 Figure 14. Being Viewed by a Stain in Dark Water. ........................................................ 95 Figure 15. The Disembodied Gaze in Ju-On. ................................................................. 121 Figure 16. The Stairs of Time in Ju-On. ........................................................................ 123 Figure 17. The Spiral Stairwell in Tormented (Takashi Shimizu, 2011). ....................... 124 Figure 18. The Penrose Stairs in Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2011). ......................... 125 Figure 19. The Opening Shot of Flight 7500 (Takashi Shimizu, 2016). ........................ 145 Figure 20. Jake’s Selfie Video with the Upper Class Corpse in Flight 7500. ................ 158 Figure 21. Liz’s Empty Room in Flight 7500................................. ................................ 163 9 Introduction: Undead Subjectivity, J-Horror, and the Afterlife The Invisible Crisis of the J-Horror Movement A Japanese street, usually filled with people, now lies strangely empty, devoid of all signs of life. The people who once inhabited it have disappeared from sight, but not fully from sight; they are in-visible. Transparent and empty, translucent and invisible, these beings appear neither dead nor alive and persist on the street in spite of their invisibility. Subject to a historical era and social setting that cannot
Load more

Recommended publications
  • East-West Film Journal, Volume 3, No. 2
    EAST-WEST FILM JOURNAL VOLUME 3 . NUMBER 2 Kurosawa's Ran: Reception and Interpretation I ANN THOMPSON Kagemusha and the Chushingura Motif JOSEPH S. CHANG Inspiring Images: The Influence of the Japanese Cinema on the Writings of Kazuo Ishiguro 39 GREGORY MASON Video Mom: Reflections on a Cultural Obsession 53 MARGARET MORSE Questions of Female Subjectivity, Patriarchy, and Family: Perceptions of Three Indian Women Film Directors 74 WIMAL DISSANAYAKE One Single Blend: A Conversation with Satyajit Ray SURANJAN GANGULY Hollywood and the Rise of Suburbia WILLIAM ROTHMAN JUNE 1989 The East- West Center is a public, nonprofit educational institution with an international board of governors. Some 2,000 research fellows, grad­ uate students, and professionals in business and government each year work with the Center's international staff in cooperative study, training, and research. They examine major issues related to population, resources and development, the environment, culture, and communication in Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center was established in 1960 by the United States Congress, which provides principal funding. Support also comes from more than twenty Asian and Pacific governments, as well as private agencies and corporations. Kurosawa's Ran: Reception and Interpretation ANN THOMPSON AKIRA KUROSAWA'S Ran (literally, war, riot, or chaos) was chosen as the first film to be shown at the First Tokyo International Film Festival in June 1985, and it opened commercially in Japan to record-breaking busi­ ness the next day. The director did not attend the festivities associated with the premiere, however, and the reception given to the film by Japa­ nese critics and reporters, though positive, was described by a French critic who had been deeply involved in the project as having "something of the air of an official embalming" (Raison 1985, 9).
    [Show full text]
  • The Dracula Film Adaptations
    DRACULA IN THE DARK DRACULA IN THE DARK The Dracula Film Adaptations JAMES CRAIG HOLTE Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Number 73 Donald Palumbo, Series Adviser GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy Robbe-Grillet and the Fantastic: A Collection of Essays Virginia Harger-Grinling and Tony Chadwick, editors The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism M. Keith Booker The Company of Camelot: Arthurian Characters in Romance and Fantasy Charlotte Spivack and Roberta Lynne Staples Science Fiction Fandom Joe Sanders, editor Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations Samuel J. Umland, editor Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination S. T. Joshi Modes of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twelfth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Robert A. Latham and Robert A. Collins, editors Functions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Thirteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Joe Sanders, editor Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction Gary Westfahl The Fantastic Sublime: Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-Century Children’s Fantasy Literature David Sandner Visions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Fifteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Allienne R. Becker, editor The Dark Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Ninth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts C. W. Sullivan III, editor Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holte, James Craig. Dracula in the dark : the Dracula film adaptations / James Craig Holte. p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy, ISSN 0193–6875 ; no.
