URBANIZATION, URBAN CONCENTRATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

An international comparative study of the relations among the process of urbanization, urban concentration and economic development, and income distribution was performed by using data of developing and developed countries. Cross-section analyses at certain time periods for capturing "long-run" effects as well as time-series analyses for some countries for "short-run" effects were done taking advantage of the "rectangular" array of data. There were several interesting results: the pattern of unemployment rate in most developing countries shows an inverted-U shaped curve with respect to the degree of urbanization; the pattern of urban concentration is in the form of an inverted-U with respect to the economic development level; and the degree of inequality of income distribution seems to react in an inverted-U form to the variances in the extent of urbanization.     

Lifetime income and public pension: An analysis of the effect on redistribution using a two-period analysis

This paper examines the redistributive effect of public pension programs in the framework of a two-period analysis. Private saving is also considered for comparison purposes as an alternative to public pension for assuring consumption during retirement. An emphasis is placed on investigating the effect of the various formulae for the determination of both the benefit level and the contribution, with the additional purpose of examining the effect of a maximum limit. The Japanese pension systems are evaluated on the basis of the above model framework in comparison with the British system.     

How Do the Asian Economies Compete With Japan in the US Market? Is China Exceptional? A Triangular Trade Approach

We apply a trilateral trade approach to examine how Japanese exports and investment to China, or seven other Asian economies, affect Chinese, or the seven Asian economies', exports to the US market. The results suggest that while Chinese and Japanese exports are directly competitive in US markets, Chinese exports to the US are supported partly by Japanese exports to China. The positive correlation between Japanese exports to China and Chinese exports to the US is explained by vertical trade between Japanese multinationals and their affiliates in China. Indonesian and Philippine exports are also competing with Japanese exports in US markets, though the extent of the competition is much higher for China than for these countries.     

Exporting and Upgrading of Product Portfolio: Evidence from Korea,Japan and Indonesia*

This paper examines the effect of exporting on ‘product portfolio upgrading’ in a plant, using plant–product matched datasets for Korea, Japan and Indonesia. First, we find that a substantial part of aggregate shipments growth is explained by net adding of products for all three countries. Second, export starters are more likely to add products and to change product shares in plants than never exporters. Third, added products tend to have higher product quality than dropped products. Therefore, our results imply that the entry to export markets plays an important role in product portfolio upgrading: the process of reallocation from lower‐attribute to higher‐attribute products.     

碳贸易价格风险变动趋势与我国CDM发展策略

本文构建并拟合了包含分布转换的Markov-GARCH模型,计算了基于该模型的风险价值(VaR),对国际碳贸易市场价格风险变动趋势进行了分析。研究结果表明:碳贸易市场价格在均值、方差、峰度、波动聚集性以及分布形式方面都具有机制转换的特性;欧盟推出的EU ETS改革措施将促使未来碳贸易市场价格波动风险进一步降低。我国应当适时提高CDM合同最低限价;减少向CDM合同国际买方支付的风险溢价;暂停上马HFC-23和N2O分解类项目;加快国内碳贸易和碳金融市场的发展,争夺国际碳贸易市场定价权。