抄録
We investigate how allocative ability affected the diffusion of home electrical appliances, in particular, refrigerators, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners, in Japan. Allocative ability has not been analyzed adequately. This ability is the ability to recognize various feasible production technologies, then to al locate factors of production such as time, auong economic activities, so as to achieve eff icient production. Moreover, this ability appears to be increased by education. In other words, those who are more educated can better comprehend the efficiency of new goods and can be more flexible to change their lifestyle, and therefore they adopt new goods more rapidly than those with less education. The procedure of the analysis is as follows. First, for each prefecture we estimate rates of diffusion for refrigerators, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners, and using the estimated rate of diffusion we est imate the year of initial diffusion for each product for each prefecture. Next, we analyze allocative ability using the estimated rate of di ffusion and estimated year of initial diffusion as explained variables and the level of education for women among other iteus as explanatory variables. The results show that in prefectures with higher levels of female education, the year of initial diffusion was earlier and the rate of diffusion was greater than in other prefectures. These results support the effect of allocative ability.
