Unemployment dynamics in an OLG economy with public pensions

Pension benefits in old age establish a disincentive to save in youth, thereby yielding lower levels of capital stock and the wage rate. As a result, the trade union has an incentive to change the composition of its two targets: employment and the wage rate. This paper develops a model that includes employment effects of public pensions via capital accumulation and union wage setting. Within this framework, we consider how contribution rates to the pension system influence the level and time path of the unemployment rate. It is demonstrated that (1) a higher contribution rate results in a lower unemployment rate, and (2) the economy with a high (low) contribution rate experiences monotone convergence towards (oscillatory convergence towards or a period-2 cycle around) the steady state. The author would like to thank an anonymous referee, Kazutoshi Miyazawa, and seminar participants at Osaka University for their useful comments and suggestions, and Masako Ikefuji and Hiroaki Yamagami for their research assistance. Financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No.17730131), the Asahi Glass Foundation, the Japan Economic Research Foundation and the 21st Century COE Program (Osaka University) is gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are mine.     

Environmental tax policy in a model of growth cycles

Summary. The purpose of this paper is to consider environmental taxation which would control emissions of firms in a model of growth cycles. In the model presented below, the economy may experience two phases of growth and environmental quality: “the no-innovation growth regime” and “the innovation-led growth regime”. Aggregate capital and environmental quality remain constant in the no-innovation growth regime, while they perpetually increase in the innovation-led growth regime. The paper shows that the tax plays a key role in determining whether the economy stably converges to one of the two regimes or fluctuates permanently between them. It also shows that there is a critical level of the tax and that the economy obtains higher growth rates of capital and environmental quality by raising (or reducing) the tax if the initial tax is below (or above) the critical level. Received: April 2, 2001; revised version: March 21, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This research reported here was conducted within the research project “Project on Intergenerational Equity” at Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. I am deeply grateful to an anonymous referee for his or her insightful comments, which greatly improved the paper. I also thank Hiroshi Honda, Yasuo Maeda, Yuji Nakayama, and participants in workshops at Hitotsubashi University, Kyoto University, Nagoya University, Osaka University, University of Tsukuba, Yokohama National University, and University of Tokyo for their valuable comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are mine.     

Hybrid Inflation-Price-Level Targeting in an Economy With Output Persistence

This paper investigates hybrid inflation‐price‐level targeting (HT), employing a Phillips curve with output persistence. By HT we mean that a central bank targets a weighted average of the optimal inflation rate and its corresponding price level. The analysis shows that if output is persistent to some extent, it is desirable to adopt HT because, relative to the case of alternative regimes such as inflation targeting (IT) and price‐level targeting (PT), it will reduce the variability of inflation and thereby social loss. In addition, it is shown that the optimal hybrid‐type target is uniquely determined according to the degree of persistence in output.     

REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT DEBT IN A BORROWING‐CONSTRAINED ECONOMY

We develop a two‐period, three‐class of income model where low‐income agents are borrowing constrained because of capital market imperfections, and where redistributive expenditure is financed by tax and government debt. When the degree of capital market imperfection is high, there is an ends‐against‐the‐middle equilibrium where the constrained low‐income and the unconstrained high‐income agents favour low levels of government debt and redistributive expenditure; these agents form a coalition against the middle. In this equilibrium, the levels of government debt and expenditure might be below the efficient levels, and the spread of income distribution results in a lower debt‐to‐GDP ratio.     

The influence of indoor air on personal exposure to volatile organic compounds and its risk estimation

This paper summarizes the results of personal exposure monitoring and estimates the risk from exposure to 18 volatile organic compounds compared with health criteria set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In study 1, personal exposure levels and outdoor air concentrations were compared, and in study 2, personal exposure levels and the corresponding indoor air concentrations were compared. From these studies, it was concluded that personal exposure to volatile organic compounds depended markedly on indoor air quality and that handling of compounds increased personal exposure markedly. Risk estimations indicated that chloroform in tap water, benzene from cigarette smoke and p -dichlorobenzene from household insecticide needed caution.     

Perspective on the 21st century : Practical lessons from my management experience

The dramatic changes in the industrial structure since World War II owe much to technological advances that have enabled corporations to pursue their endeavors on unprecedented scale, as in mass production and mass retailing. 1 characterized my management emphasis as ‘C&C’ which stands for the integration of computers and communications. C&C is a technological frontier that has spawned a continuing stream of new products and advanced concepts. C&C, however, is a very different kind of technological advance. As C&C takes hold in society and as information networks mature, information will become the central element in new amalgams with the other traditional corporate resources: people, money, and property.     

Incorporating choice dynamics in models of consumer behavior

This paper presents a framework for organizing and discussing factors influencing consumer choice dynamics, how these factors may be incorporated into models of buyer behavior and problems that may arise in estimating such models. The paper identifies research issues and delineates possible approaches. Proceedings of Session on Choice Dynamics at the Banff Symposium on Consumer Decision-Making and Choice Behavior. All authors share equally in content and remaining errors.     

The Impact of Regional Factors on the Start‐Up Ratio in Japan*

We analyze regional factors of the start‐up ratio in Japan using two datasets with different regional aggregation levels. The explanatory variables represent demand, cost, human resource, financial, industry agglomeration and industrial structure, and other factors. The empirical results demonstrate that even though all these factors significantly affect the start‐up ratio at the municipality level, some of these factors are not significant at a larger economic area level. In particular, we obtained evidence that human resource factors, together with the average wage and average size of establishments, are important determinants of the regional start‐up ratio in both the samples.     

Consumption externalities and the effects of international income transfers on the global environment

In this paper, we extend the standard model of private provision of public goods by including consumption externalities to characterize a situation in which economic activities pollute the environment. We consider a case in which there are an industrial country which can afford to invest in the environment and a developing country which cannot. Then, we show that international income transfers in both directions can improve the global environmental quality as well as the welfare of each country. We also show that the results have important implications for policies such as official development assistance or the assignment of tradable emission permits.     

PLM education in production design and engineering by e-Learning

These days more attention is being paid to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) using a technique for managing total product planning, design, manufacturing, sales, and disposal. We researched business processes and education curriculum of the PLM system in manufacturing businesses. We designed the curriculum of PLM education and developed part of a lesson. Most importantly, e-Learning is shown to be an effective tool for achieving educational objectives. We found that not only knowledge and theory but also practical education methods using case studies in an e-Learning environment are necessary for human resources to develop effective PLM.