Using unique Japanese firm-level data from the Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry for 1982-2008, we observed TFP trends in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Our results can be summarized as follows. First, TFP growth in the non-manufacturing industry was lower than that of the manufacturing industry. Second, there was productivity dispersion and it persists in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Third, our results, which are based on productivity dynamics, show that the acceleration of TFP growth rate mainly occurred in the manufacturing industry.