    [Show full text]
  • The Literature of Kita Morio DISSERTATION Presented In
    Insignificance Given Meaning: The Literature of Kita Morio DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Masako Inamoto Graduate Program in East Asian Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Professor Richard Edgar Torrance Professor Naomi Fukumori Professor Shelley Fenno Quinn Copyright by Masako Inamoto 2010 Abstract Kita Morio (1927-), also known as his literary persona Dokutoru Manbô, is one of the most popular and prolific postwar writers in Japan. He is also one of the few Japanese writers who have simultaneously and successfully produced humorous, comical fiction and essays as well as serious literary works. He has worked in a variety of genres. For example, The House of Nire (Nireke no hitobito), his most prominent work, is a long family saga informed by history and Dr. Manbô at Sea (Dokutoru Manbô kôkaiki) is a humorous travelogue. He has also produced in other genres such as children‟s stories and science fiction. This study provides an introduction to Kita Morio‟s fiction and essays, in particular, his versatile writing styles. Also, through the examination of Kita‟s representative works in each genre, the study examines some overarching traits in his writing. For this reason, I have approached his large body of works by according a chapter to each genre. Chapter one provides a biographical overview of Kita Morio‟s life up to the present. The chapter also gives a brief biographical sketch of Kita‟s father, Saitô Mokichi (1882-1953), who is one of the most prominent tanka poets in modern times.
    [Show full text]
  • VULCAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Vol
    THE VULCAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Vol. 16 • 2012 The Vulcan Historical Review Volume 16 • 2012 ______________________________ Chi Omicron Chapter Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society University of Alabama at Birmingham The Vulcan Historical Review Volume 16 • 2012 Published annually by the Chi Omicron Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta at the University of Alabama at Birmingham 2012 Editorial Staff Executive Editors Beth Hunter and Maya Orr Graphic Designer Jacqueline C. Boohaker Editorial Board Chelsea Baldini Charles Brooks Etheredge Brittany Richards Foust Faculty Advisor Dr. George O. Liber Co-Sponsors The Linney Family Endowment for The Vulcan Historical Review Dr. Carol Z. Garrison, President, UAB Dr. Linda Lucas, Provost, UAB Dr. Suzanne Austin, Vice Provost for Student and Faculty Success, UAB Dr. Bryan Noe, Dean of the Graduate School, UAB Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, UAB Dr. Rebecca Ann Bach, Associate Dean for Research and Creative Activities in the Humanities and Arts, UAB Dr. Carolyn A. Conley, Chair, Department of History, UAB The Department of History, UAB The Vulcan Historical Review is published annually by the Chi Omicron Chapter (UAB) of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. The journal is completely student-written and student-edited by undergraduate and masters level graduate students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. ©2012 Chi Omicron Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society, the University of Alabama at Birmingham. All rights reserved. No material may be duplicated or quoted without the expressed written permission of the author. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, its departments, and its organizations disclaim any responsibility for statements, either in fact or opinion, made by contributors.
    [Show full text]
  • THE FUTURE of IDEAS This Work Is Licensed Under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (US/V3.0)
    less_0375505784_4p_fm_r1.qxd 9/21/01 13:49 Page i THE FUTURE OF IDEAS This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (US/v3.0). Noncommercial uses are thus permitted without any further permission from the copyright owner. Permissions beyond the scope of this license are administered by Random House. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.randomhouse.com/about/ permissions.html The book maybe downloaded in electronic form (freely) at: http://the-future-of-ideas.com For more permission about Creative Commons licenses, go to: http://creativecommons.org less_0375505784_4p_fm_r1.qxd 9/21/01 13:49 Page iii the future of ideas THE FATE OF THE COMMONS IN A CONNECTED WORLD /// Lawrence Lessig f RANDOM HOUSE New York less_0375505784_4p_fm_r1.qxd 9/21/01 13:49 Page iv Copyright © 2001 Lawrence Lessig All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Lessig, Lawrence. The future of ideas : the fate of the commons in a connected world / Lawrence Lessig. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-375-50578-4 1. Intellectual property. 2. Copyright and electronic data processing. 3. Internet—Law and legislation. 4. Information society. I. Title. K1401 .L47 2001 346.04'8'0285—dc21 2001031968 Random House website address: www.atrandom.com Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 24689753 First Edition Book design by Jo Anne Metsch less_0375505784_4p_fm_r1.qxd 9/21/01 13:49 Page v To Bettina, my teacher of the most important lesson.
    [Show full text]
  • Audition How Does the 1999 Film Relate to the Issues That Japanese Men and Women Face in Relation to Romantic Pairing?
