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...

Since the end of the 1990s, local governments in Japan have enacted Information Disclosure Ordinances, which require the disclosure of official government information. This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the period 1998?2004 to examine how this enactment affected the rate of...

Panel data regressions for 24 OECD countries showed that the less corrupt a society is, the lower the total suicide rate. This effect was approximately three times larger for males than for females. It follows that corruption has a detrimental effect on social well-being.

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...

This paper explores, using Japanese panel data for the years 1988–2009, how externalities from congestion and human capital influence deaths caused by chronic illnesses. Major findings through fixed effects 2SLS estimation were as follows: (1) during the first-half period 1988-98, the number...

Using cross-country data, this paper examines the influence of government transparency on changing views regarding nuclear energy before and after Japan’s natural and nuclear disasters of 2011. Empirical results show that transparency increases the rate of favor for nuclear energy.

We analyze the effect of a wife’s human capital on her husband’s earnings, using individual-level data for Japan in the period 2000–2003. We find a positive association between a wife’s education and her husband’s earnings, which can be attributed to the assortative mating effect as...

This paper uses cross-country data compiled immediately after the Fukushima nuclear accident to investigate how the experience of such disasters affects the perception of the risk of nuclear accidents. Estimation results show that the perceived risk of a nuclear accident is positively associated...

This paper uses cross-country data from 1965 to 2008 to examine how ethnic heterogeneity affects the probability of technological disasters. Estimation results showed that ethnic heterogeneity increased the probability of technological disasters.

The question to what extent corruption influences suicide remains still unanswered. This paper examines the effect of corruption on suicide using a panel data approach for 24 OECD countries over the period 1995-1999. Our results indicate suicide rates are lower in countries with lower levels of...