It has been widely believed that GDP is the most reliable indicator to evaluate the progress of the society. These days, the women, participating in the business sector and adding the economic value to GDP, are perceived in a positive way to have contributed to our society by many Japanese research works. On the other hand, such research results tend to regard homemakers as unproductive because these homemakers just stay in their domestic community and do not create any market value. However GDP does not reflect social losses or negative effects caused by business activities against people in community such as, for instance, children's quality of life. At the same time GDP does not count any positive values contributed by, for instance, various unremunerated work of homemakers in their domestic communities, either. This paper considers ways in which the true economic impact of the non-market activities might be more accurately assessed. Alternative measurements are thus presented and utilized herein to analyze the positive economic and social value generated by the above.

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In Japan, the number of policies and demonstrating studies related to the balance between occupation, family and community life are increasing. In addition, in the social governance field, various studies have been reconsidering the concept of "public." In the field, "citizen's social responsibility" is currently receiving considerable attention, and it is being discussed how to promote the citizen's participation in the community. On the basis of this situation, in this paper we analyze the balance between occupation, family and community life. The purposes of the paper are to suggest the new concept of "flexible time distribution" and to analyze whether or not the concept is appropriate in the context of this balance. As a result, it became clear that in order to achieve a good balance, it is necessary to cooperate actively with surrounding people, i. e., family, coworkers, community, partners and so on, as well as to regulate other actions, and to distribute the time flexibility.

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The purpose of this study is to analyze factors of price determination and price difference of hotel rooms by hedonic approach, considering quality of hotel rooms supplied by strategic hotel owners, as IT online hotel room reservations have been penetrating. Specifically, using online hotel room reservation WEB sight data in Japan which are collected by simulation of reservation, we inspect companies' price strategy by hedonic price function. As a result of analysis, it is proved that high-grade impression, condition of location and convenience are large factors of price determination and price difference of hotel rooms.

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This paper analyzes the way the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge has had an influence on the leisure time of the residents of Sumoto City. The results are as follows. 1) As a whole, the bridge fostered residents' leisure time activities on Awaji Island as well as in the urban area including and between Kobe and Osaka on the mainland of Japan. However, it did not enhance their leisure time satisfaction compared to that before the opening of the bridge. 2) High frequency users of the bridge were more satisfied with their leisure time and depended more on the traffic convenience provided by the Bridge for their satisfaction than low frequency users. This was possibly because the former practiced lively leisure time activities mainly in the urban area on the mainland and so did the latter mainly on the island. 3) Among high frequency users, those who expanded their geographical zone of leisure time activities after the opening of the bridge tended to utilize the bridge more to increase their leisure time activities. On the other hand, those who did not do so had already practiced lively leisure time activities on the mainland before the opening and likely switched their ways to get to the mainland from sea routes to the bridge route in order to keep their level of leisure time activities as before. The latter practiced more leisure time activities on the island than the former, but there was no difference between them in the level of their total leisure time activities over all areas, in the level of their leisure time activities in the urban area, and in the satisfaction level of their leisure time.

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In the United States, through the realignment of the financial sector starting from the second half of the 90s, national mega-banks have acquired community banks (CBs), and have converted these into branch offices. The issue of loss and maintenance of locality has arisen; especially in relationship banking, because bankers utilize soft information. Organizational form and scale of a financial institution are important factors in relationship banking. Relationship banking may conflict with the realignment of the financial sector. Although stockholders of banks get big profits by sales of banks, other stakeholders who desire local banks with decision making by local management, loose out. Some persons pursue the establishment of banks which cannot be acquired easily. Some ways are the establishment of independent banks by local economies and the Bank Development Company. These kinds of banks can be established in both positive and negative population growth areas. Although the background of the realignment of the financial sector in Japan is not the same as that in the United States, the issue of maintenance of locality is important also in Japan.

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This paper analyzes how the characteristics of banks, borrowers and the relationship between banks and borrowers affect soft information production in bank loans. After estimating banks' information production functions in each of the four modes of information production and comparing them, this paper validates some propositions of relationship banking are consistent with the current state of Japanese SME finance. The advantages of small bank lending and single bank lending in relationship banking are supported by the estimation results of this paper. Furthermore, this paper assesses the Japanese credit guarantee system and the role of collateral based on a rough analysis. Due to lack of data, little empirical analysis of Japanese SME finance and relationship banking has been performed. The survey conducted by the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency has made possible this research on Japanese SME finance based on micro data analysis.

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Although inter vivos transfers are becoming more and more prevalent in contemporary Japanese society, conditions and motivations for the transfers are left as puzzles. Using a unique household-level dataset, this paper investigates what are the determinants for inter-vivos transfers in Japan. Specifically, we look how the probability of monetary aid and housing fund gift to the adult children changes by the attributes of parent and child. The estimation results coincide with the altruistic motive hypothesis and the wealthier parents are more likely to give inter vivos transfer to their children.

