The word “ubiquitous”, which was spread all over the world by Mark Weiser, attracts our attention recently. “The ubiquitous society”, the future image of the information society, is where we can get necessary information (digital data) anytime and anywhere. When it comes true, a degree of utilizing information will make a big difference in life. Accordingly creating and using a database will be important for consumers as well as companies. The purpose of this paper is to consider the general system to build a database and to show examples to utilize a database with regard to the clothes detergent market. An analysis of the database revealed the following: ①Soap users have strong brand loyalty, ②A liquid detergent sub-market exists in the detergent market.

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Environmental advocacy takes various forms. In the case of Kawabe River, people have been performing " Shaku Ayu (big sweet fishes) Trust". Fishermen and residents sell famous sweet fishes directly to supporters from all over Japan are interested in preserving Kawabe River, and fresh sweet fishes are sent directly to them. This research considers the " Shaku Ayu Trust" movement, how people get support successfully and effectively and how consumers can share environmental problems. The influences of questionnaires, their results, articles and reports in the media are also discussed. The mechanism of how consumers share environmental problems and support that movement buying fishes, and the process of purchasing reliability in the Kawabe River sweet fish are also discussed. The key point of whether the movement can get reliability or not depends on direct communication among fishermen and consumers through computer mediated communication(CMC).

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The author of this paper and the research group of economic education administered the Test of Economic Literacy, the 3rd edition (TEL3) to 2,631 high school and 2,877 university students in Japan in 2001. TEL3 was originally developed in the USA by W. Walstad and K. Rebeck. The major finding from the test results is that there are similarities in economic literacy among high school students and university students, and both of them have the same problem understanding several areas of economics. Based on this result, this paper aims to show the strategies to infuse consumer education into high school civics in order to improve economic literacy.

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This paper examines the changes in urban Chinese consumer attitudes to advertisements during the period of transition to a market economy, based on a survey of consumers. The results show that present urban consumers are more interested in advertisements of consumer goods than social issues and political affairs. The reason for consumer's interest in advertisements is to acquire information tomake purchases. When advertising first started the attitude of the average consumer was confusion because they were unfamiliar with it. Later they came to appreciate and rely on advertising for information about consumer goods but as advertising exploded, consumers have become distrustful and have developed a cynical attitude about advertisements. This phenomenon is stronger in large Chinese cities.

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We cannot ignore the effect of gender roles when discussing consumer behavior issues in Japan. Gender differences seem heavily involved in consumer problems. This study seeks to clarify and analyze the issues of heavy personal debtors from a gender perspective. To this end, I observed gender differences of debtors, in term of loan purposes, causes of increased debts, psychological burden, and relations of the debts to the family members. These differences were found to be caused by the gender roles: men are breadwinners and women are house-keepers. To resolve these issues, we suggest providing consumer education that incorporates the perspective of gender.

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First of all this study explains the five patterns of consumption behavior of over-indebted debtors, then investigates the relation between the patterns and the characteristics of personality. Thirty- five over-indebted debtors were analyzed using the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory. The results show that B type of the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory appeared in more over-indebted debtors than standard samples. Furthermore the over-indebted tendencies were different between the characteristics of the personalies. It is suggested that the consumption behavior patterns may be caused by personality and the problem of educating the over-indebted debtors, is discussed.

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These days, calls for a sustainable society are incxeasing. For that purpose, not only conversion of a lifestyle but also the synthetic conversion in energy, traffic, and industry is required. The examples of a store association which hung up signs carrying the slogan ”the environment-friendly shopping street” reveals independent environmental activity in this area has increased through the　second half of the 1990s. An examination of this environmental innovation called ”EKO-Shotengai” on the basis of a questionnaire was performed for the shopping street. The origins and of the Eko-Shotengai were explored. The nationwide deploymental performance and the constituents' consciousness were also considered. Finally the conditions for developing a shopping street towards the sustainable society were examined.

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