Eiji Ohno

NOx Reduction Effects of the Policy to Reduce Diesel Automobiles and its Influence on Price Change

With NOx emissions being greater from diesel than gasoline engines the possibility is being considered in Japan of reducing the number of diesel vehicles. This paper describes a model which predicts the number of diesel vehicles and NOx volume and the impact of policies to reduce diesel vehicles. The impact on cars and small trucks is considered. Three policies are tested: a) an end to the production of diesel vehicles, b) an increase in diesel oil price and c) an upper age limit on the use of diesel vehicles. The results are discussed with particular reference to the effect on commodity prices. The final recommendation is that fuel prices be increased by 120%. For the covering abstract see IRRD 883195.

Economic Valuation of Plural Public Works by Considering Synergy Effect

This study has proposed an economic valuation model to distinguish between the independent effect and the synergy effect of plural public works in the framework of conjoint analysis, and proposed a new method to allot the synergy effect to each project. From a case study on economic valuation of public works in the remoter mainly rural districts, the result indicates that there exist not only the positive value but also negative value of the synergy effect. When we pay attention to allotment of the synergy effect of each two project, it seems that the allotment ratio does not depend on the ratio of the independent effect of each project.

Benefit Evaluation of Park Improvement by using the New Travel Cost Method

Since environmental resources, such as water, green and atmosphere of park, are not traded in the market and do not have market prices, it has been traditionally considered difficult to quantify benefits derived from the improvement of environmental quality. This paper employs a new Travel Cost Method (TCM) which was proposed as a non-market valuation method in our previous study, and tries to measure the benefits. Through a case study, we can find that the benefit of a park improvement may cover its cost and that difference between the benefit measured by the new TCM and the previous TCM is about 10%.