Using Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996, I explore the extent to which inequality, age heterogeneity, and human capital have an effect upon neighborhood trust, which is ordinarily considered as a kind of particularized trust. The major findings are as follows: (1) Income...

The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake hit Japan in 1995, causing devastating damage to the economic landscape of southern-central Japan. However, the earthquake also caused people to realize the importance of social capital in Japan. Based on a large, individual-level database comprising...

The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995 has had a significant detrimental effect on the economic conditions of southern-central Japan. However, the earthquake also led people to acknowledge the importance of the many volunteer activities in Japan at that time. Using a large sample of...

High school baseball is very popular in Japan. All games of the high school baseball tournaments are publicly broadcasted. This paper hypothesizes that high school baseball influences the happiness level of the Japanese. Individual level data in Japan was used to test this hypothesis. The key...

This paper explores the relationship of social capital to self-rated health status in Japan, and how this is affected by the labor market. Data of 3075 adult participants in the 2000 Social Policy and Social Consciousness (SPSC) survey were used. Controlling for endogenous bias, the main finding...

Using panel data for 24 (OECD) countries during the period 1980–2004 this study examines how social trust affects fertility. The major finding through the random effects approach is that the social trust increases the fertility rate. A 1% rise in the trust rate leads to an increase in...

There is controversy between Putnam and Olson concerning the role of groups. Putnam argued that small groups contribute to economic growth, whereas Olson asserted that small groups hamper economic growth through rent-seeking behavior. Since the end of the 1990s in Japan, there has been a...

This paper uses individual-level data from Japan (2003) to examine the effects of government size and the disclosure of official government information on happiness. The major findings are as follows. (1) Disclosure of official information is positively associated with the happiness of workers,...

Empirical studies have shown that preferences for redistribution are significantly correlated with expectations of future mobility and the belief that society offers equal opportunities. We add to previous research by investigating the role of individual and social norms on rent seeking. We find...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan are the only cities in the world that have experienced an atomic bomb attack. This paper explores how this devastating experience affected victims’ tendency to trust others. Individual-level data were used to examine the long-term influence of experiencing an...