The residential demand for electricity in Japan: An examination using empirical panel analysis techniques

This paper examines the residential demand for electricity in Japan, excluding Okinawa-prefecture, from 1975 to 2005 as a function of the disposable income per household and the overall unit price of electricity for general consumers, by using the empirical panel analysis techniques of a panel unit root test, a panel cointegration test, and group-mean dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimators to determine whether or not each variable is stationary. This study's contribution is twofold. First, for a more accurate empirical economic analysis, it divides Japan into a number of regions so that the estimation of coefficients becomes more powerful due to the increased degree of freedom from the utilization of the panel data. Second, the study chose Japan for this analysis on the basis of discussions regarding the deregulation of the residential electric power supply that is scheduled for the near future. All variables—sales per household, price, and income per household—can be assumed to have a unit root and cointegration relationship. The results determine that the price effect is negative and elastic and that the income effect is inelastic. These results correspond to other such studies on developed countries that are significant economic powers.     

Monetary policy with sticky prices and segmented markets

Summary. We consider a sticky-price model with segmented asset markets, and examine its implications for monetary policy. Our finding is, first, that the response of the money supply growth rate to a money demand shock required to stabilize inflation is not affected by the existence of a liquidity effect, but the response of the nominal interest rate is. Second, when the monetary authority adopts a Taylor rule, whether or not it should be active to obtain local determinacy of equilibria depends on the existence of a liquidity effect. Our results suggest that the monetary authority should be careful about the existence and the degree of a liquidity effect particularly when the nominal interest rate is used as the policy instrument.Received: 11 February 2004, Revised: 1 November 2004 JEL Classification Numbers: E3, E4, E5.     

Real Indeterminacy of Stationary Monetary Equilibria in Centralized Economies

We show that real indeterminacy of stationary equilibria, by which the set of stationary equilibria is a continuum and the real allocation varies among equilibria, may arise in some general equilibrium models with fiat money. The conditions under which such equilibria arise are: (i) each household optimally saves a constant amount of money; and (ii) at least two households face different budget constraints. We present various models, including a decentralized money search model and a centralized model with a monopoly firm, to explain how these conditions lead to real indeterminacy. Finally, we present a policy that uniquely implements any desirable outcome.     

Total Labour Requirements and Value Added Productivity of Labour in the Process of Economic Development

When the inverse of the value added productivity of labour is regressed on total labour requirements (which is equivalent to labour values), a significant relationship is obtained. This indicates that the value added productivity of labour can be explained by total labour requirements (labour values). The mean value of the regression coefficients is about 1.7. The regression coefficients have a tendency to increase during the process of rapid economic development and to decrease afterwards. Such movements are explained by value added linkages. This study is based on input–output analysis, where total labour requirements per monetary unit of output and the value added productivity of labour are calculated for each of 24 industries in Japan, Korea and USA, every 5 years between 1960 to 1985.