Existence of continuous residential land-use equilibria

This paper presents a general result on the existence of competitive equilibria for residential land markets in continuous space. Following standard residential land-use theory, such markets are postulated to involve finitely many types of household continua bidding for land within a continuous finite-dimensional space. In contrast to the standard approach of defining an excess-demand correspondence on a price space, the problem here is reformulated in terms of a ‘population excess-supply correspondence’ on a utility space. This approach allows the analysis to be carried out entirely in terms of finite-dimensional methods, and in particular, allows standard types of fixed-point arguments to be employed.     

Pricing Derivatives in Zone Model

In this paper, we propose a new interest rate model with a zone as ageneralization of C.I.R. model. Using a perturbation method, we can have anapproximation price of interest derivatives in our model.     

Tribute to Marcus Berliant: A pivotal matchmaker of general equilibrium and spatial economics

We review fundamental contributions by Marcus Berliant, with a view to a way forward. We focus on two themes to which he has contributed significantly: general equilibrium theory with land and location and general equilibrium analysis of spatial agglomeration.     

The Concept and Practice of the Production Seat System

This paper presents features of the production seat system and its industrial applications in Japan. Like an airline reservation system, customers' orders are booked on the production seat table in the production seat system. Then orders are released from the production table to work processes at every production order cycle. To show the effectiveness of the production seat system, a simple simulation was conducted. It was observed that the production seat system would achieve better observance of customer delivery dates and would reduce the average production lead time when compared with the traditional production planning and scheduling system. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE CYCLICALITY OF SEPARATION AND JOB FINDING RATES*

This article uses CPS gross flow data to analyze the business cycle dynamics of separation and job finding rates and quantify their contributions to overall unemployment variability. Cyclical changes in the separation rate are negatively correlated with changes in productivity and move contemporaneously with them, whereas the job finding rate is positively correlated with and tends to lag productivity. Contemporaneous fluctuations in the separation rate explain between 40 and 50% of fluctuations in unemployment, depending on how the data are detrended. This figure becomes larger when dynamic interactions between the separation and job finding rates are considered.     

The expanding Empire and spatial distribution of economic activity: the case of Japan's colonization of Korea during the prewar period

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea and integrated it into the Empire of Japan. According to its policy of assimilating colonies, the Japanese government intended to remove the tariffs between Japan and Korea, an aim which had almost been realized by 1923. The removal of the tariff barrier was supposed to improve market access between Japan and Korea. This article explores the implications of this event, focusing on the spatial distribution of economic activity in Japan. The regression results suggest that the integration of the Korean market increased population growth rates more in the regions close to the former border between Japan and Korea than in the other regions. Furthermore, after integration, the regions close to Korea that specialized in the fabric industry, whose products were the primary goods exported from Japan to Korea, experienced more population growth than other regions close to Korea did. These results suggest that market accessibility was indeed a determinant of the spatial distribution of economic activity. Our findings also indicate that the economic effect of colonization on the mainland was spatially heterogeneous and that a spatial viewpoint of the history of imperialism is important.     

The costs and benefits of land fragmentation of rice farms in Japan*

Land fragmentation, in which a farm operates multiple, separate plots of land, is a common phenomenon in Japan and many other countries. Usually, land fragmentation is regarded as a harmful phenomenon as it increases production costs and reduces the advantages of scale economies. However, it is also known that fragmentation may have beneficial effects in reducing risk through spatial dispersion of plots. Thus, land fragmentation has both costs and benefits, and whether it is beneficial or harmful is determined by the magnitude of these costs and benefits. This article investigates the costs and benefits of land fragmentation empirically using panel data from Japanese rice farms. The empirical results reveal that fragmentation increases production costs and offsets economies of size, and these impacts strengthen as farm size increases. Moreover, although fragmentation does reduce production risk, its monetary value is far below the cost of land fragmentation. From these findings, we conclude that land fragmentation is an impediment to efficient rice production in Japan.     

Does Japanese Business Group Membership Improve Post-Merger Performance?

International Advances in Economic Research - This study examines whether merger performance is different between member companies of a Japanese business group (keiretsu) and independent companies....     

The Dynamics of Knowledge Diversity and Economic Growth

How is long run economic growth related to the endogenous diversity of knowledge? We formulate and study a microeconomic model of knowledge creation, through the interactions among a group of heterogeneous research and development (R&D) workers, embedded in a growth model to address this question. The composition of the research work force in terms of knowledge heterogeneity, in addition to its size, matters in determining the production of new knowledge. Moreover, the heterogeneity of the work force is endogenous. Income to these workers accrues as patent income, whereas transmission of newly created knowledge to all such workers occurs due to public transmission of patent information. Whether or not the system reaches the most productive state depends on the strength of the public knowledge transmission technology. Long run economic growth is positively related to both the effectiveness of pairwise R&D worker interaction and to the effectiveness of public knowledge transmission.