Welfare gain from quality and price development in the Japan’s LCD TV market

We estimate the welfare gain from innovations in the LCD TVs that prevailed during the period 2005–2007 in Japan, via consumer surplus that we measure with the aid of discrete choice methods, using market data obtained from an internet price comparison service (Kakaku.com). Further, by the measured implicit values of attributes, we evaluate in monetary terms, the qualitative transition embedded in the attributes through the iso-consumer surplus planes. We thereby disaggregate the welfare gain into the qualitative and the budgetary components, which we call the quality gain, and the budget gain, respectively. The estimates show, along with the evolved process of innovation, that the quality gain was in the order of 381 KJPY, while the budget gain was 94 KJPY negative, which gives about 287 KJPY of overall welfare gain per consumer, during the period.     

Did Japan's shopping coupon program increase spending?

In March 1999, 31 million “shopping coupons” worth 20,000 yen each were distributed to Japanese families with children and to the elderly. The coupons expired after six months and could only be used within the recipient's local community. We use variation in the number of children across families and in the number of recipients across prefectures to measure the effect of the coupons on spending. We find that coupons had a positive effect on spending on semi-durables, but no effect on spending on nondurables or services. The marginal propensity to consume on semi-durables was 0.1–0.2 when the coupons were distributed in March. The results using regional variation provide stronger evidence that spending did not fall after the coupons had been redeemed.     

Estimating switching costs after introducing Fixed-Mobile Convergence in Japan

In this study, based on a conjoint-type survey analysis, the switching cost of several Japanese telecom services are empirically examined simultaneously, contingent on each carrier’s bundling strategies. The results suggest the following conclusions. The hierarchy of switching costs is mobile phone service, fixed phone service, ISP (Internet Service Provider), and broadband access service, in descending order. Even if the government prohibits the formerly state-owned monopoly NTT from forming alliances with other carriers, the legacy NTT group would still command more than half of the market share under FMC if each carrier adopts a pure bundling strategy. If mixed bundling emerges as the primary strategy in the FMC market, the resulting type of competition from the introduction of FMC does not stimulate competitive pricing.     

A COMPLETE CHARACTERIZATION OF THE INVERTED S‐SHAPED LABOR SUPPLY CURVE

Empirical evidence suggests that labor supply curves are downward sloping at low wage levels, i.e. ‘forward‐falling labor supply’. In contrast, the supply curve is only downward sloping at high wage levels in the canonical labor supply model, i.e. ‘backward‐bending’. This paper derives a labor supply curve with both forward‐falling and backward‐bending segments, or an ‘inverted S‐shape’ by incorporating two elements into a standard utility function: a subsistence level of consumption and a decreasing elasticity of substitution. It is also shown that the subsistence level of consumption plays a key role in determining the shape of the labor supply curve.     

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.     

Finite-dimensional utilities

Summary. Sufficient axioms are identified for the existence of a finite- dimensional quasilinear utility function whose lexicographically ordered vectors preserve a decision maker's preference order on a mixture set . It is shown that those axioms are also necessary for the linear lexicographic representation when the underlying set is a mixture space. Received: August 20, 1998; revised version: December 14, 1998     

Micro-foundation for a constant elasticity of substitution production function through mechanization

We consider an increase in the range of capital use as a form of mechanization. A constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function is dynamically derived from Leontief production functions through the endogenous complementary relationship between capital accumulation and mechanization. This implies that a CES production function can be resolved into technological change that does not involve changes in total factor productivity. Furthermore, using the normalizing procedure of the CES production function developed by de La Grandville [de La Grandville, O., 1989. In quest of the Slutsky diamond. American Economic Review 79, 468–481], we investigate how mechanization is related to the elasticity of substitution in our endogenous growth model.     

A flexible dynamic model of multiproduct technology for the West German economy

This paper tests symmetry and negativity of the Slutsky matrix for a system of demand functions derived from an aggregate model of multi product technology within a flexible dynamic framework. The model considers three inputs and three outputs, including imports and exports of intermediate goods. We derive a static demand model from a trans log cost function and specify the data generation process by a stationary ARX (1, 1) model. Results based on West German quarterly data indicate that the integrability conditions are not rejected when imposed on the ARX (1, 1) model, whereas they are rejected for all the less general dynamic models considered.