Corporate Environmental and Economic Performance of Japanese Manufacturing Firms: Empirical Study for Sustainable Development

This study examines the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in Japanese manufacturing firms. The environmental performance indicators include CO₂ emissions and the aggregate toxic risk associated with chemical emissions relative to sales. Return on assets (ROA) is used as an indicator of economic performance. We demonstrate that there is a significant inverted U‐shaped relationship between ROA and environmental performance calculated by aggregated toxic risk. We also find that the environmental performance increases ROA through both returns on sales and improved capital turnover. However, we observe a significant positive relationship between financial performance and environmental performance based on CO₂ emissions. These findings may provide evidence for the consequences of firms' environmental behavior and sustainable development. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Regulation of food safety risks: the case of food irradiation in Japan

As risk analysis becomes more important in the promulgation of international and domestic standards, scientific data and the utilization of this data as a foundation for regulations is fundamental in determining these standards. Over the past 20 years, the scientific understanding of food irradiation technology has increased significantly regarding the impact of the technology on various types of food and the potential applications. As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), acting together, announced a standard on the benefits of food irradiation in early 1980s. Despite the consensus amongst international organizations regarding the benefits of food irradiation, individual countries have not been as eager to promote this technology. Japan began an initial investigation into the applications of food irradiation over 30 years ago, yet today prohibits irradiation except for the potato. This paper examines the history of research and regulation on food irradiation in Japan, and how scientific information and other factors have influenced its regulatory policy. These factors, including industry willingness, regulatory structure and perception, are not outside exerting force on the regulations of this technology, but rather are inherently a part of the regulatory process itself, and lead to a 'vicious circle' of rigidity that closes off the opportunity to incorporate new scientific and technical information as it arises.     

Effects of cost sharing on the demand for physician services in Japan: Evidence from a natural experiment

In this paper, we investigate the effects of cost sharing on the demand for physician services in Japan by using a natural experiment, namely, the increase in the coinsurance rate for household heads in 1997. Our primary finding from the two-year data, which includes the transitory effects of the reform, is that the effects of the reform on the frequency of physician visits were negative and statistically significant, and that the effects of the reform on expenditures per visit were also negative. Based on these results, the arc elasticity of demand for physician services is ?0.055. When we exclude the transitory period using the three-year data, the effects of the reform on the frequency of physician visits turn to be positive. It seems that the patients marginally curtailed the number of physician visits immediately after the reform; however, this effect was not sustained in the six months after the reform. We conclude that Japanese patients are not very price sensitive within the 10–20 percent range of coinsurance rate. Another important finding in our study is that the decrease in expenditure per visit retained even after the transitory period. This result suggests that the existence of a possible moral hazard in the treatment intensity although the decision-making process on the treatment intensity needs to be examined more carefully.     

LAND USE REGULATION AS A BARRIER TO ENTRY: EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXAS LODGING INDUSTRY*

This article examines the anticompetitive effects of land use regulation using microdata on midscale chain hotels in Texas. I construct a dynamic entry–exit model that endogenizes hotel chains’ reactions to land use regulation. My estimates indicate that imposing stringent regulation increases costs considerably. Hotel chains nonetheless enter highly regulated markets even if entry probabilities are lower, anticipating fewer rivals and hence greater market power. Consumers incur the costs of regulation indirectly in the form of higher prices.     

Subcontracting Structure and Productivity in the Japanese Software Industry

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors determining the productivity of the software industry in Japan, using individual data from the Survey of the State of the Information Service Industry conducted in August 2006 by IPA (Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan). This paper focuses on the relationship between the subcontracting structure and productivity in the Japanese software industry. Software enterprises are classified as prime contractors, intermediate subcontractors, end-contractors, and independent enterprise. A comparison of their productivity levels reveals that intermediate subcontractors are the least productive. However, it is observed that the intermediate subcontractors possessing a high quality of human resources measured the proportion of employees passing the Information Technology Engineers Examination (ITEE), or the intermediate subcontractors adopting the IT skill standard which defines the skills for IT human resources clearly and systematically, has a high productivity level. It can raise the productivity in software industry as a whole.     

Estimation of the Investment Thresholds of Large Japanese Manufacturers

We approximate the investment threshold by the point at which a logistic curve has the largest curvature of convexity. Our threshold estimates are 1.82 and 1.51 in Tobin's marginal Q for machinery manufacturers and chemical/metal manufacturers, respectively. These numbers lie in between the two estimates calculated by Barnett and Sakellaris for US manufacturers. Our estimates exceed one in all industries, which also agrees with Dixit and Pindyck's analytic result. The threshold for the electrical machinery industry is higher than the others. An increase in uncertainty raises the investment threshold, while an appreciation in asset value lowers it.
JEL Classification Numbers: C23, E22.     

日本地方政府预算研究与启示

日本以地方财政计划作为地方政府预算的中心环节,并将地方税返还制度列入该计划,以保障和调整地方财源,满足地方公共支出需要。针对目前出现的地方财力不足,以及中央财政对地方财政补充不足的现实状况,日本正在进行三位一体的地方分权改革与财政体制改革。日本地方政府预算制度与改革的经验与教训对于切实推进中国的分税制改革,发挥地方政府财政计划功能、改革政府财政架构、建立公开透明的政府财政预算体系以及制定科学的地方财政保证方法等方面有着重要的启示作用。     

An Artificial Neural Network Test For Structural Change With Unspecified Parametric Form

Tests for a structural change of unknown timing in parameterized regression functions have been introduced previously under the maintained assumption that the models are correctly specified. However, the existing family of tests are unable to discriminate between structural change and misspecification. This paper introduces test statistics which do not require specification of the parametric form of the underlying data-generating process (DGP). I approximate it by a version of artificial neural networks (ANN). My simulation studies indicate that an ANN approximates the DGP quite well and that the derived tests have good power relative to the power envelope.
JEL Classification Numbers: C12, C14, C45.     

The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas

The new accounting research has been devoted to illuminating the social and constitutive aspects of accounting. This has been done, however, in many cases, in the setting of micro managerial accounting. The effects of financial and macroeconomic accounting on modern economic society have not been examined in depth from an epistemological and critical viewpoint. This article attempts to develop a hypothesis that financial accounting (particularly, that of macro economic entities) has been centrally implicated in the process through which economic ideas and economic management have become ubiquitous in modern society. Accounting's power and the reason for its steady growth are sought in its various formalities rather than its representational capacity. Several factors that are considered to constitute the formalities form a self-perpetuating apparatus that facilitates the prevalence of accounting in modern economic society.