1,720,994 research outputs found
Income Uncertainty and Self-Reported Precautionary Wealth: Evidence from the Japanese Micro Data
Using unique survey data which includes information on precautionary wealth and its target, we analyze the precautionary saving behavior of Japanese households. Our findings are: 1. Measures for income uncertainty have a positive influence on the target for precautionary wealth but not on precautionary wealth. 2. The positive influence of income uncertainty on the target vanishes when older households with a head aged 51 or older are included in the sample. These findings suggest that Japanese households save against income uncertainty until around when their head is aged 50 and then save against other risks such as the longevity risk.
Differentiated Use of Small Business Credit Scoring by Relationship Lenders and Transactional Lenders: Evidence from firm-bank matched data in Japan
This paper examines the ex-post performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that obtained small business credit scoring (SBCS) loans. Using a unique Japanese firm-bank matched dataset, we identify whether an SME has obtained an SBCS loan and, if so, from which type of bank: a relationship lender or a transactional lender. We find that the ex-post probability of default after the SBCS loan was provided significantly increased for SMEs that obtained an SBCS loan from a transactional lender. We also find that the lending attitude of relationship lenders in the midst of the recent global financial crisis became much more severe if a transactional lender had extended an SBCS loan to a firm. These findings suggest that SBCS loans by a transactional lender are detrimental to a relationship lender's incentive to monitor SMEs and maintain relationships. In contrast, we do not find such detrimental effects for SBCS loans extended by a relationship lender.
Effect of Pension Reform on Pension-Benefit Expectations and Savings Decisions in Japan
Using the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), a Japanese panel survey of people age 50 or older, we find that many Japanese in their early 50s—compared to those in their late 50s and early 60s—expect their level of public pension benefits to decline. We find that recent pension reform (which raised the pensionable age) affected people by increasing the age when they expect to claim their benefits by almost the exact amount for all. Nevertheless, the effect of reform on their expectations for future benefits remained insignificant. We also find evidence that anxiety about the public pension program's future induces people to save more.
The Flow of Household Funds in Japan
In this paper, I consider why Japans household saving rate was so high in the past and why it has shown a downward trend in more recent years, and based on this analysis, I project future trends in Japans household saving rate. To preview my main findings, I find, first, that Japans household saving rate used to be high but that it has declined sharply in recent years and that it is no longer high in either absolute or relative terms. Moreover, Japans household saving rate will continue its decline due to the rapid aging of her population and other factors and may well become zero or negative within a few years. However, the governments fiscal deficits (government dissaving) as well as corporate investment in plant and equipment can be expected to decline at the same time, and moreover, there is always the option of borrowing from abroad, so the sharp decline in the household saving rate will not necessarily cause any problems.household saving, Japan
Are Trade Creditors Relationship Lenders?
Despite the importance of the hypothesis that trade creditors may act as relationship lenders, it has been virtually impossible to directly test this hypothesis because of a lack of data. We attempt to overcome this problem by using a relatively new Japanese database on small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) that contains information on the strength of the buyer-seller relationship. We find some evidence that trade creditors may be relationship lenders. However, we also find evidence that trade creditors may be financial statement lenders. Our results are generally quite sensitive to model specification in both our "quantity" and "terms of credit" regressions. Thus, our results can only be viewed as suggestive of the possibility that trade creditors acquire private soft information over time and use this information to set the terms of trade financing.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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