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Project details : 2015

Project title	Effects of Childcare Availability on Children and Labor Supply in Extended Family
Research leader	Yukiko Asai (The University of Tokyo)
Research contributors	Shintaro Yamaguchi (McMaster University) , Ryo Kambayashi (IER),
We estimate the causal effects of childcare availability on the maternal employment rate using prefecture panel data constructed from the Japanese quinquennial census 1990-2010 and the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in 21st century. We find that childcare availability did not increase maternal employment, because the expansion of accredited childcare crowded out informal childcare provided by grandparents. However, as more and more families do not live with grandparents who used to take care of grandchildren, this crowding effect became weaker in the 2000's.

Project title	Mind the gap: does gender pay gap influence fertility decisions?
Research leader	Ekaterina Selezneva （Institute for East and Southeast European Studies）
Research contributors	Tatiyana Karabchuk（National Research University), Kazuhiro Kumo（IER）
We merged demographic analysis, gender analysis and happiness studies on the Former Soviet States and Russia in examining determinants of fertility. A sociological point of view on gender relations is introduced in conducting econometric analysis. Members gathered in Tokyo and organized a panel at the XI Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies held in Chiba and presented our research results.

Project title	Effects of Tax System and Child Support on Work and Income Disparity: From the Point of View of Area and Life Cycle Events
Research leader	Taro Ohno (Onomichi City University)
Research contributors	Kazuyasu Sakamoto（Gunma University）, Yoko(Yamamoto) Morita（Nagoya City University）,Yukinobu Kitamura (IER) , Takeshi Miyazaki（Kyushu University）
We had a conference of the title “The fact of society and economy in Japan from microdata analysis” in 2015 fiscal year (on 17 March 2015 in Hitotsubashi University). In the conference, two research products were reported. One paper is the “Tax Reforms, Redistribution and Population Aging: Evidence from Japan” by Miyazaki, Kitamura and Ohno. Another is the “Wife’s Income and Income Disparity between Households: Estimation of Contribution to Inequality by Income Origin” by Sakamoto and Morita.

Project title	Consumer Inventory and Dynamic Demand for Storable Goods
Research leader	Kazuko Kano (Musashino University)
Research contributors	Abe Naohito（IER）, Takashi Kano（Hitotsubashi University）
We analyzed household behavior using a data set with purchase history and inventory of storable consumer goods at the household level. Our analysis focused on the interactions among purchase, consumption, and inventory, which had been supposed to be unobservable in the literature. We provided evidence that consumer inventory actually existed leading to the discrepancy between purchase and consumption, and showed that the consumer inventory was one of the important factors to affect, for example, the timing of purchase.

Project title	Forecasting Inflation Rates with Large-Scale POS Data
Research leader	Shinya Tanaka (Otaru University of Commerce)
Research contributors	Yoshimasa Uematsu（The Institute of Statistical Mathemacs）, Akiyuki Tonogi（IER）
In the first half of the project period, we mainly focused on constructing a methodology that was applicable to forecasting with large dimensional datasets. Uematsu and Tanaka (2015, 2016) included our theoretical contributions of the project. In the latter half of the period, we applied our forecasting methodology to large-scale POS data, and we examined how it forecasted inflation rates well. We found that our method exhibited encouraging performances compared to existing ones.

Project title	Understanding the heterogeneity of income growth across income quantiles in Japan
Research leader	Saumik Paul (University of Nottingham)
Research contributors	Yukinobu Kitamura (IER), Takashi Kurosaki（IER）, Takashi Oshio（IER）
Inequality issues are gaining importance in Japan as policymakers and even the general public are now very much aware of it. Based on the ranking by OECD in 2013, Japan ranks 9th as the most unequal country in the world in terms of the ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%. Coupled with Japan’s underperforming economy, addressing the causes of inequality will indeed be a difficult challenge to overcome. As a first step, we have opened a window into the last 30 years of Japan with regards to the issue of income inequality. There are numerous factors which may have contributed to the rise in Japan’s levels of inequality. For the purpose of the present study, we focus on three factors. First, ageing population, which may contribute to the inequality as the elderly have lower income, a small share of the elderly in the labour force and a small tax base supporting a large pension. Second, changing household characteristics, for example a decline in 3-generation household, increase in single-member, couple-only households and loss of familial support for the elderly could cause inequality to grow. Finally, Gender discrimination in the workplace and gender-stratified wages and treatments could also play a crucial role in exacerbating the welfare conditions. As a second step, we use four rounds of the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure data collected in 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004. Based on the growth incidence analysis, we find that the period from 1989-1994 shows no change in inequality, whereas the period form 1994-99 shows an increase in inequality mainly due to the pro-rich growth incidence. However, the next period from 1999 – 2004, again, shows a moderate decline in inequality. Since different factors may have different impacts at different points of the income distribution, in light of standard decomposition routine, we classify them into two groups: “the structure effect” and “the composition effect”. In order to examine the relationship between observable household characteristics / demographic factors and income growth at each quantile, we use unconditional quantile regressions (UQR) based on re-centered influence function (RIF). The preliminary evidence suggests that a rise in inequality during the period from 1994 – 1999 could be a total effect of three individual events. The significant increase in the number of single member households and returns to them (especially in the top half) is the first one followed by an increasing gap between returns to households with elderly members and others. A drop in returns for agricultural households and female headed households (especially in the bottom half) contributes to a further increase in inequality. As a way forward, we plan to add two more rounds of data (2009 and 2014) to this analysis and we also like to use the generalized Oaxaca-Blinder type decomposition analysis based on the RIF-regressions to quantify the effect of each of the factors at different points across the income distribution to inequality.

