Quality and efficiency of home help elderly care in Japan: Evidence from micro-level data

With the introduction of public long-term care insurance in the spring of 2000, for-profit enterprises were allowed to enter the home help elderly care market in Japan for the first time. We take advantage of data from a unique, self-conducted survey to compare the efficiency and quality of service offered by providers with different types of ownership and different lengths of operation. We present two major findings. First, contrary to the prevailing perception, we find no significant difference in the quality of service between for-profit and nonprofit providers. Although the nonprofits are able to offer more qualified and experienced staff, the quality of services provided by nonprofits is worse in some aspects than that of their for-profit counterparts. Second, our estimates of a quality-adjusted cost function demonstrate that the management of newer providers is more efficient than that of older providers. Our results show that the competition mechanism works effectively in the home help care market, and that there is no reason to believe that the for-profit providers are behaving opportunistically. Thus, this study justifies the belief that free-market policy contributes significantly toward improving the quality and the efficiency of home help long-term care in Japan. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (2) (2007) 287–301.     

Supplier density and at-home care use in Japan: Evidence from a micro-level survey on long-term care receivers

Following the introduction of the long-term care insurance scheme and deregulation of the market for at-home care services, Japan experienced a substantial increase in expenditure on care for the elderly. Using household-level survey data, we empirically examine whether the increase in care expenditure is associated with supplier density springing from the rise in the number of care providers following deregulation. We provide weak evidence that supplier density in the at-home care market is positively correlated with probability to use care or expenditure on care. Moreover, we find no link between the share of for-profit providers and the demand for at-home care services.     

The determinants of exit from institutions and the price elasticity of institutional care: Evidence from Japanese micro-level data

This study examines how the price mechanism affects the length of residents’ at institutions and their destination after exit. Using micro-level data from The Survey on Care Service Providers compiled by the Japanese government, we show that the price elasticity of the hazard of exit was 1.7 from welfare care facilities was 1.8 from health care facilities. Moreover, our estimates reveal that a 1 percentage point increase in copayments leads to an increase in the probability of returning home by 0.04% for residents of welfare care facilities and 3.7% for those of health care facilities and a decrease in the probability of being re-hospitalized by 3.3% for residents of health care facilities and 1.9% for those of medical care facilities. Our findings demonstrate that an appropriate price policy may work well to shorten clients’ length of stay and to reduce the number of the socially institutionalized.     

On the consumption insurance effects of long-term care insurance in Japan: Evidence from micro-level household data

Using micro-level household data in the 2001 Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, this paper examines how having a household member in need of long-term nursing care can result in welfare losses measured in terms of consumption. In so doing, this study evaluates the role of the public long-term care insurance scheme implemented in Japan in April 2000. The results indicate that when households include a disabled family member, household consumption net of long-term care costs do not decrease as much as before the introduction of long-term care insurance. Further, when compared with the surveys conducted in 1998, the adverse effects on consumption net of long-term care costs have become much weaker. These findings suggest that the introduction of social insurance in 2000 helped Japanese households to reduce the welfare losses associated with a disabled family member.     

The Japanese–U.S. trade balance and the yen: Evidence from industry data

While it is often assumed that a country's trade balance will improve in the long-run if its currency is allowed to depreciate, this is not necessarily the case for specific goods. In the short run, the opposite might even take place, as fixed quantities and rising import prices cause the trade balance to deteriorate. In this paper, we apply cointegration methodology to assess the short- and long-run impact of fluctuations in the yen–dollar real exchange rate on Japan's trade balance with the U.S. for 117 industries. We find that depreciation causes the trade balance to improve in the long-run for about one-third of Japanese industries. Most short-run effects are in the same direction, indicating a quick improvement in these industries’ trade balance, rather than a period of deterioration such as a “J-curve.”     

Who bears the burden of social insurance? Evidence from Japanese health and long-term care insurance data

Using the society-managed health insurance data, which is cross-sectional time-series and covers 1670 health insurance societies for seven years (FY1995–2001), we found for the first time in Japan that the majority of the employers' contribution to health insurance is shifting back onto the employees in the form of wage reduction. On the other hand, we cannot find such evidence for the contribution to long-term care insurance using a two-year (FY2000–2001) panel data set. The difference can be theoretically explained by how employees value the contribution relative to social security benefits they enjoy. J. Japanese Int. Economies 18 (4) (2004) 565–581.     

