Does oligopsony power matter in price support policy design? Empirical evidence from the Thai Jasmine rice market

In the oligopsony market, farmers may receive low prices and policy analysis assuming perfect competition can yield serious bias results. In this paper, we estimate oligopsony power between processors and farmers and evaluate the welfare impact of the paddy pledging program (PPP), a generous price support program in the Thai Jasmine rice market, with an imperfect competition model. We develop a model that consists of rice supply equation and derived demand equation. We then simultaneously estimate these equations using system estimation methods to recover oligopsony power parameters. Finally, we use these parameters to assess the welfare impact of the price support program. Using annual panel data running from crop marketing year 2001/2002–2015/2016 and exploiting the institutional feature of the PPP, we find strong evidence of some oligopsony power, a moderate level of oligopsony price distortion, and a negative relationship between price support and oligopsony power. We also find that the PPP is inefficient but effective in income redistribution. Moreover, the program benefits both farmers and consumers. With better policymaking decisions, the PPP can be efficient by setting a suitable support price. Therefore, our results show that in the case of the Thai Jasmine rice market, the generally accepted “wisdom” about agricultural price support policy does not necessarily hold, and price support can be designed to improve the efficiency of the market.     

Interpolating the Lorenz Curve: Methods to Preserve Shape and Remain Consistent with the Concentration Curves for Components

C¹‐class interpolation methods that preserve monotonicity and convexity and are thus suitable for the estimation of the Lorenz curve from grouped data are not widely known. Instead, parametric models are usually applied for such estimation. Parametric models, however, have difficulty in accurately approximating every part of income/expenditure distributions. This paper proposes two types of C¹‐class shape‐preserving interpolation methods. One is a piecewise rational polynomial interpolation (proposed independently by Stineman and Delbourgo) that enables consistent interpolation of the concentration curves for income/expenditure components, attaining approximately the same accuracy as that of the existing methods when applied to decile‐grouped data or to more detailed aggregation. Another is a Hybrid interpolation that employs pieces of curves derived from parametric models on end intervals. Empirical comparisons show that the Hybrid interpolation (with the assistance of parametric models for class‐boundary estimation) outperforms the existing methods even when applied to quintile‐grouped data without class boundaries.     

Convergence and divergence of role stress experience of locally hired Japanese and non-Japanese host country staff: a qualitative study

This qualitative study examines the role stress (comprising of role ambiguity and role conflict) experienced by locally hired Japanese (LJ) and non-Japanese (NJ) staff in a sample of Japanese companies in Australia. Expatriates were also interviewed to gather information regarding the impact of cross-cultural understanding on role ambiguity and role conflict in their work relationships with LJ and NJ staff. Both LJ staff and NJ local staff experienced two types of role ambiguity, resulting from insufficient English competence and information shortage. NJ staff experienced two additional types of role ambiguity due to their lack of cultural understanding about Japan. LJ staff experienced two types of role conflict which were not experienced by NJ local staff. These were caused by their cultural understanding about Australia, and their Japanese cultural heritage and understanding of the society and organisational processes. This study shows that cultural understanding of one's host country and parent country could reduce role ambiguity. In addition, it was found that cultural understanding of one's host country and parent country results in role conflict. These findings suggest that cultural understanding could have positive and negative consequences on role stress. Theoretical and practical implications in the management of white-collar staff in overseas Japanese companies are discussed.     

Service quality and its effect on customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intentions: hotel and ryokan guests in Japan

This study analyzes the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intentions at hotels and ryokan (traditional Japanese inns). In this empirical research, questionnaires were sent to guests at seven sites: three hotels and four ryokan. Service quality, as perceived by guests, affected customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intention. Results from this empirical study show strong evidence of service quality as perceived by guests being influenced by the type of accommodation. Also, among service quality factors, “physical aspect” had the most powerful impact on customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intention. “Creativeness” ranked second, followed by “unexpected service” and “encounter performance”. The prominence of physical aspects probably reflects the distinctiveness of the service of offering a one-night stay. However, as a certain level of physical facilities is taken for granted at lodging facilities above a certain price, “creativeness”, the second most powerful factor, becomes decisively important.     

