AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN JAPAN

Japan is situated at the opposite end of the European continent from Western Europe. Climate, culture and history all differ greatly between the two, as does agriculture. Half of the farmland is devoted to paddy rice, livestock raising is still a new industry and the average farm size is only one hectare. Nevertheless, one would find many similarities in policy. The oversupply of major agricultural products is one of the most serious problems in Japan, whilst slow structural reform is the other, and a declining rural community is undermining the agricultural base. This paper confines itself to an outline of Japanese agricultural policy, without making explicit comparisons with Western Europe.     

Does Aid for Roads Attract Foreign or Domestic Firms? Evidence from Cambodia

Less developed countries have received substantial foreign aid for transport infrastructure, making its quantitative assessment important. To investigate the effect of aid for road infrastructure on the location of foreign and domestic firms, this study employs the first comprehensive census on all business establishments in Cambodia for 2011 and measures the geographical distribution of aid disbursements in roads. Estimating a negative binomial model, we find that aid disbursements in roads have little influence on the entry of foreign and domestic firms across communes. Compared with the aid effect, the location of firms is more strongly influenced by other determinants such as population size, electricity access, and labor supply.     

What Forms the Trajectory of Social Reforms? The Roles of Decision Rules and Communication under Epistemic Uncertainty

Group Decision and Negotiation - This paper presents a theoretical model that explains how decision rules and communication jointly affect collective outcomes in a small community under epistemic...