Two-dimensional analysis of the impact of outward FDI on performance at home: Evidence from Japanese manufacturing firms

This paper empirically investigates two dimensions of changes in firm behavior and performance before and after foreign direct investment (FDI). The first dimension is the difference between vertical and horizontal FDI. The second dimension is the effect of outward FDI on firms’ production and non-production activities in the home country. In our careful empirical analysis we use the propensity score matching method to show that the impact of outward FDI differs by dimension, that is, by FDI type and firms’ production and non-production activities. In particular, while horizontal FDI increases demand for non-production workers, vertical FDI increases demand for skilled production workers.     

Fractal structures and naive trading systems: Evidence from the spot US dollar/Japanese yen

This study investigates whether daily logarithmic returns on the spot US dollar/Japanese yen (USD/Yen) for the period 3 March 1987 to 8 September 1993 displayed an underlying fractal structure. The analysis employed a rescaled range (R/S) technique, and revealed USD/Yen persistence which favoured continued depreciation of the USD. The results suggest the presence of time or memory effects in the currency. These effects were arbitrageable by speculators who by holding long Yen positions were able to earn positive returns.     

White/ethnic minority earnings and employment differentials in Britain: evidence from the LFS

It is 20 years since Britain passed legislation to combat racialdiscrimination. Despite this, evidence presented in this papersuggests that Britain's non-white ethnic minorities still donot appear to face a level playing field in the UK labour marketand their relative position does not appear to have improvedsince the 1970s. Native ethnic minorities also appear to befaring little better than their parents. It is in gaining employmentthat the situation is particularly acute.     

Job tasks and wages in the Japanese labor market: Evidence from wage functions

Based on the microdata from the Basic Survey on Wage Structure and the original survey, we estimate the Mincerian wage function, incorporating job tasks, to examine the importance of job task wage premiums as well as long-term changes in the Japanese labor market. In the estimation, we found that the association between abstract tasks and wages is positive and that a one standard deviation increase in the abstract task scores was associated with a 21.2% wage premium, while that of routine and manual task wage premiums are negative. We also found that the total explanatory power of three task scores (routine, abstract, and manual tasks) is higher than that of the education dummies or the major occupation group dummies. We also confirmed two testable implications from the Roy model regarding the workers’ self-selection into occupations in the Japanese labor market. These findings are similar to those obtained by Autor and Handel (2013). On the other hand, we found no major changes between 2005 and 2016 in the coefficients of routine, abstract, or manual task scores as well as their explanatory powers in the wage function. We then observed that demand for labor increased in many occupations involving many non-routine or manual tasks, but at the same time, the supply of labor to those occupations also increased. Therefore, we discussed that the change in labor demand and supply may be one of the reasons for the stable relationship between job tasks and wages.     

Distance effects and home bias in patient choice on the Internet: Evidence from an online healthcare platform in China

Telemedicine and telehealth hold promise for reducing access barriers caused by travel distance. However, little is known about how the Internet affects patients' online provider choices and thus the spatial distribution of healthcare utilization. This study investigates the effect of distance on flows of online medical consultations using a unique dataset from one of the leading third-party online healthcare platforms in China: Haodf.com. We show that the geographic distance between doctors and patients is negatively associated with online service utilization, though this effect is almost 40% ~ 50% weaker for online medical services than it is for offline medical services. We also find a strong “home bias” in which patients and doctors tend to locate in the same prefecture and in the same province. Further analyses suggest that prior in-person visits before online consultations, the potential need for a follow-up physical visit after an online consultation, and information friction may contribute to the distance effect. These findings have policy implications for improving healthcare access in China and other nations.     

Foreign investment and spillover efficiency in an underdeveloped economy: Evidence from the Mexican manufacturing industry

In this paper we consider the question whether differences in technical efficiency of Mexican plants in part derive from spillover efficiency associated with foreign direct investment. We use labour productivity as a measure of technical efficiency, and relate this to capital intensity, labour quality and scale of production. We measure the degree of competition by different concentration indices and the final factor determining efficiency is the presence of foreign subsidiaries. If there is a positive relation between efficiency of domestic plants and the foreign participation of various industries we conclude that there is a spillover of technical efficiency. The empirical evidence from the study indicates that this is the case.     