水平轴思想——关于冲绳的“共同体意识”

“水平轴思想”是指在横向的关系中把握人际关系的想法，被这种“水平轴”意识所支撑的“共同体意志”，也还是同样在“水平轴”的方向上发挥作用，就是说，一个“共同体”在与其他“共同体”的关系中，决定自己的意志。面对其他“公共体”时，“共同体”成员的归属意识被越发强烈地激发出来。在冲绳近代化的过程中，把冲绳的一切当作异质的东西加以自我否定，试图向日本本土同质化看齐。这一切是通过把“国家”的意志转换成“冲绳的进步”和“摆脱落后”，而使人产生新型的“共同体意志”的幻想，“国家”的意志正是这样把这种幻想带给冲绳的民众。民众希望从残酷状况中挣脱出来的愿望，进一步使这种支配性的意志很容易变为现实。     

More on money as a medium of exchange

Summary We extend the analysis of Kiyotaki and Wright, who study economies where the commodities that serve as media of exchange (or, commodity money) are determined endogenously. Kiyotaki and Wright consider only steady-state, pure-strategy equilibria; here we allow dynamic and mixed-strategy equilibria. We demonstrate that symmetric, steady-state equilibria in mixed-strategies always exist, while sometimes no such equilibria exist in pure-strategies. We prove that the number of symmetric steady-state equilibria is generically finite. We also show, however, that for some parameter values there exists a continuum of dynamic equilibria. Further, some equilibria display cycles.We thank the National Science Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation for financial support, as well as seminar participants at Stanford University, the London School of Economics, the Econometric Society World Congress in Barcelona, and the Conference on Monetary Theory and Financial Institutions at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis for their comments or suggestions. Alberto Trejos provided research assistance. The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.     

Location choices of firms and workers in an urban model with heterogeneities in skills and preferences

This paper investigates the location choices of firms and workers, and the implied commuting behavior, in a city comprising several jurisdictions. Jurisdictions are geographically represented by segments that are connected to each other at the center. Each jurisdiction has its own amenities. Workers are classified into types on the basis of their skills and amenity preferences. Firms employ all types of worker. A business area may be formed in the center or in the suburban segments. A monocentric configuration arises when the commuting cost is small and heterogeneity of workers is large.     

Dynamic Investment Strategies to Reaction–Diffusion Systems Based upon Stochastic Differential Utilities

We study the dynamic investment strategies in continuous-time settings based upon stochastic differential utilities of Duffie and Epstein (Econometrica 60:353–394, 1992). We assume that the asset prices follow interacting Itô-Poisson processes, which are known to be the so-called reaction–diffusion systems. Stochastic maximum principle for stochastic control problems described by some backward-stochastic differential equations that are driven by Poisson jump processes allows us to derive the optimal investment strategies as well as optimal consumption. We shall furthermore propose a numerical procedure for solving the associated nested quasi-linear partial differential equations.     

Does agricultural trade liberalization increase risks of supply-side uncertainty?: Effects of productivity shocks and export restrictions on welfare and food supply in Japan

Agriculture is the focus of much contention in free trade negotiations. The Japanese government is against liberalizing the rice trade on the grounds that it would threaten “national food security” in the events of such shocks as crop failure and embargoes. Trade liberalization is expected to make the Japanese economy more dependent upon food imports and, thus, more susceptible to these risks. Using a computable general equilibrium model with a Monte Carlo simulation, we quantify the welfare impacts of productivity shocks and export quotas by major rice exporters to Japan and found little evidence of Japan suffering from such shocks.     

Optimal risk transfer and investment policies based upon stochastic differential utilities

This paper addresses the stochastic differential utility (SDU) version of the issue raised by Barrieu and El Karoui (Quantitative Finance, 2:181–188, 2002a) in which optimal risk transfer from a bank to an investor, realized by transacting well-designed derivatives written on relevant illiquid assets, was␣mainly studied in two cases with and without an available financial market. From a stochastic maximum principle as described in Yong and Zhou (Stochastic controls: Hamiltonian systems and HJB equations. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1999) we shall derive necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality in several SDU-based maximization problems. It is also shown that the optimal risk transfer, consumptions, investment policies of both agents are characterized by a forward–backward stochastic differential equation (FBSDE) system.