Rise and Fall of Multinational Enterprises in Vietnam: Survival Analysis Using Census Data during 2000–2011*

This study examined the survival of multinational enterprises (MNE) in Vietnam during 2000–2011 using Cox hazard models. The characteristics and ownership structure of firms and the nationality of foreign partners are found to be associated with the probability of firm exit, with a firm having greater capital share of foreign partners surviving longer. An efficient local government requiring less time for bureaucratic procedures and inspections is found to be associated with a lower probability of MNE exiting. Meanwhile, transparency in business regulations and predictability in implementing central government policies accelerate the survival of highly competitive MNE.     

Stock price targeting and fiscal deficit in Japan: Why did the fiscal deficit increase during Japan’s lost decades?

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Japan’s fiscal deficit increased so dramatically in the 1990s and the 2000s. We focus on the role of “stock price targeting” to explain why the fiscal expenditure increased so much. After presenting a simple model to describe government behavior with an optimistic view about stock price and output growth, the paper tests whether the model can explain Japan’s fiscal expenditure. The empirical results, using biannual and high-frequency data of the 1990s and the 2000s, show that the stock price targeting can track Japan’s fiscal expenditure reasonably well, especially in the 1990s. They imply that without the stock price targeting, the total amount of biannual fiscal stimulus from 1992 to 2000 would have been lower by 2.5 trillion yen on average.     

A politically feasible social security reform with a two-tier structure

This paper investigates the welfare implications and political feasibility of social security reforms with a two-tier structure in Japan. We evaluate social security reforms from two points of view: (i) the ex-ante expected value of future generations, and (ii) whether current generations prefer reform to the status-quo system, which we call political feasibility. To evaluate the reforms, we use a large-scale overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic income risk and a two-tier structure. The first tier guarantees a basic pension and the second tier consists of the earnings-related part. Calibrating the parameters of the model to the Japanese economy, we compute the transition path and the two welfare criteria. We find that, given the two-tier structure in Japan, an increase in the basic pension and the abolition of the earnings-related part of the social security system improve the welfare of future generations, and ensures political feasibility when a consumption tax is the source of revenue.     

Nonlinear income variance profiles and consumption inequality over the life cycle

In contrast to many other countries, consumption inequalities in Japan are not constant over household age but increase from around middle age—a fact first highlighted by Ohtake and Saito [Ohtake, F., Saito, M., 1998. Population aging and consumption inequality in Japan. Rev. Income Wealth 44, 361–381]. Given this information, we examine whether this phenomenon is consistent with the standard precautionary saving model developed by Carroll [Carroll, C.D., 1997. Buffer-stock savings and the life cycle/permanent income hypothesis. Quart. J. Econ. 62, 1–56]. Specifically, we investigate: (1) the degree of age dependence of idiosyncratic income risks; and (2) the importance of age dependence for the evolution of inequalities in consumption predicted by the household model of Carroll (1997). We find a strong age dependence of income risks, which creates a nonlinear age–variance profile of income, and the standard precautionary saving model is consistent with the observed consumption inequalities as long as we take the nonlinearity in age–variance profiles of income into account.     

The influence of natural hazards on urban housing location

The effects of natural hazards on urban housing location are investigated, using as an example seismic damage. The seismic damage function is allowed to arbitrarily vary in two-dimensional (r, θ) space rather than the usual one-dimensional models of Mills, Muth, Alonso, etc. Damage is assumed to only affect capital inputs (i.e., the structure), not land. Under the influence of expected damage, the population and CBD (treated as a point) are seen to shift toward lower expected damage. It is found that the relative importance of damage increases as the capital productivity parameter (b) of the Cobb-Douglas production function increases.     

Optimal Hedging of Basket Barrier Options with Additive Models and Its Application to Equity Value Separation Problem

At the heart of optimal hedging with additive models in Yamada (Recent advances in financial engineering: proceedings of the KIER-TMU international workshop on financial engineering, World Scientific, pp 225–245, 2010; Proceedings of the 2011 American control conference, pp 3856–3861, 2011; Asia-Pac Financ Mark 19(2):149–179, 2012) is to replicate the payoff of European basket options using separate options as close as possible. In this paper, we extend their technique for the case of path-dependent barrier options, where the mean square error of the payoffs between the basket barrier option and the sum of options on the individual assets is minimized over any smooth payoff functions. To this end, we propose to represent the underlying assets using the Brownian bride decomposition and show that computations involving conditional expectations of basket barrier options boil down to those of unconditional expectations. This procedure enables us to provide an algorithm to compute the necessary and sufficient condition for the optimal hedging problem based on the Monte Carlo method. Then, we consider to apply our methodology to the Black–Cox type first passage time structural model, where a defaultable company possesses/runs multiple assets/projects and the default may occur the first time the asset value hits a certain lower threshold before the maturity. We formulate the equity value separation problem using additive models, in which individual equity values are introduced so that their sum approximates the total equity value as close as possible. It is also shown that any portion of total equity value may be assigned as an initial value of each individual equity when using the optimal smooth functions. Finally, we examine the contributions of individual equity values to default or survival by applying a certain normalization for conditional expectations via numerical experiments to illustrate our proposed methodology.     

Population and Urbanization Trends in Post-war Japan

This paper analyses the population change and urbanization process in post-war Japan. We trace the process of population concentration into urban areas, in parallel with economic development after the war. The concentration of population into urban areas can be characterized by three major metropolitan regions: Tokyo, Keihanshin (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe) and Nagoya. We also show that the urbanization process of Japan in the period from 1965 to 1985 can be characterized by two spatial phenomena; firstly, the suburbanization of the existing metropolitan areas and, secondly, the spatial dispersal of urbanized areas.     

A Downward‐Sloping Labor Supply Curve: The Case of Peru

The author finds evidence of a downward‐sloping labor supply curve for urban areas in Peru from cross‐sectional household data for 2002 and pooled data for available years from 1985 to 2000. Individuals respond to lower hourly earnings with an increase in the quantity supplied of work hours. This behavior would help to explain the increasing trend in average work hours in Peru (this average for male workers in Lima, the capital city, rose from 50.5 to 53.9 weekly hours between 1985 and 2000; meanwhile, 33.4% of workers had weekly schedules above 60 hours in 2002). Another finding is the increase in hours supplied due to pressure from the more numerous cohorts recently entering the Peruvian labor market.     

Dynamic Stability, Paradoxical Comparative Statics, and Factor–Market Distortions in an Economy with Three Production Sectors

In an earlier paper the authors clarified the relationship between the stability of long–run equilibrium and the possibility of paradoxical comparative statics in the Lerner–Samuelson two–by–two model of production with factor–market distortions (see Review of International Economics 9 (1901) :383–400). The present paper extends the analysis to an economy with three production sectors. It is found that almost all properties of long–run equilibrium in the two–by–two model with factor–market distortions continue to hold, while some new properties, such as plurality of equilibrium, appear. Specifically, the instability of the adjustment process is not ruled out; a paradox cannot coexist with stable equilibrium in a small open economy, but may do so in a closed economy.