Project details : 2013

Reiko Aoki（IER）, Yukiko Abe（Hokkaido University）,  Emiko Usui（Nagoya University）, Keiko Yoshida（Momoyama Gakuin University）, Shingo Takahashi（International University of Japan）, Ana Maria Takahashi（Kobe Univiersity）, Koyo Miyoshi（Aichi Gakuin University）

We invited Dr. Donna Ginther (Kansas University, USA) on June 2013, and Dr. Manuel Bagues (Aalto University, Finland) on March 2014, to our conferences. We have benefitted from them for international research progress. Also, an analysis from a survey to university faculty members in Japan suggests that payments to women are approximately 5% lower than men, but the reasons are not known. For further investigation, we have investigated status of university faculty members, especially for the junior and women, and itemized and constructed analysis models for the purpose of application to use microdata of “School Basic Survey” and “School Teacher Statistical Survey” of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) - Japan.

In order to complete the long-term statistical data on Korea, various kinds of statistical data are collected, estimated, and analyzed. (In particular,  following points which were the outstanding issues at the beginning of this research are bring focused: 1) implementing additional tasks for the estimation, 2) adjusting the consistency, 3) analyzing in details of the estimated results.)    In January, 2014, these results were assembled and put into a temporarily binding of the “Asian Historical Statistics-Korea""  book,   (currently  stored  at  the  Asian   Historical  Statistics Department of the Institute of Economic Researches, Hitotsubashi University), and we have delivered a seminar on this topic. “Asian Historical Statistics-Korea"" book will soon be published, as a completion of our project.

Takahisa Dejima（Sophia University）,  Shinsuke Ito（Meikai University）, Kazuhiro Kinoshita（IER）,  Keiichi Sato（Senshu University）,

Mariko Murata（Statistical Information Institute for Consulting and Analysis）, Yukiko Kurihara（Hirosaki University）

Takashi Onodera（Japan Center for Economic Research） 

Findings of the empirical analysis was summarized and translated into English, reported at an academic conference, addressed the matters pointed out by reviewers, and was submitted to a specialized journal. This study is one of only a few analyses of the business cycle at a regional level. Findings of this study include:

(i) The unique method of estimating both level and timing of its original economic indicators by prefecture, while taking into consideration deviation from national economic indicators, including structural changes, is valid; and,

(ii) Verification of the primary factors behind such deviation, including verification from the perspectives of fiscal and monetary policy at a regional level, showed the possibility that the worsening of the financial situation during the 1990s and the decrease in public investment during the 2000s may have caused a severe shock to rural economies.

Val O. Pede（International Rice research Institute）, Takeshi Sakurai（IER）,

N. V. Palanichamy（Tamil Nadu Agricultural University） 

Kajisa visited an irrigation system in the Philippines and Sakurai visited community forest in Madhya Pradesh, India, in order to obtain better understanding of the community management of the commons. We found that trust and discipline (including punishment) among the users are important. This observation is statistically confirmed by the data collected from the abovementioned irrigation system in the Philippines. We organized a workshop to share this finding in March. To enlarge our perspective, the workshop invited Dr. Nori Tarui (University of Hawaii) and Dr. Takeshi Adia (The University of Tokyo), each covering the recent theoretical development and a case study of Sri Lanka.

In this research, we evaluated Japanese investor’s gain from portfolio diversification by investing commodity index, and the change between pre-to post-Lehman shock.

More Specifically, we examine change in correlation between commodities and Japanese stock market index, SMB factor, HML factor, and calculate the tangency portfolio allocation between two asset classes.

This research mainly focused on estimating the PPP unit value (Purchasing Power Parity Theory) of China and Japan in the 1950s, utihzmg the quantity of output as well as the value data of manufacturing by industry，calculating each unit value of production. The result had also led to estimate both country’s labor production rate of manufacturing by industry.  Furthermore, in order to compare the long term productivity of the manufacturing industry, our research team had estimated the results of the United States in the same period.

During this research, our co-researcher Professor Tangjun Yuan of Fudan University had visited the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University for several times to analyze the documentations and to estimate fr·om the results. In August 2013, we had received professional comments at the mid-term report presentation made at the Fudan University in China. In March 2014, our final report presentation had been made at the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University.

