A Statistical Analysis Between Consumer Behavior and a Social Network Service: A Case Study of Used-Car Demand Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011

When a large-scale disaster hits a community, especially a water-related disaster, there is a scarcity of automobiles and a sudden increase in the demand for used cars in the damaged areas. This paper conducts a case study of a recent massive natural disaster, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 to understand those car scarcities and demand in the aftermath of the catastrophe. We analyze the reasons for the increase in demand for used cars and how social media can predict people’s demand for used automobiles. In other words, this paper explores whether social media data can be used as a sensor of socio-economic recovery status in damaged areas during large-scale water-related disaster-recovery phases. For this purpose, we use social media communication as a proxy for estimating indicators of people’s activities in the real world. This study conducts both qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. For the qualitative research, we carry out semi-structured interviews with used-car dealers in the tsunami-stricken area and unveil why people in the area demanded used cars. For the quantitative analysis, we collected Facebook page communication data and used-car market data before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. By combining and analyzing these two types of data, we find that social media communication correlates with people’s activities in the real world. Furthermore, this study suggests that different types of communication on social media have different types of correlations with people’s activities. More precisely, we find that social media communication related to people’s activities for rebuilding and for emotional support is positively correlated with the demand for used cars after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. On the other hand, communication about anxiety and information seeking correlates negatively with the demand for used cars.     

Multi-Sector Model of Tradable Emission Permits

This paper presents a multi-sector model of tradable emission permits, which includes oligopolistic and perfectly competitive industries. The firms in oligopolistic industries are assumed to exercise market power in the tradable permit market as well as in the product market. Specifically, we examine the effects of the initial permit allocation on the equilibrium outcomes, focusing on the interaction among these product and permit markets. It is shown that raising the number of initial permits allocated to one firm in an oligopolistic industry increases the output produced by that firm. Under certain conditions, raising a “clean” (less-polluting) firm’s share of the initial permits can lead to reductions in both the product and permit prices. We discuss criteria for the socially optimal allocation of initial permits, considering the trade-off between production inefficiency and consumer benefit.     

Spatial Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta in China

This paper examines the spatial externality from foreign direct investment on domestic firms. Using Chinese firm‐level data for 2004, and after accounting for an endogeneity problem, we find that foreign firms generate a significantly positive spillover effect on the regional productivity of domestic firms in similar counties and industries. Estimating a spatial‐autoregressive model, we further show that such local spillovers could transmit to domestic firms in other counties and industries through interactions among domestic firms. However, these spatial multiplier effects decline with distance, thereby reducing the foreign direct investment spillover effects for domestic firms in distant locations.     

Dynamic analysis of innovation and international transfer of technology through licensing

This paper develops a quality-ladder type dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous innovation and technology licensing as a major source of international technology transfer in developing countries. Examining the dynamic characteristics of the model fully, we explore the short- and long-run effects of both an improvement in the probability of reaching a licensing agreement with a given effort and an increase in the license fee rate. The model shows that the former promotes innovation and technology transfers in both the long and short run, while the latter discourages them.     

Special Quotes Invoke Autocorrelation in Japanese Stock Prices*

It is reported in the present paper that 1‐min returns on TOPIX have exhibited significant autocorrelation at 5‐min intervals since 1997/1998. Special quotes that are issued whenever there is a price jump in excess of a predetermined band seem to be the source of this autocorrelation, because these have been automatically updated at 5‐min intervals since August 1998 and have appeared during the first 30 min from opening. Individual stock returns also exhibit fifth‐order autocorrelation, but this disappears when the data with special quotes are excluded from the sample. Therefore, the autocorrelation is caused by the special quotes: a type of market microstructure noise.     

On the Effects of Commodity Tax Under Free Entry Oligopoly in the Presence of Export Market

If the inverse demand function in the domestic country is concave, or it is not too convex even if it is convex, a small specific commodity tax raises the social welfare in the domestic country and lowers the welfare of the foreign consumers, and the optim- al tax for the domestic country is positive. The presence of an export market enlarges the possibility that a specific commodity tax raises the social welfare in the domestic country at the sacrifice of the welfare of the foreign consumers. [L13]     

From hierarchy to hybrid: The evolving nature of inter-firm governance in China's automobile groups

Despite the rapid growth of automobile industry in China, much remains to be known about the governance structure especially the inter-firm relationship within the Chinese automobile groups. Against China's changing institutional environment and compared to the established knowledge on automobile group governance in Japan, this study provides a case analysis of the evolving nature of inter-firm relationship in one of China's major automobile groups, Tianjin Automotive Group (TAG). A top-down hierarchical administration characterizes the inter-firm relationship in TAG before 1999 due to the heavy influence of the old institutional arrangement. Over time, especially entering 2000, weakening institutional ties between the state and TAG forced the group to be more responsive to market changes and to systematically learn Japanese-style supplier management from a joint venture with Toyota Group. The paper provides rare insights into the evolution of governance structure among the emerging Chinese automobile groups and extends the institution-based view of strategy into the studies of inter-firm relationship in automobile industry.     

Testing the incentive effects in tournaments with a superstar

This paper studies the effects of the levels and the structure of prizes on the efforts of agents with heterogeneous ability in a tournament model. In particular, we examine how the presence of a highly able agent affects the effort levels of other agents as well as the effects of the total and the marginal prizes. Using panel data from the Japan Golf Tour, we estimate the effects of the presence of a superstar, and the size of the total and marginal prizes on the scores of professional golfers. We find that the presence of a superstar adversely affects the scores of the other players; that the larger the size of the total prize, the better are the scores; and that the larger the marginal prizes that players face at the end of the third round, the better the scores they achieve in the final round.     

SUNK COSTS OF CAPITAL AND THE FORM OF ENTERPRISE: INVESTOR‐OWNED FIRMS AND WORKER‐OWNED FIRMS*

ABSTRACT ** : This paper examines implications of sunk costs of capital for efficient forms of enterprise. It is assumed that firm owners and outside traders are asymmetrically informed of venture risks, and that there are sunk costs associated with investment in physical and human capital. We then make an efficiency comparison between investor‐owned and worker‐owned firms. We find that the firm is efficient when it is owned by the input supplier (the investor or worker) who incurs large sunk costs. This is because such an input supplier can credibly signal to the other input supplier that he in fact has a safe project. An empirical study based on the Japanese manufacturing industry seems to support the theoretical result.     

Large sample properties for a class of copulas in bivariate survival analysis

This work is concerned with asymptotic properties of the bivariate survival function estimator using the functional relationship between marginal survival functions and a class of copulas for the dependence structure. Specifically, we study consistency and weak convergence of the bivariate survival function estimator obtained considering a two-step procedure of estimation. The obtained results are found from a key decomposition of the bivariate survival function in quantities that can be studied separately. In particular, we use relating results to almost sure and weak convergence of estimators, almost sure convergence of uniformly equicontinuous functions, and the delta method for functionals.