Studies in Regional Science
Online ISSN : 1880-6465
Print ISSN : 0287-6256
ISSN-L : 0287-6256
Volume 35, Issue 2
Displaying 1-16 of 16 articles from this issue
Articles
  • Nuzul ACHJAR, Geoffrey J.D. HEWINGS, Michael SONIS
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 257-279
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to reveal the magnitude of the relationship between goods and service sector that is originally grouped into production activities in a social accounting matrix (SAM) framework. The decomposition of production activities into goods and services in 1995 and 1998 Indonesian SAM provide other features and interpretation on the structural changes in the Indonesian economy. Using block structural path analysis (BSPA) that traces feedback loop effects, there is evidence of the dominant role of the goods sector in generating factorial and institutional incomes in the Indonesian economy. This paper argues that the magnitude of the linkages between goods and services might have characterized a strong dependency of services on the goods sector, opposing those of typical developed countries that believe services might be relatively independent from goods sectors. Prior to the decomposition of goods and services, general pattern of the structural change in the Indonesian economy using 1975-1999 aggregated SAM will be presented.
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  • Hiroyasu NODA, Keiichi TANAKA, Masahide TANAKA
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 281-294
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Land regulations are fixed in terms of legal and economical conditions. However, scientific conditions for the soil were not improved until we were aware of environmental problems.
    After the enforcement of the Federal Soil Protection Act in 1998, Germany's contaminated sites management was finally unified by several administrative districts. However, a solution to the many problems regarding soil pollution, for example, determination of contaminated sites, soil purification duty, financial problems concerning soil reproduction, and information disclosure of polluted areas, still requires many arguments.
    The purpose of this study is to grasp the present data obtained from all the contaminated sites in Germany and to clarify the regulated condition of a contaminant, which is regarded as the basis of the determination mechanism. Moreover, we show the method of data management in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as an example. In particular, we consider the case of Ruhr district in NRW that we investigated. It is an area that houses most of the former industrial sites termed Brownfields where various environmental policies for city reproduction are now being implemented.
    First, we describe the role of Germany's several environmental agencies comprising the federal states and public authorities regarding soil pollution and clarify the concept of contaminated sites. Next, we analyze the valuation basis of detrimental contaminants and identify the regulation range. After ascertaining the number of all the pollution scale areas throughout Germany, we pursue a Land Information System (BIS) in NRW. All data for the contaminated sites (ISAL) are processed by the BIS, which is composed of each Information module (FIS).
    Thus, all information regarding the polluted area in NRW is exhibited in principle ; however, an identification paper is required for this case. Sometimes, the information of a specific area can be obtained at a cost. Therefore, the federal government should immediately fix the contaminated sites and information regarding fundamental soil pollution should be freely available to all.
    JEL classification : L86, R11, R14, R52
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  • Maiko SAKAMOTO, Yoshimi HAGIHARA
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 295-308
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The graph model for conflict resolution is used to formally analyze an ongoing conflict between India and Bangladesh over the regulation of the Ganges River in order to illustrate the crucial role a Third Party can play in resolving the dispute. Because a Third Party can assist in resolving a dispute in a variety of ways, a general systems approach to conflict management with a Third Party is devised. The strategic analysis of the India/Bangladesh conflict using the graph model clearly shows that one can determine, in advance, exactly how a Third Party can influence potential resolutions to the dispute.
    In this study, one of the roles of a Third Party, Coordinator, is focused on. As a result of applying the procedure of the conflict management with a Third Party to India/Bangladesh conflict, it is shown that mutual belief between Bangladesh and India is built up, and the outcome which means the improvement of the conflict situation can be realized although the outcome cannot be achieved under the settings of the actual ongoing conflict without a Third Party.
    Furthermore, when stakeholders compose a hierarchy system, the regulation effect of the hierarchy system is considered using the concept of Stackelberg Equilibrium, and it is shown that the system would bring positive effect for improving the actual conflict situation under a certain condition.
    JEL Classification : C62, C65, C72
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  • —A Bio-economic Model Approach—
    Qiaoyun ZHANG
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 309-322
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper focuses on the possible solutions to the tradeoff between rural household income and rangeland conservation in an agro-pastoral area of Inner Mongolia, China. A linear programming bio-economic model was applied to simulate rural households' decisions concerning on-farm and off-farm activities and to investigate the impact of technical introduction and improving access to off-farm employment on the alleviation of rangeland degradation and household income. Simulation results indicate that introducing sedentary beef cattle livestock might generate a big increase of household income under keeping grazing pressure at a reasonable level, and that credit provision is essential for poor farmers to introduce such technologies. The results also indicate that if no restrictions are placed on farm households' grazing or reclamation activities, the act of increasing off-farm employment opportunities alone does not alleviate rangeland degradation, although it does lead to increased rural household income. Land use regulations are needed to conserve the local rangeland environment. Under land use regulations, increased off-farm employment opportunities may increase household income.
