Implications of the minimum access rice import on supply and demand balance of rice in Japan

The recent development of rice policies in Japan are summarized. The impact of the minimum access (MA) import on the supply and demand balance of rice, and the rice diversion areas in the future is also predicted.     

Using Constraint Programming to Design an Option-based Decision Support System

Financial options and futures give investors the opportunity to form complex strategies that meet their investment objectives for risk management. However, this opportunity gives rise to a difficult task: finding a desired strategy from among a large number of possible strategies. This paper describes an intelligent decision-support system for generating option-based investment strategies by using constraint programming, which is an integrated framework of Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming. In this system, constraint programming acts as a bridge between qualitative and quantitative analyses in decision processes. In qualitative analysis, logical reasoning with hypotheses is used to automatically create complex strategies through abstract matching with investors' profiles. Here, abstract matching can be regarded as symbolic computation for producing qualitatively reasonable strategies. In quantitative analysis, a set of complete solutions that satisfy user-supplied constraints are obtained by constraint satisfaction and optimization. A constraint language based on the framework of Constraint Logic Programming has been developed in order to integrate these symbolic and numerical computations in a uniform way. The resulting system written in this language has the following features. (1) Unlike rule-based expert systems, the constraint-based system can create novel investment strategies. (2) A smooth transition from qualitative to quantitative analyses can be naturally achieved due to the constraint language. (3) Qualitative analysis can reduce search complexity, because the analysis focuses on a small set of qualitative distinctions in solution space. These features indicate the usefulness of constraint programming for designing intelligent decision-support systems.     

Optimal Rules of Origin with Asymmetric Compliance Costs under International Duopoly

We examine the optimal rules of origin (ROO) in a free trade area/agreement (FTA) by employing a stylized three-country partial equilibrium model of an international duopoly. We incorporate compliance costs of the ROO into the model. In particular, compliance costs are higher for a firm located in a non-member country of the FTA than for a firm (an internal firm) located in an FTA member country, whereas marginal production costs are lower for the former. The FTA member countries set the optimal level of ROO to maximize their joint welfare. An importing country within the FTA imposes tariffs on imports that do not comply with the ROO. We show that the optimal ROO may have a protectionist bias in the sense that they are set for only the internal firm to comply. ROO may also cause low utilization of FTAs when they are set such that even the internal firm does not comply with them. These cases arise depending on parameter values.     

Evaluation of Asian Income Distribution and Poverty Ratios Using Worldwide Income Distribution

This paper aims to estimate worldwide income distribution for multiple years, and then to use this data in evaluating income distribution for particular countries or areas. Based on previous contributions to estimate the worldwide distribution for a particular year, worldwide income distribution was estimated by using per capita GDP, purchasing power parities of the International Comparison Programme, and income distribution data for various countries. Results for four years show that Gini coefficients exceeded 0.5 and were relatively stable from 1962 to 1985. Income distribution for the Asian area is compared to worldwide income distribution. A Relative Advance Index is proposed to measure the position of a country's particular income distribution in relation to worldwide income distribution. The Index shows that Asian income distribution has shifted toward higher income as compared to worldwide income. The paper also suggests that worldwide income distribution can be used to determine the poverty level cutoff point.     

Globalisation,multinationals and productivity in Japan’s lost decade

This paper studies the process of plant exit and productivity growth in Japan during the ‘lost decade’. A productivity decomposition shows the low rate of productivity growth at the aggregate level to be due to slow within plant productivity growth and a small contribution from the entry and exit components. We find the causes of plant exit to be similar to results in other country contexts except we find no effect from import competition. Our results suggest that the low productivity growth is attributable to high entry barriers and little to the shutting of productive plants by MNEs.     

ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND RULES OF ORIGIN UNDER INTERNATIONAL OLIGOPOLY*

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have rules of origin (ROOs) to prevent tariff circumvention by firms of nonmember countries. This article points out that in imperfectly competitive markets, ROOs have another role overlooked in the existing literature. Instead of focusing on the impacts of ROOs in the intermediate‐good markets, we draw our attention to the final‐good markets to examine the effects of ROOs. We find that under some conditions, ROOs benefit both firms at the expense of consumers. Under some other conditions, ROOs benefit the firm producing outside the FTA and hurt the firm producing inside the FTA.     

How Does FDI Affect Productivity at Home?: Evidence from a Plant-Level Analysis

This study investigates the effect of foreign direct investments (FDI) on home productivity using plant-level data rather than firm-level data. Our results are consistent with the theoretical predictions. Horizontal FDI (HFDI) does not have a significantly positive effect on home productivity in plants that have the same activities abroad. In contrast, vertical FDI (VFDI) significantly enhances productivity in plants with an input–output relationship with activities relocated abroad. Furthermore, focusing on FDI in East Asia, the productivity improvements at home through VFDI are even greater, which might be caused by significant differences in factor prices between Japan and host countries.     

von Neumann–Morgenstern stable sets of income tax rates in public good economies

This paper studies the von Neumann–Morgenstern stable sets in a public good economy, where any allocation is achieved through a proportional income tax system. The outcome of the economy is defined to be a set of tax rates. We show that whenever the core as the set of tax rates is nonempty, it is a unique stable set. When the core is empty, the set of tax rates is a stable set if and only if the set is a singleton consisting of a tax rate satisfying a certain condition. We show the existence of such stable sets. The author is grateful to Mikio Nakayama, Jun Wako and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions. He is also grateful to Youngsub Chun, Takuya Masuzawa and Shigeo Muto for their helpful comments.