Project title	Economic Research on Japan’s Foreign Workers
Research leader	Yuki Hashimoto (Kyusyu University)
Research contributors	Kyoji Fukao (IER), Ryo Kambayashi (IER), Naoki Yamashita（RMIT University）, Shintaro Yamaguchi (McMaster University) , Satoshi Tanaka（University of Queensland）, Naoki Aizawa（University of Minnesota）, Kunio Urakawa（Kyusyu University）, Kiyomi Shirakara（IER）, Yutaka Abe（IER）, Yukiko Asai（The University of Tokyo）
Data analysis was virtually impossible to be carried out, because we couldn’t have permission for the usage of data from the government until January 2016. After receiving data, by March 2016, we made algorithm to combine these data with the data of Report on the Employment Situations of Foreigners. Now we have engaged in matching occupational classifications of Basic Survey of Wage Structure with the data of Career Matrix made by JILPT. Organizing data will be completed in June 2016.

Project title	An empirical study of female/young academic researchers in Japan and other countries
Research leader	Shingo Takahashi (International University of Japan)
Research contributors	Reiko Aoki（Kyushu University）, Yukiko Abe（Hokkaido University）, Atsuko Ueda（Waseda University）, Yuka Ohno（Hokkaido University）, Miki Kohara（Osaka University）, Emiko Usui（IER）, Keiko Yoshida（St. Andrew's University）, Anamaria Takahashi（Kobe University）, Koyo Miyoshi（Aichi Gakuin University）, Valerie Smeets（Aarhus University）、Frederic Warzynski（Aarhus University）
We held an international workshop in which studies that use data from the Report on School Basic Survey were presented. We invited foreign researchers, and held three mentoring workshops for Japanese female economists and held a workshop where attendees belonging to Japanese universities presented their research and received feedbacks. In addition, these researchers from abroad presented their own research in seminars.

Project title	Heterogeneity of capital goods and investment behavior by type of acquisition: choosing among new, used, large-scale renovation, and leasing
Research leader	Konomi Tonogi (Kanagawa University)
Research contributors	Kazumi Asako (Rissho University), Keiichi Shima (Mie University), Jun-ichi Nakamura (Research Institute of Capital Formation), Akiyuki Tonogi（IER）
The present research aims to analyze the investment behavior of firms by using the micro data from the Survey of Capital Expenditures and Disposals of Private Enterprises (SCEDPE) conducted by the Japanese Cabinet Office. Since SCEDPE does not contain the financial data of sampled firms, we need to link this with other data sources which contain detailed financial information of the firms. We have so far linked SCEDPE successfully with DBJ’s Financial Databank and Toyo Keizai’s Capital Investment / R&D database.

Project title	Relationship between development of work life balance, productivity and social security policy
Research leader	Keiichi Sato (Senshu University)
Research contributors	Minoru Hayashida（Kitakyushu University）, Naomi Kodama（IER）, Takahisa Dejima（Sophia University）, Shinsuke Ito（Chuo University）, Mariko Murata（Statistical Information Institute for Consulting and Analysis）, Yoshikazu Ikeda（Kitakyusyu University）, Hiroaki Matsuura（Shoin University）
This research evaluates how young Japanese decision to work is influenced by household risk assets and mothers’ working status. For this, a binary logistic model based on the anonymized microdata of the ‘National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure’ is used. The analysis indicates that household risk assets might have a significant effect on the working status of young Japanese. On the other hand, this analysis shows that there has a high statistical significance, even if mothers’ income is controlled for their mothers’ working status introduced into model to control the composition of household income. Partial results of this research were presented at the fiscal year 2015 workshop ‘Actual Situation of the Social Economy Based on Microdata’ which was held at Hitotsubashi University in March 2016, and will be published as a “Discussion Paper” by the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University and in other publications.

Project title	Development of county-level data using prefectural statistical reports, and prewar rural economic development
Research leader	Yasuyuki Sawada (The University of Tokyo)
Research contributors	Yukinobu Kitamura (IER) , Junichi Yamasaki（London School of Economics and Political Sciences）, Ken Miura（Brown University）
From April to October, We digitized the prefectural statistical reports, utilizing a microfilm held at the library of Research Centre for Information and Statistics of Social Science in Hitotsubashi University, and PDF documents available at national diet library. From January to March, using the dataset we presented preliminary results about the effect of railways on technology adaption in factories , and we are still improving dataset and analysis.

Project title	Research on the Interrelationships between Institutions and Norms, and LegitimacyⅡ
Research leader	Toyotaka Sakai (Keio University)
Research contributors	Reiko Gotoh（IER）, Naoki Yoshihara（IER）, Norihito Sakamoto（Tokyo University of Science）, Ryo Kambayashi (IER), Hiroyuki Yoshida（Nihon University）
We had created so-called public space of discussion through regular meetings with presenters, commentators and advisers every month in the Institute of Economic Research. On the common subjects of the Interaction between Institutions and norms, various kinds of specialists such as mechanism design, social choice, empirical economics, dynamic economics, law and economics, economic philosophy, political philosophy gathered and discussed.

Project title	Natural assets, comprehensive wealth, and living standards in Japan since the 1870s
Research leader	Jean-Pascal Bassino (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
Research contributors	Kyoji Fukao (IER), Osamu Saito（IER）, Tokihiko Settsu （Musashi University）, Masanori Takashima（IER）
The objectives of the research project have been achieved. However, instead of preparing two papers covering the period 1870 to the present, the first one on natural assets and the second one on comprehensive wealth and living standards (as indicated in the proposal), the members of the research team have decided to organize the presentation of the results in two papers covering two sub-periods. They prepared first a paper focused on the period 1870-1940 and second on a paper covering the period 1940 to the present. The main justification is that a paradigm shift occurred in the late 1930s, with a much higher level of destruction of natural capital. For this reason, specific estimation procedures are required for this second period.