The Great East Japan Earthquake brought the need for changes to daily life and also to socio-economic systems. Environmental economics is, in my opinion, required to contribute to promoting those changes, paying attention to the following three points: (1) securing stability and safety in an abnormal non-stationary state (living an extraordinary life as a result of the disaster), (2) extrication from the abnormal non-stationary state and leading the economy to a stationary state (living an ordinary life), hopefully to a state of sustainable development, and (3) reflecting, from the viewpoint of an abnormal stationary state, on what problems we have in systems that function in a stationary state. To respond successfully to this requirement, environmental economists have to cooperate with one another and integrate their research, overcoming difficulties that may arise from differences in ideology, standpoints, and methodology. Without such efforts, environmental economics will be unable to contribute to the process of restoration after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

In Japan, recycling has been promoted during the past decade owing to the shortage of landfill sites for waste disposal. The Japanese government has encouraged reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste with the slogan “3R” under the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society. However, while there is extensive empirical literature on household decisions to recycle, few studies have investigated the determinants of a municipality’s decision to collect recyclables. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors affecting a municipality’s decision to implement the collection of presorted recyclable containers and packaging in Japan. Our results suggest that possession of landfill sites and incineration facilities could affect municipalities’ decisions regarding the collection of sorted recyclables.

The Automobile NOx/PM Law was introduced to mitigate air pollution in Japanese metropolitan areas in 2001. There was a risk that implementation may result in many old heavy-emitting vehicles shifting outside the areas where the regulation prohibited their usage. By comparing secondary vehicle market prices before and after implementation, this paper examines whether prices changed as a result of outflow due to the regulation. The estimation showed that the regulation did not lower the prices to a statistically significant extent, However, we found an increase in the export of used trucks. These facts indicate that the spread of low-emission vehicles in other countries may be discouraged by stronger Japanese environmental regulations. This is a pollution haven hypothesis. The paper concludes that more attention needs to be paid to the secondary market when authorities plan the introduction of environmental regulations on goods such as automobiles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine prediction of the psychological processes of evaluation for forest environmental tax, focusing on the role of trust in the local government’s forest management, the role of having the evaluation for forest environmental tax conducted by people in close contact, and the role of the system of forest environmental tax. Multiple group analysis is applied to a structural equation model to show the differences of these influences, using data from questionnaires given to 1,500 residents in six prefectures concerning the evaluation of citizens for forest environmental tax. The proposed model demonstrates that the system of forest environmental tax is more influential than trust in local government’s forest management and having the evaluation conducted by people in close contact. Furthermore, the system of forest environmental tax is the most influential factor in the high interest group for local forest problems. In the low interest group, having the evaluation for forest environmental tax conducted by people in close contact is also an important factor.

In this paper, I discuss concepts and models that lie behind the ongoing debate over climate change and discounting. By reviewing the recent developments in the theory of social discounting, I show how and on what basis relatively low and declining discount rates can be justified, especially when uncertainty and/or substitutability matters. With a practical application to the cost-benefit analysis in mind, I briefly sketch some policy implications of these theoretical developments.