UNIQUENESS OF EQUILIBRIUM PAYOFFS IN FINITELY REPEATED GAMES WITH IMPERFECT MONITORING*

This paper examines when a finitely repeated game with imperfect monitoring has a unique equilibrium payoff vector. This problem is nontrivial under imperfect monitoring, because uniqueness of equilibrium (outcome) in the stage game does not extend to finitely repeated games. A (correlated) equilibrium is equilibrium minimaxing if any player's equilibrium payoff is her minimax value when the other players choose a correlated action profile from the actions played in the equilibrium. The uniqueness result holds if all stage game correlated equilibria are equilibrium minimaxing and have the same payoffs. The uniqueness result does not hold under weaker conditions.     

BOEKE'S VIEW OF EASTERN SOCIETY — With Special Reference to His Critics —

Today those who characterize the economy of underdeveloped areas by the coexistence of a modern sector and a pre-modern sector within one political unit tend to refer to J. H. Boeke as a pioneer exponent in theorizing this dualism. But his dualism differs from the economic dualism of this sort. Again it differs from the so-called sociological dualism, despite his emphasis on social dualism. By confusing theoretically social dualism with economic dualism, he advocates in effect what is called a socio-economic approach. Inspite of Boeke's logical inconsistency abundant in his theorizing, what he was virtually claiming in order to find the real cause of economic stagnation in Eastern colonial society was the importance of making searching inquiry into the structural interrelationship between economic factors and social factors.     

“INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY” AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

At present, when more than half of the “Development Decade” has passed, the economic development of developing countries is far behind the targets set forth at the beginning of this decadc. The author analyses this problem, particularly from the viewpoint of capital movements, and comes to the conclusion that the existing system of capital movements to developing countries today must be re-examined; a new world loans or grants system should be established in combination with efforts in the direction of total disarmament.     

EC INTEGRATION AND JAPANESE FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN THE EC

This study proposes two hypotheses to identify the cause(s) behind the short-term cyclical Japanese manufacturing foreign direct investment in the European Community (EC) in the late 1980s and early 1990s: (i) a catch-up process of Japanese firms in anticipation of EC single market integration in 1993 and (ii) the so-called bubble economic phenomenon caused by the overheated economy following expansionary monetary policy in Japan in the late 1980s. Applying multinomial logit models to the data on parent firms of 283 Japanese manufacturing subsidiaries established in the EC from 1988 to 1992 reveals strong support for the bubble economy hypothesis but not for the catch-up hypothesis. Results also show that under a bubble economy situation, tax-related incentive policies in host countries—e.g., an investment tax allowance for foreign direct investment—are quite important in attracting Japanese firms.     

Price-Quality Correlations in the Japanese Market

This study tested the consumer's rule of thumb, price indicates quality, in the Japanese market. The data source was the Monthly Consumers product testing magazine published by the Japanese Consumer Association. Spearman's rho correlations of price and quality ranged from +.87 to −.80, with a mean of −.06. The slightly negative, near zero mean correlation indicated that, on the average, price was a very poor indicator of quality. Among product categories, bicycles had the highest mean correlation, +.54; mean correlations for other product categories exhibited considerable variation. Comparisons of correlations within a product category, such as television sets or microwave ovens, revealed that a significant positive correlation at one point in time was not a reliable guide to the level of price-quality correlation for that product category at later points in time. Comparing results from this study with results from previous studies of Consumer Reports and Consumers Research reveals a smaller percentage of positive correlations and a lower mean correlation for the present study.     

PARENTS’ EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND,SUBJECTS “GOOD‐AT” IN SCHOOL AND INCOME: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY*

We analyze the effects of studying mathematics and of parents’ academic profile on the annual labour income of their children in later life. Data was obtained from graduates of departments of economics at major private universities in Japan. They show that respondents who are good at mathematics (and English) have a higher average income, and that the more educated the parents, the more children tend to excel in mathematics.     

THE IMPACT OF THE MINIMUM WAGE ON FEMALE EMPLOYMENT IN JAPAN

This article examines the impact of the minimum wage on employment, focusing on women in their 20s and 30s, who are known to be typical low‐wage workers in Japan. The results, based on a panel estimation, suggest that the minimum wage has a measurable impact on employment; the workers whose current wage is below the revised minimum wage are about 20–30 percentage points less likely to be employed in the following year than comparable low‐wage workers who are not affected by the revision of the minimum wage. The estimation results are sensitive to the choice of the control group. (JEL J23, J38, J88)