An application of the extended cross impact method to generating scenarios of social change in Japan

Scenarios of Japanese society in 2000 are obtained by applying an extended correlational cross impact analysis. Since the scope of the scenarios is extensive, a procedure is developed to generate the scenarios that consists of a preprocessing of the events of interest and a step-by-step application of a cross impact method. Three scenarios are described, based on a workshop where the procedure was applied.     

Entry and capital structure mimicking in concentrated markets: The role of incumbents’ financial disclosures

We examine whether the public availability of product market incumbents' financial disclosures leads to greater capital structure mimicking of incumbents by entrants. Exploiting a change in disclosure enforcement for German private firms in the mid-2000s, we find entrant-incumbent mimicking rises substantially in concentrated markets once incumbents' financial statements are publicly available. Additional tests exploring potential mechanisms are more consistent with interfirm learning underlying the effect than alternative channels. Our findings shed light on the effects of competitor financial statement disclosure on private firms’ initial financing decisions and highlight how capital structure dependencies among peer firms arise.     

Repeated signaling games

I analyze a class of repeated signaling games in which the informed player's type is persistent and the history of actions is perfectly observable. In this context, a large class of possibly complex sequences of signals can be supported as the separating equilibrium actions of the “strong type” of the informed player. I characterize the set of such sequences. I also characterize the sequences of signals in least cost separating equilibria (LCSE) of these games. In doing this, I introduce a state variable that can be interpreted as a measure of reputation. This gives the optimization problem characterizing the LCSE a recursive structure. I show that, in general, the equilibrium path sequences of signals have a simple structure. The shapes of the optimal sequences depend critically on the relative concavities of the payoff functions of different types, which measure the relative preferences towards payoff smoothing.     

Countries’ adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) – early empirical evidence

The International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) is increasingly being adopted in a number of jurisdictions. Despite the economic importance of non-publicly accountable entities, little is known about what factors influence countries' decisions to adopt IFRS for SMEs. In a unique sample of 128 countries, we find that countries that are not capable of developing their own local generally accepted accounting principles are more likely to adopt IFRS for SMEs. We also provide evidence that in jurisdictions where full IFRS have been applied to private firms, the likelihood of adoption of IFRS for SMEs increases, suggesting that jurisdictions reduce the financial reporting burden on SMEs. Moreover, in line with prior literature, there is evidence that countries with a relatively low quality of governance institutions are more likely to adopt this new set of accounting standards. The results also hold under alternative measures and different estimation approaches. Overall, our results are helpful in understanding the worldwide diffusion of IFRS for SMEs. Standard setters and regulators might consider our study in the future development of accounting harmonisation of non-publicly accountable entities.     

Energy analysis of Japanese industries : A time series analysis

Characteristics of Japanese industries in the past 15 years have been investigated in terms of energy intensities, or energy directly and indirectly spent for production of a unit output in industries. The methodology of the analysis is similar to that by Herendern, that is an extension of input-output approach, but with various modifications. Data are seven input-output tables, of about 400 x 400 items published by the Japanese government. Changes in energy intensities with time are disaggregated into two factors, 1) changes in direct energy intensities and 2) changes in nonenergy resource use or in the ratios of value added taxes. Observation of these factors in the last 15 years reveals that the latter factor has been highly significant in energy conservation, especially in machine industries, the raw materials of which are mainly iron and steel. It is also observed that conventional energy conservation efforts have scarcely been dependent on nonenergy resource conservation.     

Development Aid to Agriculture and Economic Growth

The link between foreign aid and economic growth has been a controversial issue with no strong consensus so far. This paper argues that a possible reason why some studies may conclude that aid is ineffective in promoting economic growth might be that not all aid is given for development purposes (i.e. aid given for strategic considerations, humanitarian reasons or emergency relief). This study classifies foreign aid into four subcategories: agricultural aid, social infrastructure aid, investment aid, and non‐investment aid. Using the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique on a Barro type growth regression with panel data from the aid recipient economies, this paper finds that when aid is directed to the agricultural sector of the developing countries, it is positively and significantly related to growth and can affect economic growth in the short run.     

Young Adults Living with their Parents and the Influence of Peers

This study examines the impact of peer behaviour on the living arrangements of young adults in the US using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We achieve identification by exploiting the differences in the timing of leaving the parental home among peers, the individual‐specific nature of the peer groups that are based on friendship nominations, and by including network and cohort fixed effects. Our results indicate that there are statistically significant peer effects on young adults’ decisions to leave the parental home. We discuss various mechanisms and confirm the robustness of our results through a placebo exercise.     

The Power of Social Network Construction and Analysis for Knowledge Discovery in the Medical Referral Process

The social network model is powerful enough to provide for the analysis and study of a variety of application domains from daily life, including health care and health informatics. After the widespread appearance of automated tools capable of deriving and analyzing social networks, social network analysis (SNA) and mining in the health care domain has recently received considerable attention for its key role in understanding how various bodies within the health care system form communities and how they are socially connected with each other. This understanding helps enhance the organizational structures and process flows, among others. In this article, we show how SNA techniques can solve issues in the medical referral system in the Canadian health care system and the like, by analyzing the social network of general practitioners (GPs) and specialists (SPs). One of the main targets is to optimize the communication between GPs and SPs with hopes of decreasing the waiting time of patients to be seen by SPs. Various SNA and mining techniques are described and analyzed, backed by reporting some experimental results.