Major Psychological Factors Affecting Acceptance of New Breeding Techniques for Crops

New plant biotechnologies called new breeding techniques (NBT), which will follow the present genetically modified (GM) technology, have appeared and are attracting attention worldwide. The first purpose of this study was to show consumer attitudes toward traditional plant breeding, GM, and NBT crops. The second purpose was to verify the validity of a psychological model determining the acceptance of NBT crops. A survey was conducted in Japan with 657 randomly selected adult participants. The results showed that perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust, sense of bioethics, anxiety, and anger play an important role in the personal and public acceptance of NBT and indicated that trust and anxiety are especially important factors in both situations.     

‘An Incomplete Contract Approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance’ – Commitment vs. Flexibility

In this paper, we take an incomplete contract approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance between the European Commission (EC) and any heavily debt member state, Greece in particular. Incomplete contract approach makes possible to put a long process of Eurozone Fiscal Governance into an extensive form game in which a renegotiation procedure is incorporated. We theoretically reveal the conflict of interests between the EC (Germany) and Greece over the Greek debt repayment plan proposed in 2015. We show that the Greek’s position is consistent with incomplete contract theory, but that the EC (Germany) does not allow the renegotiation for restructuring for growth-oriented debt repayment program proposed by the Greek government because the EC (Germany) judges that the commitment effect (on fiscal austerity) is greater than the flexibility one (pro-growth effect). This will undoubtedly provide a novel and interesting approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance.     

Finite-dimensional utilities

Summary. Sufficient axioms are identified for the existence of a finite- dimensional quasilinear utility function whose lexicographically ordered vectors preserve a decision maker's preference order on a mixture set . It is shown that those axioms are also necessary for the linear lexicographic representation when the underlying set is a mixture space. Received: August 20, 1998; revised version: December 14, 1998     

Impacts of Prime‐age Adult Mortality on Labour Supply: Evidence from Adolescents and Women in South Africa*

This paper examines the impact of prime‐age adult mortality on the transition made by adolescents from school to the labour market and on female adult labour force participation decisions in South Africa. We find, first, that deaths of prime‐age adults significantly increase both male and female adolescents’ labour force participation as they stop their schooling. Secondly, the death of prime‐age adults in general also decreases school enrolment ex ante. Thirdly, female adults tend to join the labour force following the death of prime‐age adult males. These findings imply that prime‐age adult mortality increases labour supply and disrupts human capital formation.     

Reflexive Organizing for Knowledge Sharing: An Ethnomethodological Study of Service Technicians

This study examines how organizing is done reflexively through practice in the context of knowledge sharing. Organizing concerns reduction of equivocality and sensemaking so that actions can be interpreted and coordinated. Reflexivity refers to the fact that this organizing is done through talk, and that talk is an action that requires organizing. To examine how this reflexive organizing is accomplished, detailed analysis of video‐recorded interactions among photocopier service technicians revealed various interactional methods to make actions of requesting and offering assistance understandable and relevant. To explain these methods, Goffman's concept of embedding is applied. By embedding other social situations in the current talk, one can project a certain sense of one's talk. This reflexive organizing clarifies that organizing is part of, not separate from, any practice and that knowledge sharing is accomplished not through a retrospective narrative but through reflexive construction of the situation in which talk is made possible.     

Factor price equalization and a factor offer analysis of international trade

This paper presents a general equilibrium analysis of international trade which exploits the univalence condition of the factor price equalization theorem to derive such concepts as factor trade indifference curves, factor offer curves, and factoral terms of trade in the factor space, parallel to the traditional development in the commodity space. The analysis accommodates some instances of variable factor supplies. It also serves to synthesize the comparative statics of factor growth in the standard two-factor as well as the multi-factor models of trade.     

Social learning,neighborhood effects,and investment in human capital: Evidence from Green-Revolution India

This paper empirically identifies social learning and neighborhood effects in schooling investments in a new technology regime. Social learning implies that learning is most efficient when observed heterogeneity in schooling is greatest. The estimates of learning-investment rule, from farm household panel data at the onset of the Green Revolution in India, show that (i) agents learn about schooling returns from income realizations of their neighbors, and (ii) the speed of learning is high when the variation of schooling is large. Thus, schooling distribution of the parents' generation in a community has externalities to schooling investments in children. Simulations show that the variations in schooling within and across communities generate variations in child enrollment rate and average household income.     

Japanese nonprofit sector in comparative perspective

Nonprofit organizations have long been less visible in Japan than in most other developed countries. But this does not imply that Japan does not have a sizable nonprofit sector. To the contrary, large numbers of Japanese hospitals, universities, social service organizations, and community groups are essentially not‐for‐profit in form.