Proposal of industrial research and development performance indices

To express research and development performance, R&D efficiency and R&D cash flow are proposed as indices. These indices reflect the connection between investment and its results more clearly than conventional indices such as R&D expenditure-to-sales ratio. For this attribute, the proposed indices are expected to be particularly useful in demonstrating the R&D division's accountability to other divisions and work within the R&D division toward R&D efficiency improvement.     

Migration Turnarounds and Schedule Changes in Japan, Sweden and Canada

Little progress has been made in convincingly identifying the common determinants of the simultaneous migration turnarounds observed in almost all advanced countries. It is likely, however, that the turnarounds occurred in close relation to changes in the age patterns of the migration rates (or migration schedules). This paper examines the main causes of migration schedule changes by applying a model migration schedule to inter-regional migration data from Japan, Sweden and Canada. The general decline of overall mobility defined by the gross migraproduction rate is common to the three countries. It was clarified that young adults' peak migration rate played a prominent role in changing migration schedules during the decades of the migration turnarounds.     

Assessment of passenger benefits brought about by international airport projects

This study sets forth a method to calculate the passenger benefits of an international airport project and assesses the passenger benefits brought about by two international airport projects.An international airport project mainly increases the number of flights and the possibility of determining convenient timetables. It does not significantly decrease the flight time of international travel. Thus, the user benefits brought about by an international airport project cannot be expressed by the conventional concept of ‘traveling time’, which is the term generally used.In this study, the ‘Expected Value of Traveling Time’ and ‘Expected Value of Generalized Cost’ are presented as indexes to evaluate improvements in convenience brought about by international airport projects. The passenger benefits of two airport projects in Japan are measured by consumer surplus calculated from the demand function using these indexes.These indexes are accurately calculated taking into consideration factors such as scheduling connections between domestic and international transport, and so enable a grasp not only of reductions in flight time, but also of passenger benefits resulting from international airport projects, such as increases in the number of flights and reductions in the time required to make transfers during domestic travel.     

The Choice of Accounting Policy In Japan

The purpose of this study is to investigate factors which potentially influence Japanese managers' choices of accounting policies. Several factors have been posed to affect the choice of accounting policy of U.S. managers (e.g., Watts and Zimmerman's (1986) positive accounting theory). However, the general business characteristics of the U.S. environment differ, sometimes drastically, from those in Japan. Factors affecting the choice of accounting policy in the U.S. may not similarly affect the choice of accounting policy in Japan. At the same time, new factors may be identified in the Japanese business environment.
Income strategy models are developed for each firm according to the type (income increasing or income decreasing) of accounting policies employed. The results suggest that both the size and debt/equity hypotheses are significant, even for keiretsu firms. These results are surprising given (1) the close relationship between firms and the government, (2) regulations of the commercial code which serve to protect the interests of debtholders, and (3) the tight relationship between banks and firms within keiretsu groups which protects firms from bankruptcy and takeover. Variables representing firms' effective tax rate, ability to finance operations internally, and foreign political costs are also shown to significantly affect Japanese managers' choices of accounting policy. The bonus hypothesis is not significant in the Japanese environment. Furthermore, the choice of accounting policy is explained more by individual firm characteristics than by keiretsu membership or industry membership.     

Development and application of a new methodology of evaluating industrial R&D projects

This paper proposes a new methodology of evaluating industrial R&D projects to assess the effectiveness of future R&D in terms of financial credibility, to prioritize them efficiently by clear criteria to reduce the time and burden consumed by both project leaders and management staffs. A new methodology has been developed and applied to all Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) R&D projects, and is recognized as a useful system for evaluating many R&D projects in a short period, such as 150 projects per month.     

Detecting motives for cooperation in public goods experiments

This study clarifies the types of motives that are important as a source of cooperation in a linear public goods experiment. Our experimental design separates contributions into those due to confusion, one-shot motives (which includes altruism, warm-glow, inequality aversion, and conditional cooperation), and multi-round motives (which includes a strategic motive under incomplete information, a failure of backward induction, and reciprocity). The experiment reveals that multi-round motives plays an important role in driving cooperative behavior. Confusion and one-shot motives play a minor role.     

How well did the new Sumitomo Electric project ranking method predict performance?

The development and implementation of a new R&D project scoring method (NS-method) within Sumitomo Electric Industries was introduced in a previous report. This paper evaluates the NS-method's effectiveness by comparing the information generated by application to 146 projects in 1997 with the project achievements in 2000. The test results revealed that the NS-method's evaluation scores were correlated to the performance indicators such as the gross profit and R&D productivity. It also showed that, when projects are classified into three groups (i.e., Top, Middle, Bottom) according to the forecast data generated by the NS-method, the projects in the Top category had higher actual productivity ratios and success rates than those in the Bottom category.     

The Substitution Effect of Mobile Games on Console Games: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Video Game Industry

In this paper, we discuss the substitution effects between mobile games and console games. We estimate such effects by a fixed-effect regression with instrumental variables using panel data of about 100,000 observations. The results showed that the substitution effects of playing smart devices on 3DS, Wii, and PSP were recognizable, but did not have significant effects on PS3, and the substitution effects on PSP were very small. Therefore, mobile games had a substitution effect on casual console games, or on console games in which the play situation resembled mobile games. In addition, the substitution effects were at most about 0.1. The substitution effects were small. Our results indicate that mobile games represent the pioneers in the new market of gaming at least during our observation period. But new games and traditional games will coexist for a while.     

Paradoxical trade patterns and terms of trade

It is shown that, when a monopoly is present in a two-country, two-commodity world, the terms-of-trade do not necessarily fall in between the pre-trade relative prices of the two countries, and that these pre-trade prices do not unequivocally determine the pattern of trade.