Income Redistribution Effect Of Public Pensions Between Dynastic Families

This paper investigates income transfers between dynastic families caused by a public pension system. Using Japanese data, we present simulation results based on a model in which intergenerational altruism works, and income distribution exists between and within generations. The growth rates of income and population, as well as the formulation for the determination of the contribution rate and the payment rate, are crucial to determine both the qualitative and quantitative effects. Especially, under negative income growth over generations, pay–as–you–go public pensions can cause negative income redistribution.     

Policy coordination in East Asia and across the Pacific

In this paper, we construct a macro-econometric model that describes the economic activity in the Asia-Pacific area and provide quantitative insights into the recent policy debates on monetary and currency coordination among the East Asian economies. The model includes a wide variety of monetary and currency policy rules that the East Asian economies adopt and allows for one country's policymaking to have substantial effects on foreign countries. We apply the model to three current policy issues: (1) the desirability of currency basket pegs in East Asia, (2) the anticipated effects of China's currency policy reform, and (3) the non-negativity constraint on Japanese nominal interest rates. The simulation analyses show the external economy effects of policy rules quantitatively and suggest the difficulty of monetary and currency policy coordination among the East Asian economies.

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Information can wreck cooperation: A counterpoint to Kandori (1992)

We propose a simple model of repeated games with private monitoring and time-varying information structures. We then obtain an example demonstrating that the set of achievable equilibrium payoffs may shrink when players' information regarding opponents' information structures is increased.     

Estimates of optimal public capital stocks in Japan using a public investment discount rate framework

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the optimality of the level of public capital in Japan. We use a methodological approach based on Burgess's (1988) procedure for calculating the public discount rate. This approach involves estimating a production function, but does not necessarily require utility function estimation. The results indicate that, although the Japanese economy experienced a public capital deficiency over the period 1960–1982, public capital moved toward optimal levels throughout the period. First version received: March 1997/final version received: June 1998