Spatial inequality, globalization, and footloose capital

This paper shows the equivalence of spatial inequalities in industrial location and in income by revisiting the home market effect (HME) without any homogeneous good based on a reconstructed footloose capital model. In this simple framework, spatial inequalities in industrial location and in income are the HMEs in terms of firm share and wage, respectively. We show that the larger country has a more-than-proportionate share of firms and a higher wage. Furthermore, both the wage differential and the industrial location in the larger country evolve in an inverted U-pattern when transport costs decline. Finally, we analytically examine the effects of trade liberalization on the welfare and show that both countries may gain from globalization.     

Does Globalization Foster Economic Growth?

This article examines the effects of globalization, by especially focusing on the relaxation of local equity requirements (LERs) in developing countries. By constructing an endogenous growth model, where profit leakage to the South through LERs plays a key role, we obtain the following results. First, the relaxation of LERs in the South drives the relocation of firms from the North to the South, yielding a U‐shaped growth rate. Second, our numerical simulations suggest that a sufficient relaxation of LERs is beneficial for the South, although the shared profit of joint ventures is maximized through the use of LERs.     

Multimarket contact in continuous-time games

This paper investigates whether multimarket contact is effective in increasing the value of collusion. We show that for any discount rate, the set of equilibrium payoffs (average per market) expands through multimarket contact in continuous-time games.     

A Structural Decomposition of Energy Consumption Based on a Hybrid Rectangular Input-Output Framework: Japan's Case

This paper proposes an I-O SDA model, based on a commodity technology assumption, to identify the sources of changes in the energy demand structure, the non-energy input structure, the non-energy product-mix and the non-energy final demand of embodied energy requirements. The model contains two features. First, the hybrid rectangular input-output framework expressed in both monetary and physical terms is introduced to relax the effects of different energy prices among industrial sectors on the input structure in physical terms. Second, the demand structure of the input-output system is decomposed into the structure of energy sectors and other sectors by applying the hierarchy system with feedback loops of non-energy sectors. We identify the sources of the changes in Japan's energy use structure between 1985 and 1990. The major findings are that the total energy requirement has increased, mainly because of the changes in the non-energy final demand, while the product-mix changes have opposite effects, that is, energy savings.     

The productivity effects of the liberalization of Japanese telecommunication policy

In the early 1980s, the Japanese government decided to pursue policies of liberalization that opened Japan's telecommunication market to competition and moved toward the privatization of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), the dominant domestic telecommunication service provider. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of liberalization on the productive performance of NTT. To assess the productive consequences of liberalization, we first provide basic productivity measures for NTT. The Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures are then decomposed to separate out the effects of liberalization from other factors such as scale, technology, and capacity utilization. The TFP decomposition is based on the parameter estimates of a dynamic cost model.During the 1958–87 period, NTT's TFP level increased at an average annual rate of 3.4%. However, TFP improved at a significantly faster rate following the decision to adopt policies of liberalization. The NTT's average annual TFP growth rate was 5.12% for the 1982–87 period as compared to a 0.26% per year growth rate for the previous five year (1977–82) period. The decomposition of TFP growth appears to indicate that liberalization was a major source of productivity improvement for NTT.     

The nonlinear impact of currency unions on bilateral trade

Most gravity model specifications assume that a currency union varies the level of bilateral trade between members by a constant proportion. We demonstrate that a common currency also alters the slope of the relationship between bilateral trade and member country GDPs.     

A quantile-based test of protection for sale model

This paper proposes a new test of the Protection for Sale (PFS) model by Grossman and Helpman (1994). Unlike existing methods in the literature, our approach does not require any data on political organization. We use quantile and IV quantile regressions in our tests, using the data from Gawande and Bandyopadhyay (2000). Surprisingly, the results do not provide any evidence favoring the PFS model. We also explain why previous work may have found support for it.     

FOLK THEOREMS FOR INFINITELY REPEATED GAMES PLAYED BY ORGANIZATIONS WITH SHORT‐LIVED MEMBERS*

We consider infinitely repeated games played by organizations with short‐lived members. Each member enters the organization with no prior memory. He plays the role of taking actions for stage games in the first half of his lifetime. In the beginning of the second half, when a new member enters the organization, the existing member privately sends a message to the new member. He remains in the organization for the second half, and then retires from the game. We prove that folk theorems hold in this environment; that is, organizations essentially implement Fudenberg and Maskin strategies.     

大学生日语学习焦虑和交流意愿缺失的关系研究

采用外语焦虑量表和交流意愿缺失量表进行调查表明,大三学生的日语焦虑水平明显高于大二学生;接近-回避型和回报型的交流意愿缺失是日语焦虑的重要预测变量。就第二外语学习而言,日语焦虑辅导的需求时段和切入时机是大一和大三,其中大三是日语焦虑辅导的重点时期,大三学生是重点辅导人群,调节交流意愿缺失程度是干预日语焦虑水平的重要途径,男生的调节任务重于女生。