    JEL classification : Q01, Q56
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  • Isao HARA, Nobutoshi YASUNAGA
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 323-337
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    “Doshusei” is one of the most drastic reforms in the Japanese domestic public system so far. In the midst of the arguments, the experiment of “Doshusei” has just started including of a political intention in Hokkaido since 2004. We tried to focus our research under situations such as the development of new political movements. Furthermore, our study applies the theory of Interregional Payment Balances (IPB) to an actual regional economy (Doshusei). From this application study of IPB, it was possible to make suggestions for the regional economic policies, especially, in the following three areas.
    1. The deficit in IPB has been formed when the imports of a region are higher than the exports. It is said that it is to increase the regional income per capita partially. However, it is not true in the region economically. The deficit in the IPB has been usually made up by the central government as a “gift.” From this it can be seen that regional economy lacks a self support system. Certainly the deficit in the IPB is evidence of a weakness of economic power in Japanese regions. The intention of this paper tried to far clarify than the former researches.
    2. Profit in a regional economy is brought about more by the amount of consumption in the region than the amount of imports. This conclusion, of course, does not always mean that a closed economy is better than an open economy, but it is true that an open economy (seldom the orientation of an extreme open market) is not profitable for the region.
    3. IPB depends on the scale of inclination of marginal consumption and marginal import. These two curves show different slopes. The former curve is related to net savings and the latter to net trade. Both slopes are not completely fixed but actually variable. These two curves (innumerable) always hold the same points of equilibrium in relation to each other. An important finding is that there are innumerable points of the same equilibrium. In this sense, IPB fits within the theory of general equilibrium. It is possible to escape from the so-called simultaneous dilemma of interregional unbalance through this analysis.
    As above, we have been tried to the evidence some issues through a research of an economic model of Doshusei. We set up the several forecast numbers. It shows examples of an advanced study of IPB.
    JEL classification : R11, R13
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  • Kazuhiko SAKAI, Moriki HOSOE
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 339-353
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    A lot of accidents that cause environmental pollution have happened in recent years, then the public concern with compensation problems for environmental damage has been growing greatly. To solve these problems, many laws and conventions (rules) have been established until now. However, these rules would not be enough to cover all of compensation problems. Because there are various types of firms that cause accident, but these rules are not designed dependent on firm's type. So these rules should be improved hereafter. Therefore, to solve the problem as stated above, we consider an economic activity that involves transportation of environmentally hazardous materials like oil, and then we assume that there are one firm that needs to transport materials and two types of transporters : One is good transporter, and the other is vicious. Under these circumstances we discuss the problem that whether extended liability is effective or not. Namely, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of extended liability rule (liability sharing rule) and rule that adopted in the real world (insurance and fund) and to compare the two rules.
    JEL classification : K13, K32, Q53
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  • Mariko WADA, Yoshitaka AOYAMA, Dai NAKAGAWA, Yuka KARATANI
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 355-368
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Worldwide, the cars have spread due to the economic development and the progress of technology. Increase of car-use has raised convenience of our daily life. On the other hand, it caused serious environmental problems such as the greenhouse-effect.
    In such a situation, the national transport policy and strategy suited to the sustainable development is searched for. In developed countries the car-use restrain measures tend to be taken. Thus, it is thought that improvement of income level diminishes car use per capita in these countries. On the other hand, in developing countries, the economical efficiency tends to be given a priority, the intensive investments into road infrastructure are made. Consequently, car use advances rapidly. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the characteristics and the trends of income level and social environmental level of the world countries.
    The objectives of this paper are : (1) to classify countries into several cluster and to clarify the characteristics of each cluster, (2) to formulate with income level, social environmental level, and gasoline consumption as variables and clarify the characteristics of time series change of gasoline consumption for every cluster, (3) to consider the factor of decline of gasoline consumption.
