Welfare gain from quality and price development in the Japan’s LCD TV market

We estimate the welfare gain from innovations in the LCD TVs that prevailed during the period 2005–2007 in Japan, via consumer surplus that we measure with the aid of discrete choice methods, using market data obtained from an internet price comparison service (Kakaku.com). Further, by the measured implicit values of attributes, we evaluate in monetary terms, the qualitative transition embedded in the attributes through the iso-consumer surplus planes. We thereby disaggregate the welfare gain into the qualitative and the budgetary components, which we call the quality gain, and the budget gain, respectively. The estimates show, along with the evolved process of innovation, that the quality gain was in the order of 381 KJPY, while the budget gain was 94 KJPY negative, which gives about 287 KJPY of overall welfare gain per consumer, during the period.     

Coverage area expansion, customer switching, and household profiles in the Japanese broadband access market

This paper examines the diffusion process of Internet broadband access in Japan by modeling the household choice of access modes. Estimates reveal that the characteristics of users, rather than those of the access modes, play a significant role in demand substitution across the modes. Simulation exercises indicate that had optic fibers (fiber-to-the-home; FTTH) been made available to the whole country in 2005, only 10% of households would have switched to that mode. This result implies that once chosen, the household choice of access mode persists, and that indirect network effects are an important element in decisions to adopt the new technology of broadband. Finally, policy implications are discussed.     

A cointegrated commodity pricing model

We propose a commodity pricing model that extends the Gibson–Schwartz two‐factor model to incorporate the effect of linear relations among commodity spot prices, and provide a condition under which such linear relations represent cointegration. We derive futures and call option prices for the proposed model, and indicate that, unlike in Duan and Pliska (2004), the linear relations among commodity prices should affect commodity derivative prices, even when the volatilities of commodity returns are constant. Using crude oil and heating oil market data, we estimate the model and apply the results to the hedging of long‐term futures using short‐term ones.     

Extreme co-movements and extreme impacts in high frequency data in finance

Extreme co-movement and extreme impact problems are inherently stochastic control problems, since they will influence the decision taken today and ultimately influence a decision taken in the future. Extreme co-movements among financial assets have been reported in the literature. However, extreme impacts have not been carefully studied yet. In this paper, we use the newly developed methodology to further explore extreme co-movements and extreme impacts in financial market. Particularly, two FX spot rates are studied. Based on the results of our analysis with FX returns, we conclude that there exist extreme co-movements and extreme impacts in FX returns and care has to be taken when we employ portfolio optimization models, especially models without the ability of handling extreme dependencies.     

THE ROLE AND INTERNALIZATION OF HOMOGENEOUS AND NON‐HOMOGENEOUS DESIGN EFFECTS IN RECYCLING SYSTEMS

This paper considers recycling systems in which producers and a monopolistic recycler are independent agents, while the design of products determined by the producer affects the recycler's productivity. It is found that such design effects could be internalized within the economy, if the monopolistic recycler pays the normative values of the wasted products according to their designs, while the producers formulate design so as to minimize the product's net price. However, if unfortunate, the equilibrium may fall into a local optimum and may not be stable. We also investigate how such property of the equilibrium could be changed if the recycler's productivity is influenced by the diversity in recycle design.     

Japanese distribution system: The impact of newly designed collaborations on wholesalers' performance

In January 1995, the Kobe earthquake devastated a major part of Kobe's distribution infrastructure. Apart from the expected complaints about lost sales, wholesalers reported some surprising comments after the reopening. Wholesalers stressed the advantages of newly designed distribution channels, especially the opportunity to end longstanding business relationships known as keiretsu. This study is concerned with the recent development of vertical collaboration in the Japanese distribution channel. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the supplier's service to wholesaler, the supplier's offerings to the wholesaler, and buyer's service to the wholesaler did contribute to the enhancement of the performance of the wholesaler. The three factors explained 16% of the wholesaler's performance. The regression analysis also showed that the wholesaler's intra-logistics activities contributed to the improvement of the performance of the wholesaler and explained 5% of its performance.     

Econometric analysis of price index for home video cassette recorders in the U.S., 1978-1987

This paper conducts an empirical analysis on the U.S. VCR market using a hedonic approach. The paper finds that quality-adjusted price indices decline at 11-12% per year, with a large annual drop of about 18% from 1982-85. Estimation and data analysis reveal interesting aspects of the evolution of quality and price in the VCR market. As a result of the exclusion of the VCR category until 1986, the paper estimates a bias of 2.4% per year in the CPI electronics subindex.     

Security Innovation on Several Assets Under Asymmetric Information

The paper examines the optimal innovation of securities by an issuer who is endowed with several risky assets and private information on one of the assets. Assuming that the degree of asymmetric information between the issuer and the outside investor is large, we show that the issuer restricts the number of securities that he creates. We also show that the payoff of the security created by the issuer is not closely correlated, and is sometimes completely uncorrelated, with the payoff of the asset that is subject to the asymmetric information, depending on the hedging needs and the accuracy of information.
JEL Classification Numbers: D52, D82, G20.     

Capital procurement of a consumer cooperative: Role of the membership market

Cooperative firms are commonly thought to be financially weak and unable to flourish in the market economy. This paper addresses the idea that a consumer cooperative issues a membership, which represents an ownership share in the cooperative, as a method of procuring equity capital. It then shows that, in theory, consumer cooperatives are not necessarily financially weaker than investor-owned firms in the presence of a membership market. This implies that the consumer cooperative is potentially a promising alternative to the investor-owned firm when the latter type of firm induces serious market failure in the product market.     

Did US safeguards resuscitate Harley-Davidson in the 1980s?

This paper examines US safeguards applied to the motorcycle market in the 1980s. After receiving temporary protection by means of a maximum tariff of over 45%, Harley-Davidson sales recovered dramatically. Simulations, based on structural demand and supply estimates, indicate that while safeguard tariffs did benefit Harley-Davidson, they only account for a fraction of its increased sales. This is primarily because consumers perceived that Harley-Davidson and Japanese large motorcycles were poorly matched substitutes for each other. Our results provide little evidence that safeguard provisions triggered restructuring in Harley-Davidson.