POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING FOR TRADE LIBERALIZATION: POLITICS OF AGRICULTURE RELATED GOVERNMENT SPENDING FOR THE URUGUAY ROUND IN JAPAN

This paper investigates the effect of political factors on the interregional allocation of the budget to assist farmers in coping with agricultural trade liberalization in Japan. We present a simple model to show the relationship between political factors and interregional budget allocation and empirically examine whether political factors played a key role in the interregional allocation of Japanese government spending for the Uruguay Round agricultural trade liberalization. Our findings show that this allocation was distorted due to political reasons, which was problematic from the standpoints of fairness and social efficiency.     

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC EDUCATION: HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION UNDER PARENTAL TEACHING*

This paper examines a simple overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation under both the public and private education regimes. Both young individuals and their parents allocate time to human capital accumulation. Under the public education regime, the government collects tax to finance expenditure for education resources. We show that there exists a level of tax which maximizes the speed of human capital accumulation because of parental teaching; and, if the government chooses tax rates adequately, human capital grows faster and welfare levels become higher under the public education regime than under the private.     

POLICY MAKING IN DEFLATIONARY JAPAN*

The prolonged recession and deflation in Japan since 1990 presents novel problems to economists. The recession was certainly triggered by real factors such as the slowing down of capacity growth. At the same time, it was aggravated by the monetary contraction in the early 1990s and the inability of the monetary policy to cope with deflation, a fortiori a monetary phenomenon. With the zero‐bound interest rate, traditional monetary policy is of limited effect, and unconventional monetary policy, such as inflation (or price‐level) targeting, should be employed instead, in order to change the persistent deflationary expectations in the public.     

AVAILABILITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND LONG‐TERM ECONOMIC GROWTH*

In the present paper, we examine the economic growth effects of a limited availability of higher education in a simple endogenous growth model with overlapping generations. It is shown that this limited availability might promote economic growth by increasing aggregate savings. If the supply of human capital is restricted, its price remains high and a large share of aggregate output is distributed to young households, which need to save for their old age. When this growth‐enhancing effect is strong enough, an excessive increase in availability leads to a shortage of investable funds, which substantially reduces economic growth.     

Debt Policy Rules in an Open Economy

In a small open economy model of endogenous growth with public capital accumulation, we examine the effects of a debt policy rule under which the government must reduce its debt–GDP ratio if it exceeds the criterion level. To sustain public debt at a finite level, the government should adjust public spending rather than the income tax rate. The long‐run debt–GDP ratio should be kept sufficiently low to avoid equilibrium indeterminacy. Under sustainability and determinacy, a tighter (looser) debt rule brings welfare gains when the world interest rate is relatively high (low).     

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STRATEGIC EXPORT POLICY IN A DIFFERENTIATED DUOPOLY*

This paper investigates the effect of a home firm's lobbying on a strategic export policy in a third market with a differentiated duopoly. We focus on its effect on domestic welfare under Bertrand and Cournot competition. Regardless of the mode of competition, the strategic export policy cannot improve domestic welfare in the presence of lobbying if the degree of product differentiation is high or the government is overly concerned with political contribution relative to domestic welfare. Moreover, for the same degree of product differentiation, the lobbying‐induced export policy is more likely to deteriorate domestic welfare relative to free trade under Cournot competition.     

International Asset Trade,Capital Income Taxation,and Specialization Patterns

This paper constructs a small economy version of dynamic Heckscher‐Ohlin models with overlapping generations and analyzes effects of capital income taxation on the specialization pattern of the country. It is shown that once international asset trade is allowed, in the presence of international technological asymmetries, a small country eventually leads to perfect specialization in our overlapping generations model. It is also shown that the residence‐based tax has no effect on the specialization pattern while the source‐based tax has a negative effect on capital accumulation and thereby it can affect the specialization pattern of the small country.     

SCHOOL CHOICE AND STUDENT SORTING: EVIDENCE FROM ADACHI WARD IN JAPAN*

We examine whether the school choice programme of public junior high schools in Adachi ward has caused student sorting and has thus increased the differences in scores between the schools. We find that students are sorted in the sense that the students living in the school attendance areas where there is a higher proportion of high‐status occupations are more likely to select private schools even after the introduction of the school choice programme, or they select public schools with higher scores. Adachi's average scores relative to the Tokyo average have improved, while the between school differences in scores have not expanded.     

WHAT CAUSED FIXED INVESTMENT TO STAGNATE DURING THE 1990S IN JAPAN? EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA OF LISTED COMPANIES*

Taking into account considerable changes in the corporate finance behaviour of listed Japanese companies during the 1990s, this paper empirically investigates the causes of the stagnation of the listed companies’ fixed investment during the 1990s, using panel data from the companies’ financial statements. Our findings include the following: (i) while positive cash flow sensitivity was detected for the companies listed during the 1990s, it was not necessarily a consequence of the binding of liquidity constraints; (ii) declines in Tobin's q explain decreases in fixed investment throughout the 1990s; and (iii) the holding of liquid assets acted as a buffer against liquidity shocks.     

TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS AND POPULATION GROWTH: DO WE HAVE TOO FEW CHILDREN?

Do we have too few children? We intend to address this question. In developed countries, the fertility rate has declined since WWII. This may cause a slowdown in the growth of GDP in developed countries. However, important factors for the well‐being of individuals are per capita variables, like per capita growth and per capita consumption. In turn, the rate of technological progress determines the growth rates of per capita variables. If the population size is increasing, the labour inputs for R&D activity increase, and thus speed up technological progress. As individuals do not take account of this positive effect when deciding on the number of their own children, the number of children may become smaller than the socially optimal number of children. However, an increase in the number of children reduces the assets any one child owns: that is, there is a capital dilution effect. This works in the opposite direction. We examine this issue using an endogenous growth model where the head of a dynastic family decides the number of children.