    University of Roskilde Audition How does the 1999 film relate to the issues that Japanese men and women face in relation to romantic pairing? Supervisor: Björn Hakon Lingner Group members: Student number: Anna Klis 62507 Avin Mesbah 61779 Dejan Omerbasic 55201 Mads F. B. Hansen 64518 In-depth project Characters: 148,702 Fall 2018 University of Roskilde Table of content Problem Area ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Problem Formulation .............................................................................................................................. 9 Motivation ............................................................................................................................................... 9 Delimitation ........................................................................................................................................... 10 Method .................................................................................................................................................. 11 Theory .................................................................................................................................................... 12 Literature review ............................................................................................................................... 12 Social Exchange Theory ....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Ominous Faultlines in a World Gone Wrong: Courmayeur Noir in Festival Randy Malamud
    Ominous Faultlines in a World Gone Wrong: Courmayeur Noir In Festival Randy Malamud In the sublime shadows of the Italian Alps, Courmayeur Confidential, Mulholland Drive, The Dark Knight trilogy), Noir In Festival’s 23-year run suggests America’s monop- hyper-noir (even ‘noirer’ than noir! Sin City, Django Un- 1 oly on this dark cinematic tradition may be on the wane. chained), and tech noir (The Matrix, cyberpunk) it remained The roots of film noir wind broadly through the geogra- a made-in-America commodity. phy of film history. One assumes it’s American to the core: Courmayeur’s 2013 program proved that contemporary Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, Dashiell Hammett. But noir, like anything poised to thrive nowadays, is indubita- au contraire, the term itself (obviously) emanates from bly global. Its December event featured Hong Kong film- a Gallic sensibility: French critic Nino Frank planted the maker Johnny To’s wonderfully macabre comedy, Blind flag when he coined ‘‘film noir’’ in 1946. He was discussing Detective (with the funniest crime reenactment scenes American films, but still: it took a Frenchman to appreci- ever); Erik Matti’s Filipino killer-thriller On the Job; and 2 ate them. Or maybe the genre is German, growing out Argentinian Lucı´a Puenzo’s resonantly disturbing Wakol- of Weimar expressionism, strassenfilm (street stories), da, an adaptation of her own novel about Josef Mengele’s 3 Lang’s M. 1960 refuge in a remote Patagonian Naziphile community. In fact, film noir is a hybrid which began to flourish in The Black Lion jury award went to Denis Villeneuve’s 1940s Hollywood, but was molded by displaced Europeans Enemy, a Canadian production adapted from Jose´ Sarama- (Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger) and go’s Portuguese novel The Double (and with a bona fide keenly inflected by their continental aesthetic and philo- binational spirit).
    [Show full text]
  • Lars Von Trier's Critique of the Musical Genre
    Ken Woodgate ‘Gotta Dance’ (in the Dark): Lars von Trier’s Critique of the Musical Genre This chapter investigates Lars von Trier’s critique of the musical in his film Dancer in the Dark (2000) both through various aspects of the outer musical itself and through the obvious refer- ences to the classic Broadway/Hollywood musicals 42nd Street and The Sound of Music. Particu- larly important is the cross-cultural perspective: the outer musical presents a European’s view of America which is counterposed to an Americanised view of Europe. The outer musical serves to discredit the inner ones, and hence the film argues against the musical genre. Nevertheless, a metacritical reading of the film will identify the limits of von Trier’s dismissive critique. Of all genres of performance, the musical must be the most self-referential. Putting on a show is, along with falling in love, the musical’s favorite theme. Actors who spontaneously burst into song gain some kind of credibility if they are seen to be mounting their own song-and-dance show. But the ease with which the musical mirrors itself might well be seen, from a rationalistic point of view, as a form of theatrical narcissism, or even syllogism. Does the classic musical say anything, apart from the fact that it is fun to sing and dance? And given that the vast majority of people in the modern industrial- ised world choose to avoid public performances of dancing and absolutely all performances of singing, it could easily be argued that the musical’s promise of fun is simply an illusion of an illusion, an indulgent celebration of theatri- cal posturing.
    [Show full text]
  • Dogme 95 and the Representation of Reality Zsolt Gyenge Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest (Hungary) Email: [email protected]
    Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies, 1 (2009) 6979 Illusions of Reality and Fiction or the Desired Reality of Fiction: Dogme 95 and the Representation of Reality Zsolt Gyenge Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest (Hungary) email: [email protected] Abstract. The paper identies a two channel strategy developed by the authors of the Danish Dogme lms having as goal the generation of the illusion of reality. The rst channel is aiming at the visual layer of the movies, which shows a rm decision to break with the style of the traditional ction lms. The second channel of this strategy is concerned with the narration of the lms. In this regard Dogme contrary to what had been declared in the Vow of Chastity chose one of the most popular lm and TV genres: melodrama. On the one hand Dogme lms created a highly self-reexive visual style and then they combined it on the other hand with a genre which calls for extreme audience identication. Documentarism and deeply conventionalized stories are put together in most Dogme lms to create the reality of ction. Movie is not an illusion states the Manifesto,1 and thus it makes us clear that the movement tries to say something about one of the major themes of cinema and lm theory (and of visual communication in general): the representation of reality. It is well known that the initiators of Dogme 952 1The two founding documents of the Dogme 95 are the Manifesto and the Vow of Chastity. Until recently they were to be found on the ocial website (www.dogme95.dk) of the movement, which in February 2009, during the nal revision of this paper, became unavailable.
