North–South Trade, Income Distribution, and Welfare Effects of R&D Policy

The paper considers an extension of the Flam and Helpman model of North–South trade in which the government of South organizes and pays for R&D activity to reduce the production cost of quality-differentiated products. The main conclusions are the following: South has a welfare incentive to initiate R&D activity under some conditions on effectiveness of R&D in improving the technology. By doing so, South can increase the production of higher-quality differentiated products. North suffers a welfare loss from this R&D except in the case where the effectiveness of South's R&D activity is unusually high.     

The system of towns with spatial public goods

In this paper, we introduce a model of ‘spatial public goods’, whose provision costs depend on the size of the benefit area. It is assumed that there are many developers providing spatial public goods in their towns. Each developer chooses the area size of his/her town and the quality of its spatial public good so as to maximize profit, taking the market price system as given. Each consumer chooses the level of the public good, and hence the town that supplies it, so as to maximize his/her utility. We show that the competitive equilibrium allocation of this economy is efficient.     

Multinationals, production efficiency, and spillover effects: The case of the U.S. auto parts industry

Multinationals, Production Efficiency, and Spillover Effects: The Case of the U.S. Auto Parts Industry. — Since the mid-1980s many of the developing countries have attempted to attract foreign direct investment. The primary reason is access to modern technology although the true impact is still controversial. The U.S. case suggests that even in a developed country FDI can also make a favorable impact on the local industry, but possibly through different channels. FDI can increase efficiency substantially through the enhancement of competitive pressure instead of, or in addition to, technology transfer. The manner in which FDI influences the local economy seems to be very different depending on the development stage of recipient countries.     

Valuation of Mortgage-Backed Securities Based upon a Structural Approach

This paper studies the valuation of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) based upon a structural approach of several risks involving the prepayment and/or default behavior of mortgagors. For the Kariya and Kobayashi (1999) model using a time-consuming Monte-Carlosimulation, we provide an alternative semi-analytic valuation methodology closely related to solving the (Volterra type) integral equation with respectto the first hitting time density for a curved/flat boundary; consequently that enables us to calculate the MBS price faster and more precisely. Next, to capture the path-dependent prepayment behavior of the interest ratemovements we give some prepayment models based upon a two-dimensional Markov process of the interest rate and its long-run average rate. Third, we study the simultaneous assessment issue of prepayment and defaultrisks, encountered in practice.Finally we discuss the calculation of the joint probability density ofmultiple first hitting times.     

The Industrial Organization of Financial Markets in Thailand

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the industrial organizational features of the financial markets in Thailand which may play an important role in promoting the recent high economic growth. Specifically, we examine whether or not the market-structure-performance hypothesis is valid by estimating profit and cost functions. The main results are as follows:
1) market concentration in Thailand is higher than in Japan;
2) expense rate of Thai commercial banks is considerably higher than Japanese banks;
3) economies of scale are not found;
4) the more concentrated the market is, the larger are the profits and costs of the commercial banks.     

Reputational Penalties in Japan: Evidence from Corporate Scandals

We examine incidents in which Japanese businesses are implicated in corporate scandals. Such firms suffer statistically significant losses in their market values. Given the negligible legal and regulatory penalties for Japanese companies, we interpret the results as convincing evidence on the magnitude of reputational losses. We also compare our results to those found in US studies. The average negative abnormal stock price reaction is larger in Japan than in the USA. Moreover, they are negative and statistically significant even when it is not obvious that the firm violated an implicit or explicit contract with the damaged party.     

An analysis of stability of the north–south growth model of trade: Saddle-path stability of the generalized grossman–helpman model with skilled and unskilled labours

Abstract

Following the Common Agency approach to political equilibrium, we examine how domestic interest groups can influence national policies toward FDI and how the choice of instrument by the government can affect lobbying activities. Domestic firms lobby for lower subsidies when a discriminatory subsidy on FDI is applied. However, when a subsidy is applied uniformly to both groups, they may lobby for higher subsidies. The nature of lobbying is also different for proportional and lump-sum profit subsidies when uniformly applied. The qualitative effect of the number of domestic firms or the degree of corruption on the equilibrium depends on the choice of instruments. Finally, with the help of numerical simulation, we examine whether there is any potential conflict between the government and the lobby groups on the choice of the instrument.     

Does the ‘persistence of profits’ persist?: a study of company profits in Japan, 1964–97

Earlier, in a time-series study of the profit rates of Japanese manufacturing firms, Odagiri and Yamawaki concluded that profits persist. With the addition of 15 more years of data up to 1997, this conclusion is shown to stand the test of time. In particular, those firms estimated to earn higher-than-average long-run profit rates in the early study were again estimated to earn higher-than-average long-run profit rates. The force of convergence was also found to be at work; for instance, the firms most profitable in Period 1 (1964–82) were most likely to face a decline in estimated long-run profit rates from Period 1 to Period 2 (1983–97). With the use of two sets of data, the firm’s profit performance was found to be positively related to measures of market share. First, among a smaller sample of firms for which reliable market share data could be matched, market share was estimated to have a significant positive effect on long-run profit rate in either period. Secondly, among the entire sample of 357 firms, the long-run profit rate in either period was estimated to be positively associated with firm sales relative to industry sales, which presumably is a crude measure of market share.     

2002 LAWRENCE R. KLEIN LECTURE LIQUIDITY AND ASSET PRICES*

We broadly define liquid assets, or monetary assets, as any asset that can be readily sold in the market and can be held by a number of people in succession before maturity. We ask in what environment is the circulation of liquid assets essential for the smooth running of the economy. By developing a canonical model of a monetary economy (i.e., where the circulation of liquid assets is essential), we are able to examine the interaction between liquidity, asset prices, and aggregate economic activity.     

An Analysis of Income Distribution between the North and the South: the Grossman–Helpman and Lai Results Re‐examined*

This paper studies the effects of labor supply on relative wages in a dynamic North–South model of trade. Lai (1995 )—a generalization of the Grossman and Helpman (1991a,b , ch. 11) models—showed that the relative wage of skilled (unskilled) labor in a region is positively (negatively) related to the supply of skilled (unskilled) labor in that region. These surprising results depend crucially on the specification of the functional form of the Southern imitation activity. We will show that these results (except for the relative wage of unskilled labor in Lai) are reversed in the case where the productivity of imitation depends only on the number of products the North manufactures.