Asian Growth Research Institute Repository (AGI) / リポジトリ
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Urban Development Miracle in China: An Explanation through the Lens of Unified Development Economics Theory
Get PDFThe extraordinary urban development witnessed in China since the inception of economic reforms cannot be fully explained by insights or frameworks rooted in neoclassical economics. Building upon a review of pertinent literature, this paper introduces an innovative unified development
economics framework, tailored to the context of China's urban ascension, and constructs the "3633" theoretical framework for China's unified urban development. Its underlying logic posits that institutional transformations during the reform era have fostered three agents – households, enterprises, and city governments – each with distinct demand-supply preferences, anticipated returns, and balance sheets, who harness six key elements (population, human capital, material capital, land, institutions, and technology) to drive their behavioral dynamic. These agents engage in three realms of activity – competition and collaboration, learning and innovation, production and consumption – leading to economic activities interweaving across sectors, space, and time. By adopting this framework, we systematically analyze the formation of economic agents during urban development since reform and opening-up, interaction mechanisms among economic agents for mutual needs, and the evolution of their capabilities, behaviors and assets underpinning urban development post-reform. Finally, through a spatiotemporal perspective, we present theoretical deductions in alignment with China’s urban reality, encompassing rapid growth and transitions of individual cities, the shift from homogeneous competition to specialized cooperation among cities, and staged acceleration of urbanization.working pape
On the Impact of Long-term Care Insurance on the Behavior of Parents and Children: Theory and Evidence on Japan
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to conduct a theoretical and empirical analysis of how the behavior of parents and children is affected by the presence or absence of long-term care insurance (LTCI). In our empirical analysis, we use micro data from the Japan Household Panel Survey on Consumer Preferences and Satisfaction (JHPS-CPS), formerly known as the Preference Parameter Study, conducted by Osaka University. Japan is an interesting case to analyze because a public LTCI system was introduced there in 2000. Our analysis shows that, in the case of Japan, if parents are eligible for public LTCI benefits, their children will be less likely to be their primary caregiver and that this, in turn, will reduce their children’s perceived likelihood of receiving a bequest from them. This result implies that bequests are selfishly or strategically motivated (i.e., that parents leave bequests to their children in order to elicit care from them) and that the introduction of a public LTCI system will reduce the likelihood of children providing care to their parents and through this channel reduce their perceived likelihood of receiving a bequest from them.working pape
Travel Vloggers on TikTok: Their Distribution and Impacts on Regional Tourism Development
Get PDFAnecdotal evidence from multiple cities suggests that short videos boost
destination awareness and subsequently, tourism visitation. TikTok has now
become one of the most popular short video platforms and accordingly, has
attracted intensive attention from the tourism industry and scholars querying the
implications. While previous tourism studies have primarily concentrated on the
platform’s viewers and user-generated content, studies focused on travel vloggers
are scarce, and their roles in tourism development remain understudied. This study
utilizes big data from TikTok in China and employs spatial analysis to investigate
the distribution characteristics and impacts of travel vloggers in regional tourism