    [Show full text]
  • OF the POSTHUMAN SUBJECT, ABJECTION, and the BREACH in MIND/BODY DUALISM John Perham John Perham, [email protected]
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CSUSB ScholarWorks California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations Office of Graduate Studies 3-2016 SCIENCEFRICTION: OF THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT, ABJECTION, AND THE BREACH IN MIND/BODY DUALISM John Perham John Perham, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd Part of the Other English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Perham, John, "SCIENCEFRICTION: OF THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT, ABJECTION, AND THE BREACH IN MIND/BODY DUALISM" (2016). Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. Paper 268. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Office of Graduate Studies at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SCIENCEFRICTION: OF THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT, ABJECTION, AND THE BREACH IN MIND/BODY DUALISM A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Composition: English Composition and English Literature by John Perham March 2016 SCIENCEFRICTION: OF THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT, ABJECTION, AND THE BREACH IN MIND/BODY DUALISM A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino by John Perham March 2016 Approved by: Dr. Jacqueline Rhodes, Committee Chair, English Dr. Caroline Vickers, Committee Member Sunny Hyon, Department Chair © 2016 John Perham ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the multiple readings that arise when the division between the biological and technological is interrupted--here abjection is key because the binary between abjection and gadgetry gives multiple meanings to other binaries, including male/female.
    [Show full text]
  • Institutional Change in Japan
    Institutional Change in Japan After four decades of rapid growth that transformed Japan into a wealthy country at the world’s technological frontier, the decade of the 1990s brought prolonged economic stagnation. The rapid run-up in asset prices in the late 1980s, followed by their collapse in the early 1990s, left a debt overhang that paralyzed the economy. Policy reforms were initially half- hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. Indeed, Japan’s struggle has called into question the ability of the country’s economic institutions – originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development – to adapt to the new economic environment of the twenty-first century. Institutional Change in Japan analyzes institutional change within this period of economic transition. It addresses the origin, development, and recent adaptation of core institutions, including financial institutions, corporate governance, lifetime employment, the amakudari system and marriage and family. Importantly this analysis is grounded in a broad historical and international context, with comparisons made to Meiji Japan as well as to recent economic and financial reforms in Korea, Switzerland and New Zealand. A leading field of international contributors contend that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there has been significant institutional change over the last decade. Institutional Change in Japan consequently offers a fresh perspective to the current debate that will be essential reading for those studying the Japanese economy, economic history/futures and institutional economics. Magnus Blomström is Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and President of the European Institute of Japanese Studies. Sumner La Croix is Professor of Economics at the University of Hawaii- Manoa.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Are Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid, but Less So in Japan? an Explanation Based on Behavioral Economics and Labor Market/Macroeconomic Differences
    Why Are Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid, but Less So in Japan? An Explanation Based on Behavioral Economics and Labor Market/Macroeconomic Differences Sachiko Kuroda and Isamu Yamamoto In this paper, we survey the theoretical and empirical literature to investi- gate why nominal wages can be downwardly rigid. Looking back from the 19th century until recently, we first examine the existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) for several countries. We find that (1) nominal wages were flexible in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, but (2) nominal wages were downwardly rigid in almost all the industrialized countries in the second half of the 20th century, although (3) the extent of DNWR varied from country to country. Next, we use a behavioral economics framework to explain the reasons for DNWR. We also explain why the existence and extent of DNWR varied between time periods and/or from country to country, focusing on differences in the labor market characteristics (such as labor mobility and employment protection legislation) and in the macroeconomic environment (such as economic growth and inflation), which can alter employees’ and firms’ perceptions toward nominal wage cuts. Keywords: Downward nominal wage rigidity; Behavioral economics; Labor mobility; Employment protection legislation; Inflation rate; Indexation JEL Classification: E50, J30, N30, Z13 Sachiko Kuroda: Associate Professor, Hitotsubashi University (E-mail: [email protected]) Isamu Yamamoto: Associate Professor, Keio University (E-mail: [email protected]) The authors would like to thank Professors Steinar Holden (University of Oslo) and Fumio Ohtake (Osaka University), the participants at the third modern economic policy research conference, and the staff at the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), for their valuable comments.
    [Show full text]