The lay judge system, a quasi-jury system, was introduced in Japan from May 2009. This paper attempts to analyze Japanese people’s attitude towards this system by examining whether they show a willingness to serve as a lay judge. The major findings from regression analysis are: (1) In general,...

Using individual level data (the Japanese General Social Survey), this paper aims to explore how interaction between genders contributes to the cessation of smoking in Japan, where females are distinctly less inclined to smoke than males. Controlling for various socioeconomic factors and...

Japanese prefecture level panel data for the period 1986–2003 was used to analyze and compare the determinants of teenage body mass index (BMI) by sex and geographical area. Major findings through random effects estimation were as follows: (1) BMI consistently increased during the period in...

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...

Using Japanese panel data for 2006-2009, this study attempts to examine how the pass rate of law school student taking the new bar examination influences the number of applicants for the law school in the following years. The major finding is that the higher the law school student pass rate, the...

In this paper, we explore the relationship between the influence of wives’ human capital on their husbands’ earnings and their labor participation using individual level data for Japan in the period 2000–2003. We found that a wife’s human capital has a positive effect on her husband’s...

This paper uses individual data from Japan to explore how the circumstances of where a person resides are related to the degree of their investment in social capital. Controlling for unobserved area-specific fixed effects and various individual characteristics, I found; (1) Not only that...

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...

Japanese prefecture level panel data for the period 1986–2003 was used to analyze and compare the determinants of teenage body mass index (BMI) by sex. Major findings through random effects estimation were as follows: (1) BMI consistently increased during the period in males aged 10–16 and...

Using individual data from Japan, this paper investigates how a neighbor’s immobility is associated with individual investment in social capital. It is found that local homeownership has a positive effect on individual investment and that this effect for individual homeowners is about 2.5...