This paper is to estimate the changes in the SDI (Subsidy Dependence Index) of the Japanese Agricultural Policy Bank (the AFC) based on a theoretical re-examination of the concept of SDI. The SDI originally invented by Yaron has one weakness. The concept describes the degree of subsidy dependence by comparing the total subsidies with the lending interest revenues as a social benefit. Hence, the level of the indicator is much dependent on the changes in the lending interest rate. The idea of the paper is to use the average lending interest rate for the estimation of the SDI, and for the interpretation of the levels both the conventional SDI and the new indicator are used together. In addition, factors of the changes in SDI are broken down into negative spread, average lending cost, and costs of non-used funds.
The results show the downward trend of the SDI with the decline in negative spread and the increase in lending efficiency. The former reflects the general trend in interest rates in the financial market, and the latter until the 1980s indicates the progress. However in the 1990s the lending efficiency became worse, caused by the serious decrease in outstanding loans of the AFC.

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Japanese rice farming in California, started as a joint-farming venture of individual farmers, changed into a joint-stock (corporation) company after the late 1910s. In this managing style, Japanese rice farming increased its acreage and number of firms. The pioneer company of Japanese rice farming was the California Rice Company. It is worth noting that principal stockholders or members of this rice firm (K.Ikuta, J.Kawahara, G.Nagao, T.Terada, H.Matsushige, R.Takada), one after another, established new rice firms with similar management styles, afterwards. For example, G.Nagao established Union Rice Company, K.Ikuta established Butte Rice Company and J.Kawahara established Pioneer Rice Company. The principal stockholders or members of these newly formed rice firms, in turn, established or participated in other new rice firms, such as Japan Rice Company, Maxwell Rice Company, Chico Rice Company and so on.
The prominent features of the development of Japanese rice framing, such as partnership and management by Japanese and strong unity among the Japanese, was maintained or did not change. These characteristics became important reasons for the economic crisis in their farming and the anti-Japanese campaign after the 1920s.

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In this paper, a new spatial equilibrium model is developed to evaluate the effect and feasibility of the international reserve stock policy which the Japanese government has proposed to the World Trade Organization. For the model, a proof of existence of spatial equilibrium is presented. In addition, separated from tariff and transportation cost, the price differential between domestic and overseas markets is calibrated by using a newly developed method.
To illustrate its usefulness, the model is applied to international rice trade. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the international rice reserve stock policy limited in East Asia will not be put into effect and has little reality. Second, the policy including Bangladesh as a donee of the international reserve stock will contribute to its food security and market stabilization. However, it will cause distortion of international markets and a significantly high policy cost. Third, the cause will be removed by modifying the policy in order that exporting countries can replace developed countries as donors of the international reserve stock.

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This paper focuses on analyzing how the size of the middle-aged (30-64 years old) population of farmers in traditional villages affects on the labor force structure of "Community Farming."
A "Community Farm" is a group-farming body based on rural communities (in most cases one traditional village) called "syuraku"s in Japan. Many of them are typically organized to cultivate paddy rice while members of them usually have their own jobs other than farming. This makes them join the "Community Farm" as part-time operators.
The author found that the number of machine operators in a "Community Farm" is affected by the size of the population of middle-aged farmers in the rural communities. The lower the population of middle-aged farmers, the lower the number of machine operators. The author also found that while this relationship is typical in areas where the middle-aged population is relatively small (in this paper Shimane Prefecture), the number of machine operators does not correlate with the number of middle-aged farmers in the rural communities in areas where the middle-aged population is relatively large (in this paper Toyama Prefecture). This can be explained by the fact that in the latter areas middle-aged farmers can enjoy employment opportunities other than farming, which forces them to share the burden of machine operations. On the other hand in the former areas where such opportunities are relatively small, operation in "Community Farming" is relatively attractive as an income source. In "Community Farming," payment for operations may be deducted to pay for land lease to enable old people to keep living in the community.

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In recent years, there has been a rise in the scientific threshold for establishing causality in the empirical development economics literature. In light of this development, this article discusses some specific contexts where 'endogeneity problems' arise (where systematic correlation between a right-hand-side variable and the error term in a regression equation is suspected) in microeconometric analysis using household-level data in developing countries. The article also reviews a few of the recent trends in the methodological advances in the empirical development literature that are likely to be behind the rising scientific standards in our profession. These are: the explosion in the availability of micro (household)-level data in developing countries; innovations in econometric methods (especially the search for ever 'cleverer' and 'more credible' instrumental variables, including 'natural experiments'); and innovations in data collection designs and set-ups (including randomized policy evaluations and field experiments by experimental economists). The article further argues that such recent developments in the literature could potentially provide great opportunities for agricultural economists in Japan, who have long traditions of conducting fieldwork and of being actively involved in primary data collection at the micro level. At the same time, however, we will need to pay a much closer attention to the distinction between the observation of simple statistical correlation, on the one hand, and the establishment of causality, on the other, in our empirical work.

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