Transparency and Views Regarding Nuclear Energy Before and After the Fukushima Accident: Evidence on Micro‐Data

This paper examines the influence of government transparency on changing views regarding nuclear energy before and after Japan's natural and nuclear disaster of 2011. Individual‐level data were used, covering 45 countries and containing 27 423 observations. It was observed in the majority of countries that the rate of favouring nuclear energy declined after the disaster. However, empirical results show that such a tendency is less likely to be observed in a more transparent country. This implies that views regarding nuclear energy were less elastic to the news of the Fukushima incident when people were more certain about nuclear energy prior to the Fukushima incident.     

Effect of grandchildren on the happiness of grandparents: Does the grandparent's child's gender matter?

Using a representative sample from Japan and a difference-in-differences strategy, we investigate whether the effect of having grandchildren on the happiness of grandparents varies with the gender of their (own) single child. In line with our expectations, we find that maternal grandmothers have more to lose or less to gain from having grandchildren than paternal grandmothers. In contrast, grandfathers’ changes in happiness do not depend on their own child's gender. This result is explained by the fact that grandmothers are more likely to be involved in childrearing when their daughter has a child.     

Regional development or resource preservation? A perspective from Japanese appliance exports

This paper examines Japanese resource outflows in the form of exported used (and functional) products in 2007 by quantifying the unintentional metal exports for a number of specialty metals typically used in electronics and electrical equipment. We find that more than half of the indium and 20-30% of the barium, lead, antimony, strontium, zirconium, silver, gold, and tin in domestically discarded products were not recycled in Japan, but rather were exported in products to be used elsewhere. The destinations of these metals were mainly Asian countries with rudimentary recycling technology. These results demonstrate that although these metals could have been stockpiled domestically for future recovery and recycling, they were instead sent to countries where recycling of these scarce metals is unlikely. From a resource perspective, therefore, the free trade of used Japanese products compromises long-term domestic resource availability as it increases the quality of life in developing countries.     

创建亚洲货币单位的构想

亚洲货币单位有用于进行经济监测和交易的两种实现路径,基于这两种实现路径存在创建亚洲货币单位的短期、中期和长期方案。文中对用于经济监测的亚洲货币单位和偏离指数,以及用于交易的亚洲货币单位的特征和效果进行了分析。亚洲货币单位使用的必要性是区域内外汇汇率稳定和低廉的交易费用,要满足这些条件,网络的外部性、规模经济、区域内经济金融一体化将发挥重要的作用。同时,区域内的经济金融一体化和货币的交换性会促进亚洲货币单位的使用。     

What Should the Weights of the Three Major Currencies be in a Common Currency Basket in East Asia?*

We consider what type of regional common currency should be introduced in East Asia in the future. The common currency basket is, in itself, more desirable as an anchor currency. In this paper we define two types of currency basket and investigate the long‐term sustainability of adopting a common currency basket in East Asia. From our empirical results, a larger weight (but less than 100 percent) for the US dollar in the common currency basket tends to make bilateral exchange rates among East Asian countries stable in the long run.     

Influence of body image in urbanized areas: differences in long-term changes in teenage body mass index between boys and girls in Japan

Japanese prefecture level panel data for the period 1986?C2003 was used to analyze and compare the determinants of teenage body mass index (BMI) by sex. Major findings through random effects estimation were as follows: BMI was not influenced by the degree of population density in males and younger females. However, the BMI of 16-year-old females was markedly lower in more densely populated residential areas. These findings suggest that girls who reach adolescence are more likely to diet and that this tendency is more distinct in more urbanized areas.     

Recycling and Landfilling in a Dynamic Sraffian Model: Application of the Corn–guano Model to a Waste Treatment problem

Landfill sites may be regarded as input for a waste treatment process. Considering landfill as an exhaustible resource, we apply a basic corn–guano model to a waste treatment problem. We show how dynamic substitution between landfilling and recycling occurs. Namely, in an early stage, landfill disposal is adopted as waste treatment and a recycling process is not activated. Once an economy faces exhaustion of landfill, a recycling process is activated as a backstop technology. We refer to the possibility that an economy may be unstable after exhaustion of landfill, even if it enjoys stable growth at the early stage.     

Influence of a Wife's Working Status on Her Husband's Accumulation of Human Capital

Japanese household‐level data consisting of husband's earnings, wife's working status and their schooling levels are used to test three hypotheses, with particular consideration given to the time‐consuming process of human capital accumulation within marriages. The empirical results supports the following hypotheses: (i) a non‐working wife's schooling has a greater positive effect on her husband's earnings than a working wife's schooling; and (ii) the effect of a non‐working wife's schooling increases with the length of marriage, whereas the effect of a working wife's schooling does not change over the course of marriage.