Dynamic and long-term linkages among agricultural and non-agricultural growth,inequality and poverty in developing countries

Drawing upon cross-country panel data for developing countries, the present study examines the role of agricultural growth in reducing inequality and poverty by modelling the dynamic linkage between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. For this purpose, we have compared the roles of agricultural and non-agricultural growth and have found that agricultural growth is more important in reducing poverty, while the negative effect of agricultural growth on inequality is found in a few cases where specific definitions of inequality are adopted. Our analysis generally reinforces the case for revival of agriculture in the post-2015 discourse, contrary to much-emphasised roles of rural–urban migration and urbanisation as main drivers of growth and elimination of extreme poverty.     

A practitioner’s guide to Bayesian estimation of discrete choice dynamic programming models

This paper provides a step-by-step guide to estimating infinite horizon discrete choice dynamic programming (DDP) models using a new Bayesian estimation algorithm (Imai et al., Econometrica 77:1865?C1899, 2009a) (IJC). In the conventional nested fixed point algorithm, most of the information obtained in the past iterations remains unused in the current iteration. In contrast, the IJC algorithm extensively uses the computational results obtained from the past iterations to help solve the DDP model at the current iterated parameter values. Consequently, it has the potential to significantly alleviate the computational burden of estimating DDP models. To illustrate this new estimation method, we use a simple dynamic store choice model where stores offer ??frequent-buyer?? type rewards programs. Our Monte Carlo results demonstrate that the IJC method is able to recover the true parameter values of this model quite precisely. We also show that the IJC method could reduce the estimation time significantly when estimating DDP models with unobserved heterogeneity, especially when the discount factor is close to 1.     

Japan's inflation under the Bretton Woods system: How large was the Balassa–Samuelson effect?

Japan's real exchange rate appreciation during the post-WWII manufacturing-led growth period has been regarded as a classical example of the Balassa–Samuelson effect. We choose the most conspicuous sub-period—1956–1970—to confirm the effect. Japan was in a rapid growth period under the U.S. dollar peg (real GDP growth, 9.7% per annum). The nominal anchor was weak as Japan's inflation rate (GDP deflator-based, 5.4%) was markedly higher than the U.S. rate (2.6%) during the 15-year period. The decomposition of the annual 2.7% (geometric) Japan–U.S. inflation rate gap (real exchange rate appreciation of the Japanese yen) reveals that the Balassa–Samuelson effect accounted for 0.7%; most of the real exchange rate appreciation (1.7%) was attributed to greater price increases in Japan's tradables. Although Japan's tradable sector achieved high TFP growth, the joint effect of the tradable–nontradable TFP growth difference between the two economies was too small to generate a sizable Balassa–Samuelson effect. Japan's example may suggest that even in rapidly growing economies, the magnitude of the effect in long-run real exchange rate appreciation is generally modest.     

Buffer stock savings by portfolio adjustment: evidence from rural India

The empirical literature on household savings tends to treat savings simply as the residual of income minus consumption. This article takes a unique approach to reconstruct the cash and asset balances using detailed household transaction data on farm households in rural India and generates monthly and seasonal ICRISAT panel data for the period 1976–1983. We have found that households—irrespective of their landholding status—cope with temporary shocks quite well by using crop inventory, currency, and capital assets, rather than livestock, as buffer assets. The importance of portfolio adjustments in smoothing consumption is also confirmed by the use of a system of equations in which both portfolio and production decisions are made endogenous. It is concluded that not only the level but also the diversification of household assets are important for buffering consumption. As an extension, we have explored the monthly ICRISAT panel data for the period 2009–2012 in the same villages and have found a similar pattern in household portfolio responses to income shocks.     

Market discipline and deposit insurance reform in Japan

On April 1, 2002, the Japanese government lifted a blanket guarantee of all deposits and began limiting the coverage of time deposits. This paper uses this deposit insurance reform as a natural experiment to investigate the relationship between deposit insurance coverage and market discipline. I find that the reform raised the sensitivity of interest rates on deposits, and that of deposit quantity to default risk. In addition, the interest rate differentials between partially insured large time deposits and fully insured ordinary deposits increased for risky banks. These results suggest that the deposit insurance reform enhanced market discipline in Japan. I also find, however, that too-big-to-fail (TBTF) policy became a more important determinant of interest rates and deposit allocation after the reform, thereby partially offsetting the positive effects of the deposit insurance reform on overall market discipline.     

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.     

Assessing the gains from deregulation in Japan's international telecommunications industry

The Japanese government terminated the monopoly of international telecommunications service by Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD) as part of the regulatory reform in telecommunications in 1985. Two new carriers entered the market in 1989. In defending its market share, KDD intensified cost reduction efforts and accepted lower profitability in order to carry out a series of sharp rate reductions. I have assessed the size of the net welfare gain associated with the deregulation. Deregulation brought about a 22.2% fall in KDD's unit cost for the eight-year period ending in 1992. Because this efficiency gain was fully passed along to telephone users in the form of lower rates, the corresponding increment of consumer surplus was of significant size, equivalent to 25.6% of total international telephone call revenues in 1992. (JEL L95, O53)     

Transmission of liquidity shock to bank credit: Evidence from the deposit insurance reform in Japan

Finding the causal effects of liquidity shocks on credit supply is complicated by the endogenous relation between loan demand and liquidity position of banks. This paper attempts to overcome this problem by exploiting, as a natural experiment, the exogenous deposit outflow prompted by the removal of a blanket deposit guarantee on time deposits in Japan. We find that during the period of transition from a blanket guarantee to a partial guarantee, weak banks suffered from a large outflow of partially insured time deposits. More importantly, we find that those weak banks were not able to raise a sufficient amount of other types of deposits to make up for the loss of time deposits, which, consequently, forced them to cut back on loan supply. These results are consistent with the theory that the imperfect substitutability of insured deposits and uninsured deposits affects the tightness of banks’ financing constraints and ultimately the supply of bank loans.