Kosuke Oya（Osaka University）, Toshiaki Watanabe（IER）, Masato Ubukata（Kushiro Public University）, Daisuke Nagakura（Keio University）, Tsunehiro Ishihara（Hitotsubashi University）, Asuka Takeuchi（Sophia University）

(1) Realized volatility is shown to be useful for the pricing of Nikkei 225 options, (2) the volatility risk premiums in Japan with high-frequency data are shown to be useful in predicting credit spreads and the composite index of coincident indicators, (3) a new method for the estimation of volatility under the existence of microstructure noise is proposed, and (4) the realized stochastic volatility model proposed by Takahashi, Omori and Watanabe (2009) is extended and applied to financial risk management such as volatility forecast, Value-at-Risk and expected shortfall. 

The objective of this research is to compile historical statistics on child adoption in Korea and provide a comparative analysis of adoption in Korea and Japan. During the project period, I collected comprehensive historical statistics on child adoption as well as related data that include birth rates, abortion rates, divorce rates, and the number of children born out of wedlock, the number of child welfare institutions, and recent changes in the adoption laws. Between August 2013 and January 2014, I conducted two field studies in Korea that consisted of not only data collection at government libraries but also research interviews at child adoption agencies, the Baby Box, and other institutions. Based on the material and information collected, I compiled the statistics on child adoption in Korea from 1950 to 2013 in an electric format and examined the historical evolution of child adoption in Korea. The results of this research were reported in a symposium and a research workshop and will be published in an academic journal. 

In this project we conducted three full rounds of empirical exercise, closely working together in April 2013 through the internet, in October 2013 by my visit to Aix-En-Provance, and in February 2014 by Girardin's visit to Kunitachi. In these rounds of work, we tried several techniques from traditional to most recently developed ones with different specifications, and different types of data (monthly, quarterly and annual), in searching for the meaningful dating of China's business cycles from late 1980s to present time. We have finally found the most suitable and most recently developed methodology that is able to account for both the mean and volatility regimes, and arrives at a better business cycle dating for China.

Reiko Gotoh（IER）, Takashi Oshio（IER）, Naoki Yoshihara（IER）,

Akira Inoue（Ritsumeikan University）, Paul Dumouchel（Ritsumeikan University） 

We held 4 conferences for this research project though this project had started since August 2013. The main results from our conferences are followings: 

1. Theoretical study on distributive justice based on the equality of capabilities,

2. Survey on previous literatures for measuring human’s well-being,

3. Policy evaluation of Japan’s employment quota system for disabled people,

4. Strengthening of research collaboration with the OPHI, the university of Oxford.

Among the above results, results 1 and 3 will be published as discussion papers by the mid-term 2014.

An international workshop “Pursuing innovation in cross-disciplinary research in economics and health sciences” was organized on December 13, 2013 at Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University with 9 speakers from Australia, Hong Kong, UK and Japan. In February and March 2014, Goto conducted re-survey of 122 households in three regions in West Nepal in order to investigate the impact of the civil war in Nepal (1996-2006). Among the 122 households, 68 households were cohort from 1982/83 and 1997 surveys.

Erwann Sbai（University of Auckland）, Yossi Spiegel（Tel-Aviv University）, 

Zhijun Chen（University of Auckland）, Tue Gorgens（The Australian National University）, Reiko Aoki（IER）, Matthew Ryan（University of Auckland） 

We have found from survey that people have two reasons to support peacaeable franchise extensions : (1) their own political power; and (2) the impact of franchise extension on their favored policy. Using survey data and a quasi-experimental design, we found evidence for both types of motivations. Voters who have children under 20 (Demeny eligible) support Demeny voting because they will get more votes as result.  However even among voters with no young children, those who have policy preference similar to Demeny eligible voters also support Demeny voting.

Yukinobu Kitamura（IER）, Vamsi vakulabharanam（University of Hyderabad）,

Chia Ngee Choon（National University of Singapore）, Tsui Ka Cheng（National University of Singapore）

This project intends to analyze the Japanese economy, in general and household income and consumption in particular by using the official statistics that are opened to academic researchers, we can shed new light on the Japanese economy. In so doing, three foreign researchers visited and stayed at Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, and participated a conference and research meeting.  In addition, they visited statistical Bureau of Japan and exchanged their views.