Looking at firms' perception of resource utilization, an indicator for supply and demand conditions, the weighted average of the diffusion indices of production capacity and employment conditions in the Tankan (Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan) suggests that the pace of improvement in resource utilization in consumption-related industries, such as retailing and services, is slower than the average for all industries.
In recent years, the sensitivity of consumer prices to a rise in the utilization of resources such as production capacity and labor, or to changes in the output gap, has been declining, and this seems to have been due not only to deregulation and technological innovation but also to economic globalization.