The main purposes of this study are: 1) to elucidate the trend of demand for Welsh onions; 2) to elucidate the regional disparity of demand for Welsh onions. The trend and the regional disparity are analyzed by the demand functions.
The results of this study are follows: 1) in the winter season Welsh onions have a great demand. However, according to the price elasticity of demand for Welsh onions in the Osaka Central Wholesale Market, the demand is increasing in the summer. It means that there is a tendency for demand of Welsh onions all year round; 2) the income elasticity of demand for Welsh onions is large in the summer. Therefore the demand is expected to increase in the summer; 3) in the future, it is possible that the demand in major cities of the Western Part of Japan increases. There are two reasons for this: i) as a region moves to the west, the price elasticity and the income elasticity of demand for Welsh onions become larger and larger; ii) Welsh onions consumption per head of major cities is larger than that of any other city.
Also in this study we conclude that Welsh onions are considered essential goods depending on the price elasticity of demand.

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Many papers have measured the effects of institutional change on economic growth in rural China. The discussions, however, are all confined only to the agricultural production in spite of the non-agricultural value added has accounted for 56% to total rural value added in 1993.
This paper focuses to the relation-ship between economic growth and the factor transfers from agricultural branch to non-agricultural branch in rural China. The official data in provincial level from 1985 to 1993 are used to test whether the disquilibrium structure exited and whether the growth structures are different among eastern, central and western regions. A series of disequilibrium models are estimated to measure the effects of factor transfers on economic growth.
Comparing to the neoclassical model, the disequilibrium model is more suitable to the economy with dis-equilibrium structure like rural China. In 1985-93, about one fifth of economic growth in rural China can be explained by the factor transfers from agriculture to rural non-agricultural branch.

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After the rapid economic growth in 1960's, rural areas of Japan have faced many social and economic problems and, therefore, rural activative movements have been developing in various ways. Among these movements, recent studies have highly evaluated the ones the concerned residents themselves have the initiative in developing. I think, however, the preceding studies conceroned and focused on the dynamism of such movements and neglected social contexts in which rural activative movements have developd. Rural activative movements connot be evaluated as single-aimed and isolated object. They are social movements which have many aspects and have evoluted relating many other social conditions.
In this paper, I first analyze the epistemological framework of proceeding studies. Secondly, I clarify the mechanism of interaction between rural activative movements and social relations in the case of MIRAIJUKU in Ichijima town.

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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the Cobb-Douglas profit function and the corresponding indirect production function of duality in Tohoku and Kinki regions by periods in order to detect the characteristics of rice production behavior since 1970. By using ITSUR method together with the hypothetical tests, the major findings are as follows:
(1) Following to the test of the absolute price efficiency hypothesis, it is clear that the rice producers behaved according to profit maximization in the Tohoku and Kinki regions by periods. (2) There didn't exist constant returns to scale in the two regions over periods. (3) Judging from the corresponding indirect elasticity, the rice producers in the two regions showed different reactions to prices and agricultural policies respectively, and the regional character of rice production behavior is formed by the reactions in the end.

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