With the population declining, local government are competing with one another to attract permanent residents. Local governments should adopt more efficient and more attractive policies. However there is little research that any policies have effects on the choice of inhabitants or residents.

We analyze influential factors in making decision over residence, using with Yokosuka Survey. The paper presents several evidences that bear on this issue. Particularly, the enrichment of civil services, security, and natural environment are identified as important determinants in the choices of permanent residents.

This paper examines the effects of the “gift economy” and explains the reasons for its emergence in the aftermath of large-scale earthquake disasters. The first half of this paper is dedicated to understanding the negative impact of in-kind donations (which is called “gift economy” in contrast to “market economy”) on commercial businesses by using data from the questionnaire survey administered by the author in Ojiya city, Niigata. The latter half of this paper is devoted to theoretically explaining why a “gift economy” emerges in the aftermath of disasters, incorporating the concept of transaction cost. The primary conclusion is that a gift economy is a rational institution that emerges in the immediate phase of disaster, and an attempt to introduce a market system in the disaster economy would result in failure. Instead, the “arrangement economy,” which emerges in the transition from a gift economy to market economy, should be reinforced in order to ensure a smooth transition.

The number of elderly and physically challenged people who fall down in buses is increasing in Japan. Hence, in the fiscal year 2004, we installed non-slippery and ecological floor material made of quartz in a bus and requested customers and bus companies to provide functional evaluations. In the fiscal year 2005, we equipped buses from three companies with the new floor material. Each research revealed that on the whole, approximately 80% of the customers evaluated the non-slip function of the material highly. Additionally, we received a high evaluation for the design of the flooring and the affinity of their shoes to the material. These days, in the process of developing low-floor buses, the 0.52 corporate social responsibility (CSR) value is used as the standard based on the regulations of the Japan Auto-body Industries Association, Inc. However, in this research, we introduced the best CSR value as floor material for universally designed buses. We recognized the CSR for low-floor buses as 0.566. This finding will be useful when the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport sets a new standard for developing low-floor buses.