Health and political regimes: Evidence from quantile regression

This study investigates how political regimes affect health conditions such as infant and child mortality rates and life expectancy using data from 180 countries observed between 1960 and 2013. Panel quantile regression is used to examine the effects at different intervals throughout the distribution of health outcomes. The estimation results indicate that democracy has significant positive effects on health outcomes and that its impacts are greater when health outcomes are worse. These results are robust to different democracy and health indices. The effects of different types of democracies and dictatorships are also considered, that is parliamentary, mixed (semi-presidential) and presidential democracies, and civilian, military and royal dictatorships. The parliamentary form of democracy has the largest positive impact on health outcomes at the worst quantile of health outcomes, although the difference in the impacts of the three types of democracies is not necessarily large. Furthermore, all types of dictatorships have a negative impact on health outcomes, with military dictatorship having the worst outcome when health outcomes are worse. Finally, the effects of democratization on health outcomes are significantly positive when the health outcomes are worse.     

Coalitional bargaining games with random proposers: Theory and application

We consider a non-cooperative coalitional bargaining game with random proposers in a general situation for which players differ in recognition probability and time preference. We characterize an efficient equilibrium as the generalized Nash bargaining solution that belongs to the core. The model is applied to wage bargaining between an employer and multiple workers. Although involuntary unemployment may occur in equilibrium, full employment emerges as players become sufficiently patient.     

Coverage area expansion, customer switching, and household profiles in the Japanese broadband access market

This paper examines the diffusion process of Internet broadband access in Japan by modeling the household choice of access modes. Estimates reveal that the characteristics of users, rather than those of the access modes, play a significant role in demand substitution across the modes. Simulation exercises indicate that had optic fibers (fiber-to-the-home; FTTH) been made available to the whole country in 2005, only 10% of households would have switched to that mode. This result implies that once chosen, the household choice of access mode persists, and that indirect network effects are an important element in decisions to adopt the new technology of broadband. Finally, policy implications are discussed.     

Agricultural Land Conversion and Inheritence Tax in Japan

In this paper we investigate theoretically the extent to which the development timing of agricultural land conversion would be hastened by the introduction of inheritence tax. We extend the optimal timing of wealth maximizing value use models by Scouras (1978), Anderson (1993) and Kanemoto (1996) to examine cases where tax rates vary according to land use with (i) almost no income and (ii) high income use, such as rental housing. We first model landowner's behavior within the life cycle dynamic optimization framework and then simulate the impact of inheritence tax on the optimal timing of development. Some notable predictions about optimal timing of development emerge from our numerical analysis: no inheritence tax effect is observed for landowners whose inheritence probability is less than 1% (that is, landowners in the age group 40 or below) and whose inheritence tax rate is less than 10%. However, the optimal timing of development drops to below one year for landowners whose inheritence probability is more than 18% and whose tax rate is 30%.     

The Calendar Structure of the Japanese Stock Market: The ‘Sell in May Effect’ versus the ‘Dekansho‐bushi Effect’

We report on a seasonal pattern that has persisted in the Japanese stock market for more than half a century: Mean stock returns are significantly positive for months during the first half of the calendar year and significantly negative for months during the second half. Dubbed the Dekansho‐bushi effect, this seasonality is independent of other known calendar anomalies, such as the so‐called January effect. The Dekansho‐bushi effect should be distinguished from the ‘sell in May effect,’ because Japanese stocks perform well in June and poorly in November and December. The Dekansho‐bushi effect varies in magnitude among firms and is particularly significant among small firms with high book‐to‐market ratios. Nonetheless, the effect exists, regardless of a company's size or book‐to‐market ratio.     

Intergovernmental Transfers,Governance Structure and Fiscal Decentralization

We provide a model incorporating features of local public finance in Japan, including close fiscal ties between different levels of government as well as bureaucratic determinations of intergovernmental transfers. The discretionary nature of transfers softens local budgets ex post, which exerts perverse incentive effects on local governments ex ante. Fiscal decentralization that assigns more revenue responsibility to the local level serves to counteract this moral hazard incentive. The emphasis is on the endogenous nature of regional fiscal capacities at the local level. Fiscal devolution motivates local jurisdictions to become fiscally independent wherever possible. JEL Classification Number: H7.     

The Productivity Effects of Participatory Employment Practices: Evidence from New Japanese Panel Data

We report the first results for Japanese firms on the effects of clusters of participatory employment practices (or participation/employee involvement at the top level as well as at the grassroots level, and financial participation) by estimating production functions using new panel data. We find that the introduction of a group of complementary practices will lead to a significant 8–9 percent increase in productivity. However, the full productivity effect is felt only after a long developmental period.     

A comparison of the Japanese and U.S. business cycles

This paper constructs a consistent set of quarterly Japanese data for the 1960–2002 sample period and compares properties of the Japanese and U.S. business cycles. We document some important differences in the adjustment of labor input between the two countries. In Japan most of the adjustment is in hours per worker of males and females and also in employment of females. In the U.S. most of the adjustment is in employment of both males and females. We formulate, estimate, and analyze a model that makes the distinction between the intensive and extensive margin and allows for gender differerences in labor supply. A weak empirical correlation between hours per worker and employment in Japanese data is a puzzle for our theory.     

Children's perception of dinner conversation with parents in Japan

The children's perception of dinner and dinner conversation with their parents was surveyed for sixth‐grade students of elementary school in Japan. The data were analysed from the gender of children and attending parents. The children had dinner and dinner conversation more frequently with their mother than with their father. With father attendance, girls and boys had the same frequency of dinner and dinner conversation, although, with mother attendance, girls had dinner conversation more frequently than boys. Most of the children felt happy when they had dinner with their parents. However, a lower percentage of children felt happy when having dinner conversation with their parents, thought that they were important to their parents and thought dinner conversation was useful. More children felt happy during dinner and dinner conversation with their mother than with their father. However, there was no perceived difference in the usefulness of the conversation based on the father or the mother attending. The contents of conversation were greatly affected by which parent was attending. Subjects concerning children's manners were talked about more frequently in conversation with mothers than with fathers. Children had more frequent conversations with their father about ‘social issues’ and the ‘parents’ surroundings’ than with their mother. Girls had more frequent conversations on a wider variety of subjects with their mothers than boys. Girls could more easily share in their mothers’ knowledge or sense of values through dinner conversation. Boys were, for the most part, excluded from this process in conversation with either parent.