Mototsugu Fukushige

Impact of BSE and bird flu on consumers’ meat demand in Japan

In this article, we investigate the impact of BSE and bird flu on consumers’ meat demand in Japan by using the ‘almost ideal’ demand system. The BSE and bird flu scares brought about a fall in demand for beef and chicken, respectively, and an upturn in demand for pork and fishery products, which are substitutes for beef and chicken in Japan. We also find that the bird flu outbreak had no impact on the market share for beef. This suggests that BSE had a larger impact on consumers’ meat demand than did bird flu. Our empirical results also show that BSE has had a persistent impact whereas, bird flu has not. These differences might depend on the characteristics of each disease, such as the incubation period, cure rate and infection risk.

Impacts of tourism and fiscal expenditure to remote islands: the case of the Amami islands in Japan

The Amami islands are located 380 km southwest of Japan proper. These islands have two economic features: they are islands that many tourists visit because of their natural resources and they are an undeveloped area where the central government of Japan provides large fiscal subsidies. We investigate the impacts of tourism and fiscal expenditure simultaneously. The results show that one tourist and about 52 000 yen (about US

The Canada-United States bilateral import demand functions: gradual switching in long-run relationships

480) fiscal expenditure are substitutable in the end.

Did NAFTA cause the structural changes in bilateral import functions between the US and Mexico

By estimating long-run relationships in bilateral import functions, the effects of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement is analysed. We also incorporate the gradual switching model into the import function to capture the phased tariff reductions. The result shows that the free trade agreement made both countries sensitive to domestic and foreign prices and insensitive to the domestic income.

Productivity convergence of manufacturing industries in Japanese MEA

Abstract This paper assesses the long-run bilateral trade relations between the US and Mexico. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had no additional impacts on import functions. Gradual switching existed even before the agreement became effective.

A new approach to the economic inequality based upon the permanent income hypothesis

The study presents (1) the convergence of labour productivity in manufacturing industries in Japanese MEAs during 1985 to 2000, using Markov chain transition matrix and (2) the speed of convergence to an ergodic distribution. The results indicate that (1) the labour productivities of all MEAs converge to different levels in the long-run and (2) its speed is as slow as the Solows growth model.

Types of Public Capital and Their Productivity in Japanese Prefectures

Abstract We propose a new inequality measure based upon the permanent income hypothesis. Tracing its historical changes in Japan, we compare it with some traditional inequality measures for the income distribution.

MULTILEVEL DECOMPOSITION METHODS FOR INCOME INEQUALITY MEASURES

Several researchers have studied the productivity of public capital in Japan but most have not paid attention to the types of public infrastructure or differences in production technology between prefectures. We estimate prefectural production functions with differently aggregated public capital. Through the model selection process, we examine the types of productive public capital. The empirical results show the production technologies used and how types of productive public capital differ between prefectures.

Annual redistribution and lifetime redistribution

This paper studies the multilevel decomposability of the respective income inequality measures proposed by Theil, Rao and Bahattacharya–Maharanobis. All the methods can be decomposed into multilevels if and only if each lower level subgroup belongs to only one particular higher level group. We found not only analytically but also empirically that the residual in the decomposed Bahattacharya–Maharanobis measure tends to increase when the decomposition levels increase. We conclude that Theils and Raos decompositions have advantages in empirical analysis and that the choice of the decomposition methods depends on the purpose of the analysis.

On the determinants of households' consumption inequality: an empirical analysis for Japanese workers' households

Abstract I propose a method to evaluate the degree of income redistribution throughout a persons life-time. An international comparison of life-time redistribution in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan has been attempted. This comparison clearly shows the differences in the degree of redistribution in each of the countries.