Employment and hours of work

This paper develops a dynamic model of the labor market in which the degree of substitution between employment and hours of work is determined as part of a search equilibrium. Each firm chooses its demand for working hours and number of vacancies, and the earnings profile is determined by Nash bargaining. The earnings profile is generally nonlinear in hours of work, and defines the trade-off between employment and hours of work. Concave production technology induces firms to overemploy and, as a result, hours of work are below their optimal level. The Hosios condition is not sufficient for efficiency. When there are two industries, workers employed by firms with higher recruitment costs work longer and earn more. That is, “good jobs” require longer hours of work. Interestingly, technology differentials cannot account for working hours differentials.     

The historical significance of the revaluation of fixed assets in Japan's state-owned railway system, 1955-6

The Government Railways of Japan (GRJ) established a fixed assets accounting system on the accruals basis after the Second World War. The revaluation of tangible fixed assets was indispensable for GRJ's introduction of depreciation in 1948. GRJ scheduled the revaluation to secure a reasonable depreciation expense, because the company had applied the replacement method to all tangible fixed assets since its foundation in 1869. At the same time, GRJ assumed the balance of the revaluation reserve account to be a means of dealing with possible future accumulated losses.     

Evolutionary game dynamics and distributed recency-weighted learning

This paper presents a relationship between evolutionary game dynamics and distributed recency-weighted Monte Carlo learning. After reviewing some existing theories of replicator dynamics and agent-based Monte Carlo learning, we provide proofs of the formulation-level equivalence between these two models. The relationship will be revealed not only from a theoretical viewpoint, but also by computational simulations of the models. As a consequence, macro dynamic patterns generated by distributed micro-decisions can be explained by parameters defined at an individual level. In particular, given the equivalent formulations, we investigate how the rate of agents’ recency weighting in learning affects the emergent evolutionary game dynamic patterns. An increase in this rate negatively affects the inertia, making the evolutionary stability condition more strict, and positively affecting the evolutionary speed toward equilibrium.JEL Classification: C63, C73Supervisions and advice given by Arthur J. Caplan have greatly contributed to this paper. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments redirecting my presentation to a more appropriate one.     

The role of foreign direct investment in Indonesia's manufacturing exports

This article examines whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to the changing structure of Indonesia's manufacturing exports. It uses industry-level data from 1990 to 2008, classified by factor intensity. Our analysis reveals that FDI promotes exports in most panel observations, especially exports from physical-capital-intensive (PCI), human-capital-intensive (HCI) and technology-intensive (TI) industries. Yet by applying a differentiated cross-section-effect model, we determine that the export-generating potential of FDI is stronger in PCI, HCI and TI industries than in natural-resource-intensive or unskilled-labour-intensive industries, in which Indonesia has a comparative advantage. We also assess the influence of other determinants of export performance – namely, private domestic capital investment, GDP growth and exchange rates. Our findings have implications for policymakers seeking to sustain Indonesia's export performance.     

Towards a sustainable growth path

For Japan’s economy, there were two tasks I embraced myself for: “how to return to a sustainable growth path” and “how to rebuild the financial system.” And for the Bank of Japan, there was also the important challenge of navigating our way on a new voyage in line with the principles of the new Bank of Japan Law, which came into effect at almost the same time as I became Governor.     

Effects of urban transportation system change on land prices in the setting of owner-occupied residence

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of transportation improvement on the land development process and land price structure in an owner-occupied residence setting. A dynamic model of household and landowner in which the role of land as an asset is explicitly considered is presented, and the process of land development and land price change after the announcement of transportation improvement is investigated. During the period between the announcement and the completion of urban transportation improvement, it is observed that the price of the land that is presently used for agriculture but will be developed in the future is higher than the agricultural land price.     

TRADE,NON‐SCALE GROWTH AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

This paper investigates the relationship between trade and economic development using a two‐country, non‐scale growth model. Depending on the share of the expenditure for manufactured goods, we obtain two different results with regard to long‐run production patterns. Whether or not the follower country can catch up with the leader country in the long run depends on two factors: (1) the patterns of production in both countries and (2) the measure of economic welfare that is used, i.e. per capita income or per capita consumption.     

Unfunded pension liabilities and stock returns

This paper investigates whether the market rationally anticipates the value implications of unrecognized pension obligations, using a large sample of Japanese firms where pension obligations are substantially underfunded. If a firm's unrecognized pension obligation is not incorporated into its share price, its stock returns will be lower than those of other firms, because its deficit will affect the firm's income statement in the coming years. We find that firms with large unrecognized obligations earn lower risk-adjusted returns. This evidence suggests that the market does not efficiently incorporate information in the pension items.     

The Relationship Between Bank Risk and Earnings Management: Evidence from Japan

Using stock price data drawn from the 1990s in Japan, this paper empirically shows that bank risk is negatively associated with discretionary accruals, indicating that investors misinterpreted high reported earnings as favorable information about bank financial health. We also show that the negative relationship was very powerful prior to the major bank failures in late 1997 and 1998, but it diminished subsequent to the failures. We conclude that investors started to anticipate potential manipulation of financial reports by bank managers more rationally after the major bank failures.     

面向21世纪的丰桥市

丰桥市概况 丰桥市位于日本中部,拥有丰富的自然景观,气候温和。基于 Ｔｏｋａｉｄｏ Ｓｈｉｋａｎｓｅｎ快速铁路干线和 Ｔｏｍｅｉ高速公路提供的便利的交通条件,使得丰桥市的农业、制造业和服务业得到快速而协调的发展。全市拥有人口 ３６万,是Ａｉｃｈｉ县第二大城市。 追溯丰桥市的历史,史家考证大约在１０万年以前就有Ｃｒｏｍａｇｎｕｓ人在这里活动。从这点看来,丰桥市具有悠久的历史。在Ｅ－ｄｏ时期（１６０３～１８６７）,丰桥市成为一个繁忙的避居地和理想的留宿地。到Ｅｄｏ末期,丰桥成为著名的“Ｅｉｊｙａｎａｉｋａ…