DID JAPANESE MAIN BANKS IMPROVE THE TECHNICAL EFFICIENCIES OF THEIR NON-FINANCIAL CLIENT FIRMS IN THE 1980S

This paper tests the hypothesis that the Japanese main bank system was not effective in enhancing technical efficiency in the non-financial corporate sector in the 1980s. Technical efficiency is defined as the ratio of a firm's actual to its potential output for given input level s and technology. During the eighties, it did not improve consistently and significantly in Japanese manufacturing firms which have close ti es to a main bank. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.