BUSINESS CYCLES IN THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF LABOR MARKET SEARCH AND SELF‐INSURANCE*

I introduce risk‐aversion, labor‐leisure choice, capital, individual productivity shocks, and market incompleteness to the standard model of labor search and matching and investigate the model’s cyclical properties. I find that the model can generate the observed large volatility of unemployment and vacancies with a reasonable replacement rate of unemployment insurance benefits of 64%. Labor‐leisure choice plays a crucial role through additional utility from leisure when unemployed and further amplification from adjustments of hours worked. On the other hand, the borrowing constraint or individual productivity shocks do not significantly affect the cyclical properties of unemployment and vacancies.     

Continuity and Change in the Employment and Promotion of Japanese White-Collar Employees: The Case of the House of Mitsui

Lifetime employment is one of the most conspicuous featuresof contemporary large Japanese corporations. The employmentpractices of merchant houses in the Edo period (1603–1868)are sometimes proposed as one origin of such lifetime commitment.Little attention has been paid, however, to the connectionsbetween long-term employment in the Edo period and its practicein the twentieth century. This article examines how Edo employmentpractices were adapted to the environment of the early twentiethcentury within a new context of modern educational institutionsand the need for professional managers.     

Multivariate multistage methodologies for simultaneous all pairwise comparisons

We consider the problem of constructing simultaneous fixed-width confidence intervals for all pairwise treatment differences μ₁−μ _J , in the presence ofk(≥2) independent populationsN _p (μ₁,Σ), 1≤i≠j≤k. Appropriate purely sequential, accelerated sequential and three-stage sampling strategies have been developed and variousfirst-order asymptotic properties are then derived when Σ _pxp is completely unknown, but positive definite (p.d.). In the two special cases when the largest component variance in Σ is a known multiple of one of the variances or Σ=σ² H where σ(>0) is unknown, butH _pxp is known and p.d., the original multistage sampling strategies are specialized. Under such special circumstances, associatedsecond-order characteristics are then developed. It is to be noted that our present formulation and the methodologies fill important voids in the context of multivariate multiple comparisons which is a challenging area that has not yet been fully explored. Moderate sample performances of the proposed techniques were very encouraging and detailed remarks on these were included in Mukhopadhyay and Aoshima (1997).     

Coexistence of large firms and less efficient small firms under price competition with free entry

This study constructs a game of technology selection and Bertrand-like price competition in a market with free entry. It demonstrates the existence of a Nash equilibrium in which a small number of firms adopting a large-scale technology coexist with, and charge a lower price than, a large number of firms adopting a small-scale technology. In this equilibrium, both available technologies and resources are allocated efficiently. This result provides a new economic rationale for antitrust law in general and, in particular, the US Sherman Act, wchich regards free entry and price competition as of foremost importance for maintaining market quality.     

A Theoretical Analysis of Liner Shipping Conferences and Strategic Alliances

We analyze the economic impacts of industrial organizational struggles on the international liner shipping market. Operating ratios of different markets are discussed by incorporating rate, service level, and other variables into a standard microeconomic model. If two different carriers agree on a shipping conference price and/or share a strategic alliance service level, and maximize consolidated profit, a member carrier finds it easier to make its operation profitable than the individual profit optimization case; other carriers are worse off in becoming profitable. If the carriers face inelastic demand, the price continues rising until demand becomes elastic enough for the equilibrium to be relevant. The conference is expected to play a coordination role so that the market does not become unsustainable in the adjustment process to reach equilibrium.     

A HEDONIC ANALYSIS OF LAND PRICES IN YAMANASHI PREFECTURE, JAPAN

This paper presents a hedonic analysis of residential land prices in Yamanashi Prefecture for the period 1985–1995. The main purpose is to divide Yamanashi Prefecture (including selected attached areas) into Tokyo-influenced and Kofu-influenced areas. This was accomplished by finding the minimum sum of squared residuals following two hedonic regressions. One regression uses access to Tokyo Station, the other access to Kofu Station. We find that the Tokyo-influenced area expanded during the period studied.     

On the equivalence of weak dominance and sequential best response

In this paper, we identify the conditions under which a strategy is weakly dominated if and only if it is not sequential best response. In addition, we explore the implication for extensive form rationalizability.     

On forward induction in money-burning games

Summary. We first consider money-burning games studied by Ben-Porath and Dekel [6]. We show that iterative weak dominance and extensive form rationalizability yield the same unique outcome in this class of games. This result suggests that weak dominance captures the forward induction logic implied by extenisve form rationalizability. Next, we consider an example of entry model by Arvan [1] to demonstrate the power of forward induction. In this example, despite the presence of multiple equilibria, forward induction chooses a unique outcome. Received: January 25, 2000; revised version: January 5, 2001