{"title":"Male and Female Happiness in Japan During the 2000s: Trends During Era of Promotion of Active Participation by Women in Society","authors":"Nahoko Mitsuyama, Satoshi Shimizutani","doi":"10.1111/jere.12183","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12183","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Female happiness has been paradoxically declining over recent decades in reverse proportion to expanding opportunities for women in developed countries, but this subject has not been explored in Japan. Using JGSS, we found that Japanese women have been slightly happier in both absolute and relative terms to men in the 2000s. While happiness of men aged 35–49 and 65 and over temporarily declined in the first half of the decade, women in age groups 20–34 and 65 and over gained happiness in the second half. Moreover, trends in life satisfaction in terms of economic aspects are similar for men and women, slightly advantageous to men in marriage, and largely advantageous to women in non-market and non-family aspects.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12183","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121458086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effects of Pregnancy and Birth on Smoking and Drinking Behaviours: A Comparative Study Between Men and Women","authors":"Eiji Yamamura, Yoshiro Tsutsui","doi":"10.1111/jere.12184","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12184","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Using panel data obtained from monthly surveys for 3 years, we examined how the effects of life events on smoking and drinking behaviours differ between men and women. The key findings were that: (i) consumption of alcohol and cigarettes by men and women were lower during pregnancy and after childbirth than before pregnancy; (ii) pregnancy and childbirth led women to stop drinking and led men to reduce their alcohol consumption but not to stop drinking; and (iii) marriage, pregnancy and childbirth led women to stop smoking and marriage and birth led men to stop smoking but the effects of pregnancy on men are unclear.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12184","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132829089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Mixed Duopoly With Switching Costs","authors":"Jorge Fernández-Ruiz","doi":"10.1111/jere.12182","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12182","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine the effects of switching costs in a two-period Hotelling-type model where a profit-maximising private firm competes with a welfare-maximising public firm. We show that, in contrast with the case in which both firms are private, where switching costs raise prices in both periods, in the mixed duopoly they raise prices in the second period but reduce them in the first period. Moreover, the first-period price reduction is of such magnitude that switching costs reduce firms’ profits and raise consumer welfare. We also find that switching costs affect the consequences of privatisation in favour of firms and against consumers.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12182","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123881283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Replicability of Experimental Data and Credibility of Economic Theory","authors":"Michihiro Kandori","doi":"10.1111/jere.12175","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12175","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Finding a data set that supports a theory is not enough for the theory to gain credibility. Credibility of a theory is established only after the initial supporting finding can be replicated by a number of follow-up studies. Economics so far has paid little attention to replicability, presumably because the profession has been overly pessimistic about obtaining a high degree of replicability of non-trivial theoretical predictions. By using a large data set I have collected that involves more than 4,000 subjects, I show that there is hope for economic theory to gain credibility by means of replications of laboratory data.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12175","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131452114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimal Deterministic Mechanism Design: Type-Independent Preference Orderings","authors":"Hitoshi Matsushima","doi":"10.1111/jere.12176","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12176","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We investigate revenue maximisation in general allocation problems with incomplete information, where we assume quasi-linearity, private values, independent type distributions and single-dimensionality of type spaces. We require a mechanism to be deterministic, strategy-proof and ex-post individually rational. We assume that each player has a type-independent preference ordering over deterministic allocations. We show that the Myerson's technique to solve the incentive-constrained revenue maximisation problem in single-unit auctions can be applied to general allocation problems, where the incentive-constrained revenue maximisation problem can be reduced to the simple maximisation problem of the sum of players’ virtual valuations without imposing any incentive constraint.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12176","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77127346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interregional Fertility Differentials and Agglomeration","authors":"Tadashi Morita, Kazuhiro Yamamoto","doi":"10.1111/jere.12174","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12174","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this study, we construct an interregional trade model that includes endogenous fertility rates. The presented model shows that the agglomeration of manufacturing firms in a large region causes fertility rates to become lower than in a small region. We also find that a decrease in transportation costs results in the agglomeration of manufacturing firms, which lowers fertility rates in both large and small regions. In addition, comparing the competitive equilibrium with the optimal equilibrium, the fertility rates may be inefficiently small.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2018-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12174","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76620164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tao Gu, Masayuki Nakagawa, Makoto Saito, Hisaki Yamaga
{"title":"Public Perceptions of Earthquake Risk and the Impact on Land Pricing: The Case of the Uemachi Fault Line in Japan","authors":"Tao Gu, Masayuki Nakagawa, Makoto Saito, Hisaki Yamaga","doi":"10.1111/jere.12173","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12173","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, we explore how land pricing reflects public perceptions of earthquake risk using officially appraised prices of land situated along the Uemachi fault, which lies on a north–south axis in the east of Japan's Osaka Prefecture. We reveal that land pricing along this fault has only incorporated fault-driven earthquake risk since residents and policy-makers first realized its potential following damage to the southern part of Hyogo Prefecture in a January 1995 earthquake along the Rokko–Awaji fault (an event now known as the Hanshin–Awaji earthquake). We find evidence of a discount of 20% in nonresidential land prices for every kilometre closer to the Uemachi fault line since the Hanshin–Awaji earthquake.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12173","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130758448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unit Root Tests for Dependent Micropanels","authors":"In Choi","doi":"10.1111/jere.12170","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12170","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper proposes a new test for the null hypothesis of panel unit roots for micropanels with short time dimensions (<i>T</i>) and large cross-sections (<i>N</i>). There are several distinctive features of this test. First, the test is based on a panel AR(1) model allowing for cross-sectional dependency, which is introduced by a factor structure of the initial condition. Second, the test employs the panel AR(1) model with AR(1) coefficients that are heterogeneous for finite <i>N</i>. Third, the test can be used both for the alternative hypothesis of stationarity and for that of explosive roots. Fourth, the test does not use the AR(1) coefficient estimator. The effectiveness of the test rests on the fact that the initial condition has permanent effects on the trajectory of a time series in the presence of a unit root. To measure the effects of the initial condition, the present paper employs cross-sectional regressions using the first time-series observations as a regressor and the last as a dependent variable. If there is a unit root in every individual time series, the coefficient of the regressor is equal to one. The <i>t</i>-ratios for the coefficient are this paper's test statistics and have a standard normal distribution in the limit. The <i>t</i>-ratios are based on the OLS estimator and the instrumental variables estimator that uses reshuffled regressors as instruments. The test proposed in this paper makes it possible to test for a unit root even at <i>T</i> = 2 as long as <i>N</i> is large. Simulation results show that test statistics have reasonable empirical size and power. The test is applied to college graduates' monthly real wage in South Korea. The number of time-series observations for this data is only two. The null hypothesis of a unit root is rejected against the alternative of stationarity.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12170","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114089161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Child Benefit, Tax Allowances and Behavioural Responses: The Case of Japanese Reform, 2010–2011","authors":"Shun-ichiro Bessho","doi":"10.1111/jere.12171","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jere.12171","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The reform of Japan's child benefit system in 2010 was followed by the abolition of the tax allowance for dependents in 2011. The present study uses micro-level data from the Employment Status Survey and an estimation of a discrete-choice model of labour supply to examine the effects of these reforms on the labour supply, after-tax incomes and the utility of households. The results show that the reforms decreased the labour supply of parents and that the funds necessary to implement them were underestimated by 22% when this behavioural change was disregarded.</p>","PeriodicalId":45642,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2017-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/jere.12171","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125182749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}