This paper interprets number portability as a reduction of switching costs in a model of competition between telephone companies. We identify several cases by their cost and demand characteristics and show that social benefit of number portability are not guaranteed. Analysis using two-part...

Following the introduction of the long-term care insurance scheme and deregulation of the market for at-home care services, Japan experienced a substantial increase in expenditure on care for the elderly. Using household-level survey data, we empirically examine whether the increase in care...

In a seminal contribution, Hansson has demonstrated that the family of decisive coalitions associated with an Arrovian social welfare function forms an ultrafilter. If the population under consideration is infinite, his result implies the existence of nondictatorial social welfare functions. He...

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Although there exists a large volume of literature on the subject, a consensus on the labor supply effects of the social security earnings test for the elderly has yet to be reached. This study proposes an alternative approach of utilizing direct responses to a survey on the earnings test, a...

Despite a decrease in the number of working generations supporting Japan's social security system, the relationship between public pension benefits and health care expenditures since the inception of universal health insurance system has not been explored. We obtained one stable long-run...

In an infinite-horizon setting, Ferejohn and Page showed that Arrow's axioms and stationarity lead to a dictatorship by the first generation. Packel strengthened this result by proving that no collective choice rule generating complete social preferences can satisfy unlimited domain, weak Pareto...

The interval in time between leaving a career job and exit from the labor force is especially long for Japanese employees and separation from the career job often takes place due to mandatory retirement in Japan. Using micro-level data compiled by the Japanese Government, we examine determinants...

In Japan, as in other developed countries, smoking rates have been decreasing among men but it has been increasing among women. The prevalence of smoking may relate to accompanying gender differences in the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how occupation affects...

Voluntary standard setting organizations (SSOs) are a common feature of systems industries, where firms supply inter-operable components for a shared technology platform. These institutions promote coordinated innovation by providing a forum for collective decision-making and a potential...