Project details : 2011

Reconsideration of Inter-generation Issues in Former Socialist Countries:

After Two Decades of Systemic Transformation and Beyond

Ichiro Iwasaki（IER）, Hirofumi Katayama（Oberlin University）, Fumikazu Sugiura（Teikyo University）, Kazuko Sato（Oberlin University）

This project aims to analyze a contemporary economic situation of systemic transformation in former socialist countries, dealing with the inter-generation issues, such as labor market, corporate governance, environment policy, and pension reform. Members visited Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria, organized a workshop with a Hungarian scholar, and utilized materials in the Institute of Economic Research. In the final workshop, each member reported such topics as a pension reform in Czech republic, a survival of Russian firms after the world financial crisis and corporate governance, Russia’s strategy to the global warming and solar power industry, pension reform in Hungary, and a general strategy of the systemic transformation for two decades. We came to a tentative conclusion that the systemic transformation seemed to be a success, but that in order to retain an economic stability and realize a sustainable economic growth there still remained a lot of tasks, and that political instability might affect negatively to the coherent economic policy.

This joint research project consists of two groups, that is, the statistics group and the group for writing up the volume of the Philippine long-trem statistics. The first group gathered and analyzed the trade and population data of pre- and post-WWII. And the scholars of the second group conducted their respective research based on their role in writing up the Philippine volume of the long-term statistics, and published papers. This joint research functions as the basis for the writing up the Philippine volume from the next year and for this purpose the mini-workshop Was held in March 2012.

Under the framework of this project the group could conduct a small size of household

surveys in Tajikistan, and this will enable us to fix the direction of our future

research. Additionally, by using a large scale household survey, Tajikistan Living

Standard Measurement Surveys, we could examine the quantitative impact of migrants’

remittances and found that migrants were sent out not from the poorest families: hence,

it was indicated that Tajik labor migrants and their remittances might not be pro-poor.

This project attempted to compile 2005 international imput-output databases, applying them to analyses of issues of international trade and global environment. These databases are unique and epoch-making outcomes in the literature. 2005 International Input-Output Tables for EU 22 countries, Asian countries and BRICs were compiled. Based on the concept of value-added trade, issues of international trade were analyzed  Using Asian international. input-output data the global carbon linkage was clarified.

We attempted to compile historical database on GDP by industry for the Soviet republics, utilizing classified input-output tables. Conducting this, we also analyzed and compared these series with long-tem statistical database on mining and manufacturing, agriculture, and international trade which participant researcheres reconstructed. In addition, budget and finance statistical database was compiled for the period of Imperial Russia and after. Concerning the international trade, we investigated and compared “trading gains” in modern Russia and “special trade revenue” in Soviet Russia. We accomplished the aims of this project and reached a common understanding.

This paper investigates the statistical measurement of income distribution and evaluates the income redistribution effect of income tax system in Japan, using National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure 1984-2004. This paper finds first that income inequality has been widening over time, especially in the young (age 39 or　less) and middle (age 40-59) groups, second that tax role of income redistribution has　been weaken since 1984, and third that the income redistribution effect by taxation is strong in the old (age 60 or above) group because distribution of before tax income is　already very unequal among them.

We investigated how mother’s labor supply affects food consumption within a household, using “Consumer Panel Data on Daily Consumption”compiled by a research company, Intage. We found that households would purchase less goods requiring more time for food preparation, when mothers started working in the market, especially as part-time workers. Previous researches have not found a consistent result on the effect of mother’s labor supply on home production time. The existence of a discouraging effect of mother’s labor supply on home production is shown by our research using daily goods-consumption data, but not time use data, which had been used in the previous researches.

In 2011 fiscal year, We focused on the research Labor Productivity, Unit Labor Cost and Economic Growth in the Republican China, 1911-1949. This study attempts to discover a coherent connection between the wartime industrial development in China and the post-war industrialization. By reconstructing scattered data for the wartime economy and reconciling them with the statistics available for the early 1950s. We Collected and constructed the data sets, specially focus on prices, wages and productions, then we calculated PPP of Japan and China in 1935, 1952 as bench marks, and made comparison analysis. Moreover, we have discussed some topics such as 1. the role of the government in the wartime resource allocation, 2. Resource reallocation, and the growth and structural changes of the wartime Chinese economy, 3. The impact of the wartime economy on the postwar development etc. We reported the  results on the conference on the performance of the Chinese wartime economy–Factor Costs, Resource Allocation, Output and Productivity, institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, March.27, 2012.

Main results are as follows. (1) The realized volatility which is the estimate of daily volatility using high-frequency data is useful for option pricing. (2) The realized GARCH model where daily returns and RV are modeled simultaneously is useful for Value-at-Risk and option pricing. (3) The volatility risk premium defined as the difference between RV and the model-free implied volatility obtained from option prices is useful for predicting the future stock prices and business conditions.

We organized two open conferences, as well as ordinary discussion among the members. First, three members, Komine, Akagi and Yoshiwara presented their papers on Beveridge, Charity Organization and the theory of welfare state, respectively, on December 4th 2011 at Hitotsubashi. Second, three other members, Hara, Gotoh and Takami talked about family policies, American Liberalism and Pigou’s welfare economics on February 4th 2012 at Ritsumeikan. As around 20 people discussed at the latter conference, our project not only encouraged each member’s studies on welfare state theoretically and historically, but attracted several specialists and post-graduates. 

This research aims to conduct an empirical analysis of job mobility that takes into consideration predicted values for wages estimated based on the Mincer wage equation. For this purpose, official microdata from the “Employment Status Survey” and “Basic Survey on Wage Structure” are used. The results of this research allow for a more precise identification of the effect of the value estimated by the Mincer wage equation on job mobility. Partial results of this research were presented at Workshop ‘Economic Activities of Households Based on Microdata’ which was held at Hitotsubashi University in March 2012, and will be published as a “Discussion Paper” by the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University and in other publications.