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The Financial Services Agency strives to promote region-based Relationship Banking through the years. One of the policy objectives is to strengthen the regional financial structure in each region. However, in contrast to these region-based banking administrations, branch networks of the regional financial institutions show a tendency to spread widely. This paper investigates the factors of these problems by focusing on the credit association branches in Sapporo. Especially, this paper examines the relationship between loan-to-deposit ratio and branch networks expansion into Sapporo. The main conclusion of the empirical analysis is that the loan-to-deposit ratio is the higher for the credit associations branched out into Sapporo. In short, there exists a regional difference in demand for loan in the background.

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The working environment for women has improved since the late 1980s. Firstly, the higher education female ratio for full time employees has increased. Secondly, female employment opportunities have expanded by changes in the labor market system, such as implementation of the Equal Employment Act of 1986, Amendment/Expansion of the Child-Care Leave Law of 1990 and Amendment of the Labor Standards Law. On the other hand, while the gender wage differential tends to be narrowing in the long run, it has not been influenced by these laws. As for the wage differential factors, there is an area which is not explainable by analysis of the individual attribute differences of employment tenure, kind of job and the working environment, such as corporate size. Hence, discrimination exists. What effect does the increase in human capital caused through higher education and expansion of employment opportunities have on the wage differentials? By focusing on human capital factors, such as educational background and potential ability, this paper examines the wage differentials by decomposing them into wage differential endowments and discrimination. As a result, it was found that there is less discrimination towards women who are graduates of university, than women who are graduates of high school. This means that more than half of the differential can be removed by combining together the differences caused by endowments. In view of this finding, it was proposed that there is a need to employ Positive Action for actively utilizing women.

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Some previous papers point out that labor market situation, macro level, with which individuals face right after graduation effect one's marriage timing. The effect of individuals' employment status, micro level, right after graduation, however, is still unsolved. This paper examines the relationship between employment status right after graduation and marriage timing. For this purpose, survival analysis is performed with JGSS data. The results suggest that employment status right after graduation effects male's marriage timing but not female's.

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This paper examines and compares the efficiency of Japanese Government bond futures markets (Tokyo Stock Exchange and Singapore Exchange) by GARCH model that can investigate the effect of information arrivals on the volatility persistence. As an empirical result, the announcement of macroeconomics is one of the factors that influence the persistence of JGB futures return volatility in TSE and SGX markets. There is no strong evidence that the efficiency of JGB futures market is different in TSE and SGX. It is 5-30 minutes in SGX and 5-60 minutes in TSE that the volatility persists after the announcement of macroeconomics. It doesn't seem that JGB futures market is efficient in TSE and SGX.

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This paper will focus on the crisis of public health and geographical inequity under new public medical insurance system in China. The health care reform has started since the 1980's as progressing population aging and implementing market economy policy. New public medical insurance system, the Basic Medical Insurance system (BMI), was introduced in 1998. The original aim of the reform was to improve the medical treatment efficiency and to control the cost of medical treatment. But the differences in the medical care system and income level amongst the local provinces have brought the problem of geographical inequity. Also, the Chinese government has introduced a new financial system into the area of public health, which encouraged the hospitals and local health centers to make profits through medical treatment. However, this new system has created a condition which is called as "more and more medical treatment, less and less prevention". This problem of the Chinese medical insurance system became evident in the spread of the SARS in 2002, which could be avoided if the prevention system worked properly.

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The economic reform in China started in 1978, and the planning economy was gradually converted to the socialism capital economy. The new economic system has expanded the division of the society. Especially, the clear gap between the urban area and the rural area can be seen in the level of income and consumption as well as in the aspects of health care. This dual structure of current economic system is partly maintained by "the census registration system" which restricts the inland migration from the rural area to the urban area. In the dual structure of health care, the available medical service is significantly diverse in terms of service contents as well as its functions, depending on the regions. This paperwill focus on the development and the reform of the health care system in the rural area which has approximately 70 percent of the population, and summarize the problems and future prospects.

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This paper focuses on "food-miles" of fresh vegetables in Japan and examines the choices and availability of their consumption to calculate their environmental loads from a viewpoint of "sustainable consumption". Food-miles have been greatly increasing in domestic and trading transport compared with these in the 1960s. Moreover, energy consumption per weight of negetables has been increasing by a modal-shift to automobiles and the increase in food-miles. Food-miles and energy consumption of fresh vegetables in season are greater than those in off-season season in both 1965 and 2000. This tendency has been increasing in recent years. Availability of fresh vegetables is guaranteed by their supply throughout the year. In conclusion, it is confirmed that choices for consumers have been expanding by way of compensation for at the expense of environmental loads by the increase of food-miles.

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