The rice production in Heilongjian Province, China, has been dramatically increased since the mid 1980s. Its production reached over ten million metric tons in rough rice base and about a quarter of the Japonica rice produced in China in 2000. This rapid increase of rice production was realized by the diffusion of new rice growing technology which was transferred from Japan in the mid 1980s and public or private investments for the expansion of paddy field associated with abundant flat fertile lands, good summer weather conditions and high profitability for rice growing farmers.
In this study not only economic conditions but also natural resources such as weather, land and water resources were investigated in order to predict future rice production in Heilongjiang Province. The estimated rice supply elasticities of price are relatively high, which indicates that rice production in Heilongjiang Province promptly responded to changes in market conditions. The estimated weather productivity index of rice in most areas is also relatively high, which indicates good weather conditions to realize high rice yields. However, it is estimated that the rice planting area in Heilongjiang Province has almost reached to its peak mainly due to the constraints of water resources associated with low precipitation and the limited developable paddy land resources for sustainable paddy cultivation.

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This article has two purposes. The first is to evaluate multi-functionality of horse production. Although the multi-functionality of agriculture has been widely recognized, little is said about that of horse production. We evaluated the multi-functionality of horse production in the Hidaka district, where more than 80% of domestic blood horses are produced. The second is to assess the effects of truncation, endogenous stratification, and overdispersion on the estimation of count data travel cost models using on-site samples. There have been almost no considerations of those effects in previous studies in Japan.
Our main findings are as follows: 1) The Poisson estimators are biased and inconsistent in the presence of overdispersion; therefore the negative binomial models are more preferable. Applying the Poisson re-gression models to our data results in overestimation of the consumers' surplus. 2) With on-site samples, accounting for truncation of the dependent variable makes a substantial difference in the coefficient estimates. However, accounting for endogenous stratification does not make a marked difference in this particular case. 3) The multi-functionality of horse production in the Hidaka area is estimated at about 11.0 hundred million yen per year by the negative binomial model corrected for both endogenous stratification and truncation, and at about 11.3 hundred million yen per year by the truncated negative binomial model respectively. These results indicate horse production provides visitors large amount of benefit through multi-functionality.

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Although the wholesale price of hard flour declined by 24.1% from 1986 to 1998, the wholesale price of white bread decreased by only 2.8%. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causes of downward rigidity in the bread price during a period of declining flour price from the aspect of cost structure and market competitiveness. Time-series cost structure analysis is conducted with data on the largest bread baking company from 1970 to the late 1990s. In addition, conjectural variations and mark-up coefficients are estimated to examine the degree of market competitiveness.
Cost structure analysis indicates that the cost share of labor has been increasing since the late 1980s while the cost share of flour and other ingredients has been shrinking. This fact reflects the increased real personnel cost per employee when the wage rate increase was capped in food manufacturing industry in the 1990s and the stagnant growth of labor productivity during the 1990s when hyperactive investment was devoted to multi-product production rather than the improvement of labor productivity.
The estimated conjectural variations and the mark-up coefficients suggest that the bread wholesale market was becoming more competitive toward the end of the 1970s when major companies competed to expand their market share and many small-scale bakeries were rapidly evolving. However, the bread market has been less competitive in the 1980s and 1990s than in the late 1970s since the bread production by small and medium-sized enterprises has declined and the market share by major companies has expanded. According to the estimation, the wholesale price of bread would have been lower by 6-12% in the late 1990s than that actually observed if the market competitiveness had been at the level of the late 1970s and the market share by the largest bread baking company had not continued to expand from 1989 or had declined to the level in 1985 before its corporate merger.

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In the past, daily lives and production were supported by a cooperative work system with labor exchange in rural areas. This cooperative work system is called "Yuimāru" in Okinawa regions.
During the high economic growth after the Second World War, such labor exchange customs had mostly disappeared. However, Yuimāru for harvesting sugarcane survived in Hateruma Island, Okinawa. It can be hypothesized that Yuimāru in Hateruma Island maintains its role as cooperative work system in sugarcane production, adapting its functions to social and economic change. The purpose of this paper is to examine the present state of the cooperative work system in Hateruma Island, with special emphasis put on newly emerging functions of Yuimāru.
Following are findings derived from the analysis of the field survey. First, the norm of mutual help is still valid in modern Yuimāru. Second, maintaining a production scale that enables the efficient operation of a sugar factory and securing enough labor force for farmers are two major economic motives of cooperative work. Third, there are new functions of Yuimāru, such as: 1) sustaining the sugarcane production scale of elderly farmers and part-time farmers, 2) labor insurance for members, and 3) efficient acceptance of outside workers.
Yuimāru acts as the foundation of agricultural activities in Hateruma Island. This is a case where the cooperative labor exchange system supports the agriculture-based local economy.

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