The distributional effect of the rice policy in Japan, 1986–2010

This study aims to evaluate the distributional effect of the governmental rice policy in Japan on producers, consumers, and government expenditures from 1986 to 2010 using a partial equilibrium model. Policy measures include government purchase of rice, output payment, and acreage control. The simulation result shows that acreage control has been the principal policy measure for transferring income to producers, especially since the enforcement of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Acreage control is the policy measure with the lowest total efficiency and highest budgetary efficiency. This result implies that the government’s goal of transferring income to producers with minimum government cost has been achieved through a combination of policy measures.     

DOMESTIC COMPETITION POLICY AND TARIFF POLICY COMPARED*

M. Yano and F. Dei have demonstrated that, by controlling the degree of competition in a non‐tradables market (competition policy), a country can influence the terms of trade so as to increase its welfare, relative to free trade. Using their model, this study compares the extent of this effect with that of a tariff policy. It demonstrates that a competition policy can achieve a higher utility than a tariff policy if tariff rates are at levels currently tolerated in the real world. This demonstrates that domestic competition policy may play an important role as a substitute for tariff policy.     

Capital Movements, Intersectoral Resource Shifts, and the Trade Balance with Recursive Preferences

This paper examines interactions between internal resource shifts and the external balance. It sets up a simple infinite-period model with recursive preferences. It shows simple patterns between capital movements and trade balances and clarifies the resource shifts between traded goods and nontraded goods sectors when world interest rate changes and government spending changes are taking place.     

Corporate bankruptcy prediction in Japan

The purpose of this study is to highlight the financial characteristics of failed firms in Japan, and to construct corporate bankruptcy prediction models with greater prediction accuracy. Our principal component analysis indicated that failed firms in Japan could be classified into two groups: a group having negative financial structures and a group having a declining flow of funds. Additionally, they can be classified into two other different categories of groups: one whose financial position during three years before shows a ‘V’ shape and another group that shows a ‘XXX’ shape.Our discriminant analysis indicated that improved prediction accuracy could be obtained by using, as predictor variables, both ratios and absolute amounts based on cash base financial statement data three years before failure. This data was adjusted to properly reflect the exceptions, reservations, and qualifications appearing in the audit reports and those based on accrual base financial statement data.     

Strategic design under uncertain evaluations: structural analysis of design‐build auctions

I investigate firms' competition over price and product design under uncertain design evaluations in the context of Design‐Build (DB) auctions. Reviewers' design evaluations contain uncertainty from a bidder's perspective, leading luck to dampen differences in the firms' chances of winning. I model bidders' behavior and show semiparametric identification of the model primitives. Uncertain design evaluations increase the expected price of design quality and exacerbate an auctioneer's uncertainty in auction outcomes. These effects are mostly due to changes in bidding strategies. Bid ranking swaps due to uncertain evaluations account for a small share of these effects.     

An artificial Wicksell–Keynes economy integrating short-run business cycle and long-term cumulative trend

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - Economists have investigated how price–wage rigidity influences macroeconomic stability. A widely accepted view asserts that increased...     

A dynamic theory of the declining aggregated labor income share: Intangible capital vs. tangible capital

Reports of the literature documenting the declining labor share of income have increased greatly in the past few years, which is opposed to one of the famous “Kaldor's stylized facts” of growth. The declining labor income share has been observed since the 1980s in a number of countries, and especially in the United States. Recent studies have revealed the following five major driving forces of the declining labor share: (i) supercycles and boom-busts, (ii) rising and faster depreciation, (iii) superstar effects and consolidation, (iv) capital substitution and automation, and (v) globalization and labor bargaining power. We set up a two-sector optimal growth model with the R&D intermediate sectors producing intangible capital. By integrating driving factors (ii) through (iv) above into the model, we demonstrate the long-run decline of the aggregated labor income share.