There are quite a few end-of-life products, parts and materials whose recycling could not be promoted without institutional support by means of legislation. In such a law for recycling of end-of-life products, parts and materials, important variables such as the institutionally targeted amount of recycling, the amount of collected materials and so on are adjusted by institutional rules rather than by a market mechanism. We analyze the dynamic adjustment process of an institutionalized recycling system, taking the Law for Recycling of Containers and Packages as an example. We show the stability conditions of the dynamic system, and demonstrate how the system could be stabilized by proper selection of parameters.

The recycling system used in China, which is said to have a big environmental burden, has a substantial impact on Japanese recycling systems. China has proposed the idea of the Circular Economy to develop a sustainable economy, for which resource & energy saving and environmental protection are indispensable conditions. Recycling is an important instrument for the Circular Economy. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the status quo of recycling, and the direction as well as the challenges of Circular Economy from the perspectives of policy instruments and environmental governance. To achieve the Circular Economy targets, proposed reforms of the socio-economic system include direct regulation such as industrial structure policy and strict environmental regulation, and also indirect policy such as financial policies for prices and taxes, and encouraging the development of technology. We analyze the developing trends for metal recycling and WEEE recycling as China moves toward the Circular Economy. The essence of the Circular Economy is to achieve high performance economic growth with relatively low resource consumption and environmental burden. The limitation of the Circular Economy concept lies in its not changing the mass production and consumption system. As progress is made towards the Circular Economy in China, the impact on Japanese recycling systems will probably increase.

This paper aims to clarify how eco-industrial parks in China have tried to overcome impediments that deter firms from using by-products of other firms. For this purpose, we refer to five barriers shown in Heeres et al. (2004) and examine the case of the Kalundborg “eco-industrial park” from these viewpoints to illustrate the key impediments to be overcome. Then we take Suzhou and Baotou state model eco-industrial parks in China to examine how to overcome the impediments. We find that social networks and trust have not built up between the firms located in Suzhou Industrial Park. Exchange of by-products is supported by the park authority, but actual progress in this park is mostly dependent on foreign private-sector firms that have already established by-product exchange network in their home countries, or that have made intensive efforts to expand their network beyond the eco-industrial park. In Baotou there exist networks between the government and state firms, but central planning and implementation makes it difficult for firms to impose a quality requirement on business customers, which has further weakened their competitiveness in the market, There are also a few firms establishing joint ventures that utilize products of existing firms as raw materials. These findings imply the importance of government role in establishing an enabling environment, and of the existence of firms with sufficient technological and marketing capacity to create a by-product exchange network.

Is Social Capital effective for promoting pro-environmental actions? To answer this question, we carried out a national public opinion survey in March 2006. Our respondents were adult (20 years and older) men and women, drawn from the Basic Resident Register.

The concept of Social Capital includes several aspects-social norms, networks, trust, etc., We incorporated those aspects into our questionnaire, and using logistic regression analysis, we investigated the relationships among pro-environmental actions and social capital variabies, other general norms, and demographics. Also, we see the relationships among information gain variables, which include information sources for general social issues and environmental issues, regularly read newspaper genres, and TV programs.

Our results show that there are significant relationships among information gain variables, social capitai variables and pro-environmental actions, and that significant variables differ depending on actions.

The stated preference approach uses survey questions to elicit people’s preferences for public goods. It is able to capture both use and nonuse values, and it is the most widely used approach for estimating nonuse values. However, there is a risk that the stated data may be biased by the questionnaire design. This paper provides theoretical models for biases in stated preference data using game theoretical approach. It analyzes the following biasesi 1) the strategic bias, which arises due to respondent’s strategic behavior, 2) the hypothetical bias, which occurs when the payment is hypothetical, 3) the payment vehicle bias, which arises when the payment methods effect the respondent’s answer, and 4) effects of the protest no answer, which happens when the respondent refuses to state a bid for reasons associated with the process of valuation.

The purpose of the study is to perform a comparison of marginal willingness to pay for drinking water quality using the averting expenditures method and choice experiment. The averting expenditures method can reveal non-market values based on the actual averting actions of citizens. Choice experiment is based on choices made by the respondents from a hypothetical choice set. Data was collected from a drop-off survey of residents of Tsukuba, and 220 samples were collected in total. Estimated models of averting expenditures and choice experiments were formulated as the random utility theory, and both methods were analyzed using a conditional logit model and a mixed logit model. Models combined SP-RP data were analyzed using a nested logit model. The estimated coefficient of the residual chlorine using averting expenditures was negative, although that of choice experiments was positive. SP-RP combination models estimated with a nested logit model obtained the highest goodness-of-fit. Estimated marginai willingness to pay to reduce chlorine was 23.5 yen for the averting expenditures method, and 11.5 yen for choice experiments. Marginal WTP for a 1% reduction in THMs was 28.4 yen for the averting expenditures method, and 12.5 yen for choice experiments. The Iindings of this study suggest that the averting expenditures may generate relatively higher benefit estimates than the choice experiments due to the complexity in estimating actual averting expenditures.

Climate change mitigation policies have been implemented in the past decade for many industries. However, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is difficult in the transportation sector in Japan. Since the use of private cars has been a major factor in increasing emissions, utilization of public transportation systems such as bus and train are suggested. This study intends to analyze whether the use of public transportation systems is effective in reducing emissions, and in which situations such use is effective. We use both nonparametric and parametric methods to investigate the relationships. The results show that using trains provides a possibility of emission reductions.