Ken Tabata

Health Infrastructure, Demographic Transition and Growth

Empirical studies show that the fertility rate (mortality rate) exhibits an inverted u-shaped dynamic in some countries, while it decreases monotonically in other countries. This paper formulates the concept of public health infrastructure and constructs a growth model that replicates various historically observed patterns of fertility and mortality rates.

Demographic change, human capital accumulation and R&D-based growth

Employing an overlapping generations model of R&D-based growth with endogenous fertility and education decisions, we examine how demographic changes induced by an increase in life expectancy influence the long-run growth rate of the economy. We demonstrate that life expectancy, when relatively low (high), positively (negatively) affects economic growth. This paper also compares the growth implications of child education subsidy policies (i.e., policies for enhancing basic education) and child rearing subsidy policies (i.e., pro-natal policies) and demonstrate that while the child education subsidies consistently foster economic growth, child rearing subsidies may negatively affect economic growth.

Distributive Policy with Labor Mobility and the Samaritan's Dilemma

We consider a model with two countries in which each government redistributes income between two types of individuals (the rich and the poor). This model shows that an increase in the mobility of individuals induces intensive tax competition across countries and lowers the level of redistribution undertaken by each country. However, this lower level of redistribution enhances individuals f efforts to raise his own labor income and alleviates the consequences of the Samaritan fs dilemma. Welfare evaluation of economic integration should be based on the balance of these two competing effects.

MIGRATION, MEDICAL AID AND WELFARE*

This paper constructs a simple rural-urban migration model that explicitly incorporates the interactions between the individuals migration decision, the risk of incurring an infectious disease and unemployment. We show that providing a subsidy for health investment in urban regions in the form of medical aid does not improve individual welfare. This is because it induces further urban migration, increases the risk of infection and unemployment, and offsets completely the positive cost-reduction effect.