Education cost, intergenerational mobility, and income inequality

Using a modified version of the Maoz and Moav [Maoz, Y. D. and Moav, O., 1999. Intergenerational mobility and the process of development. Economic Journal 109(458) 677-697] model, we show that the dynamics of income inequality and intergenerational mobility, and the effects of technological changes on inequality, depend crucially on the share of education cost in income.     

Strategic managerial delegation and cross-border mergers

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the market structure in equilibrium and the most preferred structure with respect to each country’s social welfare and/or total social welfare, when all existing firms can freely merge with each other in an international oligopoly under the segmented market assumption in three cases: the case wherein all the firms are entrepreneurial and the cases wherein they use two different types of managerial delegation contracts. We focus our attention on the coincidence/non-coincidence between the equilibrium market structure (EMS) and the most socially preferred structure with respect to each country’s social welfare and/or total social welfare, as each firm’s production efficiency varies. When each firm’s production efficiency is relatively low, in all the three cases, the EMS coincides with the most socially preferred structure with respect to each country’s social welfare and total social welfare in a large area of the physical trade cost. On the other hand, when each firm’s production efficiency is relatively high, in the cases wherein they use the two different types of managerial delegation contracts, there exists an area of each firm’s production efficiency such that the EMS does not coincide with the most socially preferred structure with respect to each country’s social welfare and total social welfare. Therefore, as each firm’s organizational structure proceeds from entrepreneurial to managerial delegation, a more active merger policy is needed with respect to each country’s social welfare and total social welfare.     

Approaches to solving China’s marine plastic pollution and CO2 emission problems

Global contamination of the oceans by waste plastics is of increasing concern. Besides being the largest emitter of CO₂ in the world, China is suspected of being the largest contributor to marine plastic waste pollution. Responsible for the latter is the still inadequate management of waste in China, a significant improvement of which is necessary for addressing the issue of marine plastic pollution. Since plastics are hydrocarbons, submitting them to appropriate waste treatment/recycling technologies could contribute to mitigating the emission of CO₂, indicating the possibility of addressing the two environmental issues simultaneously. Based on the combined use of waste input–output and linear programming, we investigated options for mitigating CO₂ emissions under consideration of alternative waste treatment/recycling processes applied to waste plastics of China. It was found that of the nine processes considered, four could result in a net reduction in the emission: a win-win situation.     

Introduction: New directions in Information and Screening in Real Estate Finance

Conclusion The evidence presented in this special issue supports the view that preexisting information held by mortgage lenders plays an important role in mortgage approvals. This argues for mortgage lending programs that make efficient use of lender information, and it supports the importance of local financial intermediaries for lending. It also suggests that mortgage finance is an important element in turning transitory shocks into persistent ones that shape macroeconomic and regional business cycles.This Journal has from its inception, with the publication of a seminal article on information and incentives on mortgage contract terms by Dunn and Spart (1988), pushed forward the frontier of knowledge on information issues in real estate finance. This special issue presents empirical evidence on the importance of this aspect of mortgages.     

Human resource management in Asian subsidiaries: comparison of French and Japanese MNCs

European and Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) have expanded their activities in Asia, usually through massive mobilization of various human resources from head offices, whether expatriated or on short-term assignments, and a reliance on diverse categories of local employees. Because expatriation is costly, difficult and often limited in its results, MNCs have developed localization strategies for management positions to support their regional development. This contribution addresses such a scenario by comparing Japanese and French MNCs in eight Asian countries, based on 53 interviews across subsidiaries of 17 MNCs. We find that Japanese MNCs have not localized management positions as much as French MNCs, but they have grown more willing to do so. To compensate for the lack of local capabilities without sending more expatriates, both French and Japanese MNCs frequently send experts on short-term assignments. Finally, though human resource practices vary widely across countries, even for a given MNC, some harmonizing principles have been introduced to regional HRM strategies recently.     

Endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly: price competition with managerial delegation

We introduce a managerial delegation contract into the mixed duopoly model and examine its influence on price setting in a mixed duopoly in the context of the endogenous‐timing problem. We obtain the result that owners of a public and a private firm prefer to delay the setting of the prices of their products as much as possible. Thus, in equilibrium, the firms choose their prices simultaneously in the latter stage of the game. This is in contrast to the findings of the entrepreneurial case, according to which firms choose prices simultaneously in the former stage. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PRINTEPS: An Integrated Intelligent Application Development Platform based on Stream Reasoning and ROS

Although AI and service robot applications have become very popular in many domains recently, many of them are specific applications and it is still difficult to develop integrated intelligent applications such as a robot teahouse and teaching assistant robots. To develop such integrated intelligent applications, we need integrated intelligent application platforms that have AI integration and agile process facilities. From the above background, we are currently developing PRactical INTElligent aPplicationS (PRINTEPS), which is a platform for developing integrated intelligent applications by combining only five types of modules, namely knowledge-based reasoning, spoken dialogue, image sensing, motion management, and machine learning. This paper proposes a workflow editor in PRINETPS based on a service-oriented architecture and a Robot Operating System that enables real-time parallel processing for multiple robots and sensors by integrating the five types of modules. The editor also supports not only developers but also domain experts in updating workflows frequently. This paper also proposes a novel method to integrate signals acquired through image sensing with knowledge (ontologies and business rules) using C-SPARQL and Semantic Web Rule Language. To evaluate PRINTEPS, we developed a robot teahouse application including customer reception and guidance to table services using a humanoid robot with PRINTEPS. Through this case study, we demonstrated that the behaviors of the robot can be modified by changing the workflow, the ontology, and the rules.     

Banks and Corporate Control in Japan

Using a large sample of Japanese firm level data, we find that Japanese banks act primarily in the short term interests of creditors when dealing with firms outside bank groups. Corporate control mechanisms other than bank oversight appear necessary in these firms. When dealing with firms in bank groups, banks may act in the broader interests of a range of stakeholders, including shareholders. However, our findings are also consistent with banks "propping up" troubled bank group firms. We conclude that bank oversight need not lead to value maximizing corporate governance.