We would like to draw your attention to the following event by our collaborating partner here in Tokyo, the Maison franco-japonaise:


March 22, 2019, 12.30 - 14.00 h


Who Provides High Quality Services? Evidence from the Survey on Customer Satisfaction


Speaker Tsutomu MIYAGAWA (Gakushuin University)
Moderator Jean-Pascal BASSINO (French Research Institute on Japan - MFJ)



Quality is the most important characteristic of services. Using the survey on customer satisfaction conducted by the Japan Productivity Center, we examine what types of firms tend to provide higher quality services. Our empirical analysis suggests the following three features on the association between firm attributes and the quality of services provided by them. First, firms holding larger liquidity assets tend to provide higher quality service, which implies that customer satisfaction is associated with the accumulation of intangible manageable assets. Second, older firms tend to provide higher quality service, which implies that the accumulation of business experiences leads to higher quality service. Third, while we confirm that firms exhibiting substantially high productivity tend to obtain high customer satisfaction, we also find firms with seemingly low productivity also obtain high customer satisfaction. Such a non-linear relationship between productivity and customer satisfaction depends on industry characteristics. https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/18j027.pdf


After studying economics at the University of Tokyo, Tsutomu Miyagawa joined the Japan Development Bank (JDB) as economist in 1978. He also worked in 1982-84 at the Economic Planning Agency, in 1989 at the Research Institute of Capital Formation of the JDB, and in 1997-99 at the Development Bank of Japan as director of the Nagoya Branch. In 1999, he became Professor of economics at the Faculty of Economics of Gakushuin University, where he served as Vice President in 2009-2011. He has been visiting fellow at Harvard University in 1987, Yale University in 1988, and the Institute for Economic Research (IER) of Hitotsubashi University in 1995-1996, where he received his Ph.D. in economics in 2006. He has been also visiting professor at the IER in 2000 and 2001-2003, and visiting researcher at the Centre for Economic Performance of the London School of Economics in 2006.


For further information and directions please refer to www.mfj.gr.jp <http://www.mfj.gr.jp>