development. The spatial analysis methods utilized include Moran’s I index and
Geodetector. The Moran’s I analysis results indicate that cities with a similar
number of travel vloggers tend to be clustered; however, this tendency is higher
with regard to non-travel-themed vloggers. The Geodetector results reveal that
travel vloggers significantly influence provincial tourist arrivals, demonstrating
larger impacts than conventional variables such as scenic areas, travel agencies,
and transport infrastructure. The most crucial factor contributing to the impact of
travel vloggers is their number. This is followed by their productivity in terms of
the number of videos they upload, which wields a larger impact than the shares or
likes they receive. Within the productivity metric, the cumulative productivity of
travel vloggers from previous years exerts a higher influence than their recent
productivity from the past year. Interestingly, the number of their followers does
not necessarily impact regional tourist arrivals. These insights can assist
policymakers and practitioners in leveraging vloggers for regional tourism
development.working pape
The Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle or Paradox after 44 Years: A Fallacy of Composition
Get PDFThe finding of Feldstein and Horioka (1980) that domestic saving and domestic investment are highly correlated across countries despite the rapid globalization and liberalization of financial markets in recent decades has been regarded as a Puzzle or Paradox. However, in this paper, we show that countries as a whole may not be able to transfer their capital abroad and that the Feldstein-Horioka Finding of domestic saving and domestic investment being highly correlated across countries may arise even if there are no frictions in financial markets and even if individual investors can freely transfer their capital abroad if there are frictions in goods markets such as transport costs, tariffs, nontariff barriers, the cost of regulatory compliance, etc. In fact, there is evidence that frictions in goods markets are a more serious impediment to countries as a whole being able to transfer their capital abroad than frictions in financial markets, especially in the short run.working pape
解雇手当契約を可能にする社会インフラ整備
Get PDF米国では人材の解雇と新規採用によって、技術革新に必要な、機敏な人材の配置換えが可能である。対して、日本では、解雇が困難であり、その分、特に、IT産業などで、時代に合った採用が出来ず、長期的な生産性の伸びを抑制している。
本稿では、まず、従来からの慣行型の雇用契約を残しつつ、解雇条件を明文化した新規契約をも可能にする規制緩和を提案する。次に、そのために必要な解雇手当基金や雇用保険制度などの社会インフラの整備を提案する。特に、企業による解雇手当基金への積み立ての義務化、国によるデフォルトの解雇手当水準の設定、雇用保険料への履歴料率制の導入など、労働市場の健全な流動化を促進する仕組みについて論じる。解雇が起きにくいことを前提として構築されている現行の社会インフラのまま、解雇条件を明文化した契約を導入すると、企業による解雇の頻発や労働者による解雇手当獲得を目的とする退職などのモラルハザードを生むことになるからである。
本稿で提案する社会インフラ整備の下では、解雇条件を明文化した新規契約を結ぶ企業に対しては、解雇時にそれが社会に及ぼす負担に応じたペナルティを与える一方、解雇される労働者には解雇手当の給付を確実にする。解雇された労働者が受ける保護は格段に向上する。
一方、企業はそれらの代償を払った上で、自社に必要な能力を持たない労働者を解雇できるため、能力のある労働者のみを高い賃金を支払って雇用できるようになる。これは、新時代が必要とするイノベーションを、日本でも可能にする。working pape
Book Review of Takashi Unayama, Analysis of Consumer Behavior in Contemporary Japan: Current Perspectives on the Life Cycle Theory (Keio University Press, May 2023)
Get PDF本書は 500 ページにもおよぶ日本人の消費行動に関する大変な力作である。著者が本書の冒頭で書いている通り、本書の目的は、「現代日本において消費がどのように決定されているのか、その決定構造にはどのような含意があるのかを明らかにすること」である。消費は国内総生産（GDP）の一つの構成要因に過ぎないが、どの国においても GDP の最も大きな構成要因であり、半分以上のシェアを占め、しかも国民の経済的豊かさの最も重要な尺度である。したがって、本書が扱うテーマは極めて重要なものである。しかも、著者は消費研究の大家であり、過去 15 年間の間に消費行動に関する数々の先駆的な論文を David Cashin、Joshua K. Hausman、Melvin Stephens, Jr.、Johannes F. Weilandなどの著名な経済学者と共著で執筆し、American Economic Journal: Applied Economics、Economics Letters、Japanese Economic Review、Journal of the Japanese and International Economies、National Tax Journal、Review of Economics and Statistics、『経済研究』、『経済分析』をはじめ、内外の定評のある経済雑誌などに掲載している。これらの論文の多くは本書に収録されている。著者の一連の消費研究が一冊の書籍の形でまとめられており、英語論文の場合は和訳されていることは、読者にとって大変喜ばしいことである。言うまでもなく、本書は決して著者の過去の論文の寄せ集めではなく、収録されている論文は大幅に加筆・修正・統合されており、書物として一貫性のある内容になるよう再構築されている。working pape
Are Japanese Households Really Not Saving Anymore?
