Yasuyuki Sawada

The Determinants of Credit Access and Its Impacts on Micro and Small Enterprises: The Case of Garment Producers in Kenya

There are diverse sources of credit for micro and small manufacturing enterprises (MSEs) in developing countries, ranging from relatives and friends, rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs), micro finance institutions, and commercial banks. Using a unique set of data on MSEs in garment clusters in Nairobi, this study attempts to identify the determinants of access to different credit sources and their impacts on firm profitability and growth. The results of the regression analysis demonstrate that factors determining access to credit are often different from those affecting enterprise performance, indicating limited impacts of credit access on enterprise performance.

Rural Poverty and Income Dynamics in Asia and Africa

1. Introduction: An Overview and Conceptual Framework Yasuyuki Sawada, Jonna P. Estudillo and Keijiro Otsuka 2. Income Dynamics, Schooling Investment, and Poverty Reduction in Philippine Villages, 1985-2004 Jonna P. Estudillo, Yasuyuki Sawada and Keijiro Otsuka 3. Human Capital Investment and Poverty Reduction over Generations: A Case from the Rural Philippines, 1979-2003 Kazushi Takahashi and Keijiro Otsuka 4. Income Dynamics, Schooling Investment, and Poverty Reduction in Thai Villages, 1987-2004 Supattra Cherdchuchai, Keijiro Otsuka and Jonna P. Estudillo 5. Income Dynamics, Schooling Investments, and Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh, 1988-2004, Mahabub Hossain A.N.M. Mahfuzur Rahman and Jonna P. Estudillo 6. Income Dynamics and Schooling Investments in Tamil Nadu, India, from 1971 to 2003: Changing Roles of Land and Human Capital Kei Kajisa and N. Venkatesa Palanichamy 7. Role of Nonfarm Income and Education in Reducing Poverty: Evidence from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda Tomoya Matsumoto, Yoko Kijima and Takashi Yamano 8. Determinants of Household Income and Schooling Investments in Rice-Growing Provinces in Mozambique, 2002-5 Benedito Cunguara and Kei Kajisa 9. Toward a New Paradigm of Farm and Nonfarm Linkages in Economic Development Keijiro Otsuka, Jonna P. Estudillo and Yasuyuki Sawada

Are the heavily indebted countries solvent?: Tests of intertemporal borrowing constraints

Abstract This paper investigates whether the Heavily Indebted Countries (HICs), in consideration of their external debt repayments, remain solvent. Direct tests of the solvency condition derived from the usual intertemporal budget constraints shed light on the sustainability of their current policies. The findings are twofold. First, the HICs seem to have a debt overhang problem. Second, in East and Southeast Asian countries except Philippines, the solvency conditions are satisfied. These results give a rationale for the debt reduction plan (a.k.a. the Brady Plan) and the empirical support of the debt overhang hypothesis.

Exchange rate misalignment: a new test of long-run PPP based on cross-country data

A new empirical procedure is formulated and implemented to test long-run PPP by using cross-country data. It is found that out of a total of 153 countries, 132 and 105 countries have achieved PPP within 20 years and ten years, respectively.

The Physical and Social Determinants of Mortality in the 3.11 Tsunami

The human consequences of the 3.11 tsunami were not distributed equally across the municipalities of the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan. Instead, the mortality rate from the massive waves varied tremendously from zero to ten percent of the local residential population. What accounts for this variation remains a critical question for researchers and policy makers alike. This paper uses a new, sui generis data set including all villages, towns, and cities on the Pacific Ocean side of the Tohoku region to untangle the factors connected to mortality during the disaster. With data on demographic, geophysical, infrastructure, social capital, and political conditions for 133 municipalities, we find that tsunami height, stocks of social capital, and level of political support for the long-ruling LDP strongly influenced mortality rates. Given the high probability of future large scale catastrophes, these findings have important policy implications for disaster mitigation policies in Japan and abroad.

Consumption insurance against natural disasters: evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake

We investigated whether people were insured against unexpected losses caused by the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995 and found that the full consumption insurance hypothesis was rejected overwhelmingly, suggesting the ineffectiveness of the formal/informal insurance mechanisms against the earthquake.

Public for private: the relationship between public and private school enrollment in the Philippines

Abstract To overcome market failures due to externalities or lack of an effective credit market, countries often try to improve access to education by providing more public school places. However, if there is already an active private sector, then some of the public expansion may draw away students who may have gone to school anyway. This would attenuate any efficiency gains. This paper estimates this crowding-out effect for the Philippines, a country with a large private education sector. Using regional data over the past 10 years, we estimate that the large expansion in the public secondary education sector is negatively associated with private secondary enrollment. The range of the response is around four or five fewer private school students for an increase of 10 public school students. On the other hand, the crowding-out effect is insignificant at the primary and tertiary levels.

Credit Crunch and Household Welfare, the Case of the Korean Financial Crisis

We examine how the credit crunch in Korea in the late 1990s affected household behaviour and welfare. Using 1996–1998 household panel data, we estimate a consumption Euler equation, augmented by endogenous credit constraints. Korean households coped with the negative shocks of the 1997 credit crunch by reducing consumption of luxury items while maintaining food, education and health related expenditures. Our results show that, in 1997–1998, during the crisis, the probability of facing credit constraints and the resulting expected welfare loss from the binding constraints increased significantly, suggesting the gravity of the credit crunch at the household level.

Financial repression and external openness in an endogenous growth model

An endogenous growth model has been developed that extends Sidrauski (1967), Roubini and Sala-i-Martin (1992,1995) and Lucas (1988) by combining financial development, human capital investment, and external openness. Financial development and trade liberalization are shown to increase the economic growth rate by increasing the marginal benefits of human capital investment. Expansionary governments are, however, provided with an incentive to increase the money supply growth rate, to repress the financial sector, to close its economy, and to impose a high proportional income tax rate.

Does the installation of blue lights on train platforms prevent suicide? A before-and-after observational study from Japan

BACKGROUND Railway and metro suicides constitute a major problem in many parts of the world. Japan has experienced an increase in the number of suicides by persons diving in front of an oncoming train in the last several years. Some major railway operators in Japan have begun installing blue light-emitting-diode (LED) lamps on railway platforms and at railway crossings as a method of deterring suicides, which is less costly than installing platform screen doors. However, the effectiveness of the blue lights in this regard has not yet been proven. METHODS This study evaluates the effect of blue lights on the number of suicides at 71 train stations by using panel data between 2000 and 2010 from a railway company in a metropolitan area of Japan. We use a regression model and compare the number of suicides before and after and with and without the intervention by the blue light. We used the number of suicides at 11 stations with the intervention as the treatment group and at the other 60 stations without the intervention as the control group. RESULTS Our regression analysis shows that the introduction of blue lights resulted in a 84% decrease in the number of suicides (CI: 14-97%). LIMITATION The analysis relies on data from a single railroad company and it does not examine the underlying suicide-mitigation mechanism of blue lights. CONCLUSION As blue lights are easier and less expensive to install than platform screen doors, they can be a cost-effective method for suicide prevention.