Tax Effects in a Model of Product Differentiation: A Note

We investigate how unit (or specific) tax and ad valorem tax affect equilibrium location choice in a model of product differentiation, which includes Hotelling (linear-city) and Vickrey-Salop (circular-city) spatial models as special cases. We find that neither tax affects equilibrium location patterns as long as each firm has the same production cost. Two taxes can yield different location patterns under cost heterogeneity among firms.     

Voluntary development of environmental management systems: motivations and regulatory implications

Encouraging firms to develop voluntarily more comprehensive environmental management systems (EMSs) is touted as a policy tool to augment mandatory environmental regulations. Using a unique dataset of environmental management practices of Japanese manufacturers and controlling for self-selection bias in survey responses, we find that proxies for regulatory pressures and consumer pressures are the most important factors that motivate firms toward more comprehensive EMSs. Despite the oft-claimed “voluntary” nature of EMS development, our results show that the government may have a role to play in both directly and indirectly affecting EMS development by firms.      

Fiscal policy and fiscal reconstruction in Japan

This paper investigates the macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy and the fiscal reconstruction movement in Japan. I first summarize Japanese fiscal policy in the recent years and discuss sustainability of government deficits. Then, I investigate the macroeconomic effect of Japanese fiscal policy and evaluate the plausibility of the Keynesian and non-Keynesian effects. I also analyze political constraints in the fiscal reconstruction attempts and the possibility of crowding-in effect of fiscal reform. Finally, I discuss some measures for the successful fiscal reconstruction reform in the near future. JEL Code H30 · H60     

Inefficient but Robust Public Leadership

We investigate endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly in a differentiated product market. We find that private leadership is better than public leadership from a social welfare perspective if the private firm is domestic, regardless of the degree of product differentiation. Nevertheless, the public leadership equilibrium is risk-dominant, and it is thus robust if the degree of product differentiation is high. We also find that regardless of the degree of product differentiation, the public leadership equilibrium is risk-dominant if the private firm is foreign. These results may explain the recent revival of public financial institutions in Japan.     

Networked FDI: Sales and Sourcing Patterns of Japanese Foreign Affiliates

This paper applies a novel empirical approach to characterising the horizontal‐ness and vertical‐ness of affiliates based on Yeaple's complex FDI concept. In its simplest form, horizontal‐ness is measured as affiliates’ local sales share while their vertical‐ness is measures as their share of non‐local sourcing of intermediates. Japanese affiliates in most sectors and nations are partly vertical and partly horizontal, but those in North American are far more ‘horizontal’ than those in the EU and Asia. Affiliates became more vertical between 1996 and 2005. A four‐way sales and sourcing split (host, home, regional and RoW) suggests that affiliates act as nodes in regional production networks – especially in Asia. We posit several hypotheses that could be tested with our empirical approach.     

Mixed duopoly: Differential game approach

This study formulates a dynamic mixed oligopoly model, in which a state‐owned public firm competes against a private firm over multiple periods. We adopt a differential game formulated by Fershtman and Kamien [Econometrica 55 (1987), pp. 1151–1164] and investigate how the dynamic competition affects the optimal privatization policy. We characterize the open‐loop Nash equilibrium (OLNE) and Markov‐perfect Nash equilibrium (MPNE). We show that in the MPNE, an increase in the degree of privatization has a nonmonotonic effect on the price, increasing it in a wide range of parameter spaces, which is in sharp contrast to the result in the OLNE or static analyses. We also find that the optimal degree of privatization is higher in the MPNE than that in the OLNE and static equilibrium. These results suggest that intertemporal strategic behavior changes the optimal privatization policy.     

Comparison between specific taxation and volume quotas in a free entry Cournot oligopoly

We revisit the classic discussion of the comparison between tax and quota, but in a free-entry Cournot oligopoly. We investigate a quantity ceiling regulation as a quota policy. We find that tariff-quota equivalence holds if the firms are symmetric and the number of firms is given exogenously. However the equivalence does not hold and taxes dominate quotas in the free entry market because quota can increases the number of entering firms and increases the loss caused by excessive entries.     

International Trade,Offshoring and Heterogeneous Firms

Recent trade models determine the equilibrium distribution of firm‐level efficiency endogenously and show that freer trade shifts the distribution towards higher average productivity because of entry and exit of firms. These models ignore the possibility that freer trade also alters the firm‐size distribution via international firm migration (offshoring); firms must, by assumption, produce in their “birth nation.” We show that when firms are allowed to switch locations, new productivity effects arise. Freer trade induces the most efficient small‐nation firms to move to the large nation. The large country gets an “extra helping” of the most efficient firms while the small nation's firm‐size distribution is truncated on both ends. This reinforces the large‐nation productivity gain while reducing or even reversing the small‐nation productivity gain. The small nation is nevertheless better off allowing firm migration.     

Environmental Product Standards in North–South Trade

Consumption is one channel through which the environment is damaged. To protect the environment, various product standards have been introduced across the world. This paper uses a new economic geography framework to explore the effects of environmental product standards on environment in a North–South trade model. It examines the situation in which the North unilaterally introduces an environmental product standard. Specifically, those products that do not meet the standard are not allowed to be sold in the North's market. It is found that such a standard may worsen the North's environment but improve the South's environment as a result of firm relocation.