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

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: Disclosure of official information is positively associated with the happiness of workers, but...

Based on prefecture-level panel data from Japan for the period 2010-2014, this study investigates the influence of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident on the body mass index (BMI) and obesity rates of children and any changes over time. A differences-in-differences approach was used to show...

The positive relationship between trust and happiness has been demonstrated by the literature. However, it is not clear how much this relationship depends on environmental conditions. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 is considered one of the most catastrophic events in human history. This...

This paper uses panel data from Japan to explore how the Great East Japan Earthquake influenced the intention to leave one’s place of residence by comparing the same individuals’ responses before and after the earthquake. Controlling for unobserved individual fixed effects and various...

In Japan's hometown tax donation system, people can donate to municipalities where they are not resident and in return receive reciprocal gifts from the local governments of those municipalities. A large part of the donated amount can be deducted from their income and residence taxes. This study...