CEO compensation and firm performance in Japan: Evidence from new panel data on individual CEO pay

Prior studies on Japanese executive compensation have been constrained by the lack of longitudinal data on individual CEO pay. Using unique 10-year panel data on individual CEO's salary and bonus of Japanese firms from 1986 to 1995, we present the first estimates on pay-performance relations for Japanese CEO compensation. Specifically we find consistently that Japanese CEO's cash compensation is sensitive to firm performance (especially accounting measures), and that the “semi-elasticity” of CEO's cash compensation with respect to ROA is 1.3 to 1.4, which is in general agreement with prior estimates elsewhere. As such, our estimates do not support that Japanese corporate governance is unusually defunct with regard to the significance and size of the sensitivity of CEO compensation to accounting profitability. On the other hand, to be consistent with the literature on Japanese corporate governance that tends to downplay the role of shareholders and stress the role of banks and employees, we find that stock market performance tends to play a less important role in the determination of Japanese CEO compensation. Finally, we find that the bonus system makes CEO compensation more responsive to firm performance in Japan. The finding is in contrast to the literature on compensation for regular employees in Japan which often argues that bonus is a disguised base wage. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (1) (2006) 1–19.     

Gender,Sibling Order,and Differences in the Quantity and Quality of Education: Evidence from Japanese Twins*

Using information on 1045 pairs of Japanese monozygotic twins, we examined differences in education by considering both the years of schooling (quantity) and the reputation of the last attended school (quality). We found that a difference in learning performance at 15 years of age is one of the key factors determining the differences. We also found that a female eldest child in the family from the 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts averaged 0.54 years less schooling than did her ‘younger’ twin. However, for the same birth cohorts, a male eldest child in the family generally had access to higher‐quality education than his ‘younger’ twin. Nonetheless, as the Japanese economy matured in the 1970s and thereafter, educational differences between twins disappeared, regardless of gender and sibling order.     

天津市产业结构优化升级路径研究——以电力产业数据为基础

基于电力、经济、能源等数据,以天津市为研究对象,系统分析天津市产业比较优势,评价天津市产业结构发展水平,分析天津市产业升级潜力。结果显示,近10年天津市第三产业的显性比较优势明显高于第二产业和第一产业,天津市在发展第三产业方面相对第一产业和第二产业具有更强的优势。天津市产业结构升级潜力呈现较好态势,未来天津可将第三产业作为经济发展的重点,而把第二产业作为全市产业升级的着力点。     

Bank dependence and financial constraints on investment: Evidence from the corporate bond market paralysis in Japan

This paper investigates whether firms are able to substitute bank loans for public debt when the latter become less available to firms. To do so, this paper utilizes the 2008 financial crisis and its impact on Japanese markets as a natural experiment. Because the Japanese banking sector remained functional while the corporate bond markets were paralyzed, the data from Japan during this period provide us with an ideal environment to examine this hypothesis. I specifically examined whether firms with large holdings of corporate bonds maturing in FY2008 were financially constrained, by comparing the changes in their capital investment expenditures and borrowing conditions with those of bank-dependent firms. The main empirical results indicate that (1) firms with large holdings of corporate bonds maturing in FY2008 did not reduce investment expenditures; (2) instead, they exhibited higher increments in bank loans; and (3) firms that maintained relatively close bank-firm relationships had greater access to bank loans with low borrowing costs. These findings demonstrate that Japanese firms were able to substitute bank loans for public debt during the crisis and imply that the Japanese banking sector worked efficiently to replace public debt markets during the crisis.     

The effect of education on health and health behaviors: Evidence from the college enrollment expansion in China

By exploiting the massive college enrollment expansion in China beginning in 1999, we investigate the effect of higher education on health and health behaviors. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2018 and employing an instrumental variable approach, we find that higher education has a significant effect on health and health behaviors. Each additional year of education increases the probability of reporting good health and having good memory by 1.9 and 3.1 percentage points (pp), respectively. Moreover, it decreases the probability of being overweight, smoking, and drinking by 1.3, 2.3, and 1.2 pp., respectively. By comparing the effect size with the findings in previous literature, we conclude that the effect of education on health is greater at higher levels of education. Further analysis suggests that education may affect health and health behaviors through two channels: the resources acquired by individuals and the prices faced by them.