Using Japanese prefecture level data for the years between 1988 and 2001, this paper explores how and the extent to which social capital has an effect on the damage resulting from natural disasters. It also examines whether the experience of a natural disaster affects individual and collective...

Using individual data of Japan, this paper investigates how frequency of contact with foreigners is associated with the perceived outcomes of foreigner increases. Results showed that frequency of contact has a critical effect on perceptions and that its influence varies according to household...

Using Japan’s prefecture-level panel data from 1989-2001, this paper examines the influence of the social norm on a person’s smoking behavior when the complementary relationship between smoking and drinking is taken into account. The key findings through a dynamic panel model controlling for...

This paper examined how and the extent to which human capital and social trust are associated with the learning process of a manager in making operations decisions through experience. To this end, using a data set originally and purposively constructed by the author, I investigate the...

The number of suicides in Japan has substantially increased during its low growth period. The main argument of Durkheim’s (1951) seminal work in the field of sociology is that suicide is under influences of not only individual traits but also of the society one belongs to. 　Recently it was...

This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996 to examine how the relationship between government size and life satisfaction changes. The major findings are: (1) Government size has a detrimental effect on life satisfaction when government size impedes economic growth...

This paper uses panel data from Japan to decompose productivity growth measured by the growth of output per labor unit into three components of efficiency improvement, capital accumulation and technological progress. It then examines their determinants through a dynamic panel model. In...

This paper attempts to analyze the results of Japan’s new bar examination, so far held in 2006 and 2007, and to investigate why the new bar examination had unanticipated outcomes. The major findings from regression analysis are: (1) The ratio of professor committee members affects the pass...

This paper explores, using Japanese panel data for the years 1988-2002, how externalities from congestion and human capital influence deaths caused by chronic illnesses. Major findings through fixed effects 2SLS estimation were as follows: (1) the number of deaths were smaller in more...

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...