Get PDFこの章では、『消費生活に関するパネル調査』を用いて、2000年以降の日本の有配偶女性世帯の家計貯蓄率の実態と動向を整理する。貯蓄意欲を捉えるために、月間の世帯収入に対する月間の貯蓄の比率に着目した分析の結果、日本の既婚世帯の月間家計貯蓄率は一貫して低下しているのではなく、2000年以降で見れば家計貯蓄率は下げ止まっていることがわかる。また、同一個人のライフサイクルでの貯蓄率を見ると、40歳代後半にかけて家計貯蓄率は下がっていき、それ以降は少なくとも50代にかけて増加に転じる。さらに、1960年代生まれの世代と比べて、それより遅く生まれた世代で貯蓄率は低い傾向にある。そして、これらの家計貯蓄率は、所得階層が低い家計、妻の教育年数が短い家計、子供のいる家計、家計管理をしていない家計で低いことがわかるが、これら家計の特徴の差だけでは家計貯蓄率を説明することはできず、経済状況や社会環境も大きな影響を与える。たとえば、所得が増えた時にどれぐらい貯蓄率を増やすかという「貯蓄性向」は、税制の変化の影響を受ける。working pape
Causes of the Sharp Decline in Migration to Major Metropolitan Areas in the 1970s
Get PDFJapan's rapid growth in the 1960s was accompanied by a massive migration from rural to urban areas. However, immediately after 1970, migration declined sharply, and at the same time, the rate of economic growth plummeted.To explain this decline in urban-bound migration, we estimated the urban-bound migration function.The estimation reveals that in the 1970s, the largest factor contributing to the decline in this migration was the relative increase in per capita income in rural areas. The second most important factor was narrowing regional disparities in the job-to-application ratio. In addition, the relative increase in the stock of social capital in the local regions also contributed. However, the population change in the rural areas had negligible effects on urban-bound migration in the 1970s.This paper also demonstrates that the relative increase in per capita income in rural areas is largely due to policy-based regional redistribution, implying that the large-scale redistribution of the fruits of rapid economic growth to rural areas halted urban-bound migration and reduced the growth rate. This suggests that for developing countries experiencing high growth, curbing the political pressure to redistribute to rural areas may be important to sustain the growth.working pape
Migration behaviors leaving metropolitan areas: assessing the impacts of health risks and teleworking in the COVID-19 context
Get PDFAn increase in the number of people leaving metropolitan areas (MAs) was observed in various countries in the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. While considerable attention has been paid to the impacts of health risks and teleworking, two prominent topics related to health-crisis-led migration, empirical evidence remains inadequate. This study aims to empirically investigate the impacts and temporal changes of these two factors on migration leaving MAs (LMA migration). It utilizes survey data from the Japanese government and employs fixed effects logit models.(1) By using infection rates in a more accurate measurement than previous studies, this study confirms the health-risk-aversion motives in LMA migration. (2) Teleworking’s influence on LMA migration is found to be insignificant over the long term. Nevertheless, it increases the likelihood of formal employees staying in MAs and strengthens the tendency of the self-employed to leave for local areas. (3) Temporally, the significant impact of lower COVID-19 infection rates attracting metropolitan residents persisted beyond the pandemic stringency and continued for several months afterward, though it eventually reversed. Teleworking shows a positive influence on LMA migration only in the later stage of COVID-19. These findings suggest a tendency of ‘deferred decisions’ in LMA migration due to people’s unfamiliarity with an unprecedented health crisis. However, the negative impact of infection risks emerges sooner than the significant effect of teleworking, indicating that safety is a pressing priority for LMA migration in the early stages of a major health crisis. (4) Self-employed individuals, homeworkers, and the unemployed are more likely to engage in LMA migration, while employees (whether formal or informal) are less likely, highlighting the role of opportunity costs. Policy implications suggest that local governments should focus on attracting the self-employed from MAs during health crises and on enhancing the teleworking environment for the long term.working pape
An Exception that Proves the Rule: Japanese Monetary Policy under the Classical Gold Standard, 1897–1914
Get PDFThe paper explores Japanese monetary policy under the classical gold standard (1897–1914), while providing a succinct exposition of the distinguishing features of the Japanese gold standard regime. The paper, explaining how the Bank of Japan conducted monetary policy, finds that, as a general practice, (i) it used fiduciary issues to offset movements in monetary gold so as to stabilize the supply of currency; (ii) it moved the discount rate in the same direction as the government moved the extra issue tax rate; and (iii) it raised the discount rate in response to an increase in gold outflows. The rules-of-the-game-like behavior of discount rate policy, motivated by the central bank’s mandate to preserve gold convertibility, was robust and consistent, challenging the semi-consensual view that violations of the rules were frequent and pervasive under the classical gold standard.working pape