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  • Hayati Bin TAHIR, Hitoshi MITOMO
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 369-382
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper is based on a questionnaire survey that was conducted among public servants in Malaysia who have used information and communication technology (ICT) in the workplace and have been involved in innovation activity. Our objective is to identify the presence of knowledge captured from the use of ICT in the workplace. The analysis shows that the public sector captures knowledge from the information available from ICT applications and later uses that knowledge for innovation activity. It is found that the frequency of ICT usage in the workplace contributes most to the innovation capability of the individual public servant. The knowledge enrichment that contributes to the increase of innovation capabilities is positively related to the length of experience of using ICT in the workplace. It is also found that interaction with the customer contributes to the enrichment of knowledge and skills, which is positively related to the length of service of the employee.
    JEL Classification : D83, H19
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  • Mitsuhiro KAWAMOTO, Seiichi KAGAYA
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 383-397
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, a satisfaction structure model of industrial locations is developed to analyze the survey data accumulated from plant managers in Hokkaido. Recently, in Japan the new plant constructions have decreased because of an economic recession and globalization. It is important for the regional economy and employment that the plants keep operating and don't close down. To achieve this, the satisfaction of plant operating should be kept and increased in the area. This paper researches the satisfied factors of plant operating and the non-satisfied factors as indicated by plant managers in Hokkaido, and develops a satisfaction structure model of the industrial locations using Structural Equation Modeling. Major findings of the analysis of the satisfaction structure model of industrial locations in Hokkaido are summarized as follows :
    (1) The factors that have the strong relations to the satisfaction of industrial locations are “Traffic (access, cost)”, “Labor (quality, cost)”, and “Quality of life”. Above all, the physical distribution access is the most important factor.
    (2) The strongest factor of changing the past three-year's satisfaction of industrial locations is “Traffic
    JEL classification : R11, R30, R38, R58
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  • Takeo ADACHI, Ayano KUMETA, Toru HAGIWARA, Muraleetharan THAMBIAH, Sei ...
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 399-413
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Workshops for transportation problems are often held recently, where people are easily able to request for better measure of transportation in downtown. Each of them has their own opinion and demand, a better measure for one is bad for others. There are many problems on transportation in downtown such as safety for pedestrians, wiser usage of bicycle and resolution of on-street-parking problem. These result a problem how people share limited the space for transportation. We combined factors such as width of street or sidewalk, control of on-street-parking or installation of bicycle lane to make some countermeasure patterns. Next we performed a survey to the three kinds of participants : pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. The patterns were made simply to be understood by the respondents easily. The survey gave us some utility values of the three groups to the countermeasures. Using this results, it developed that some measure patterns would be able to raise all utility of the three. We also estimated other more real measures. As the result, the functions of roads should be shared with plural roads in the district to rise the utilities.
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Notes
  • Akira KIMINAMI, Lily Y. KIMINAMI
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 415-425
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Land improvement has both direct and indirect economic effects on agricultural production. Besides of its direct economic effects on agricultural production by improving efficiency of agricultural production, the indirect economic effects of land improvement can also be obtained through reduction of production costs such as the improvement of production structure or improvement in profitability such as introducing high profit crops. Such economic effects (both direct and indirect) of land improvement will be finally reflected into land profitability. Therefore, it is considered that we can estimate economic effects of land improvement by measuring the relation of the land capital stock and land profitability in agricultural sector. However, economic effects of land improvement are usually influenced by regional difference and structural change in agriculture. Thus, in order to make an accurate estimation, we apply the panel data analysis to the data at 2 points of time of each city, town and village of Niigata prefecture instead of using cross-section data or time series data as a usual way of estimation, and clarify the economic effects of land improvement in this area.
    JEL classification : C33, Q15, Q18, R10
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  • Akio KAWASAKI
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 427-438
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In the airline industry that has a characteristic of free entry, a firm has to incur setup costs to form airline network, and hence to analyze firm's strategy on network, i.e., the economy of density, is one of the major themes in the analysis of the industry. In this paper, I consider the undercut proof equilibrium (Morgan and Shy, 2000), and check whether the network formation is socially optimal or not.
    Suppose that all passengers can travel to their destinations, when only one of the two firms forms network. In this case, if each of two competing firms forms network, increasing density of network may be efficient because of reduction in, for example, time costs of passengers, while it may be inefficient because of double setup costs. I compare market outcome with socially optimal one, and show following results : When market is competitive, there can be excessive network, while when market is monopolistic, there can be inefficient network.
    JEL classification : L11, L13, L93, R49.
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  • Hitomi ENDO, Yasuo MATSUYUKI
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 439-450
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This article pays attention to “active seniors” in the middle and advanced aged people who have strong desire in their jobs and hobbies, and are actively engaged in the local society. Positive utilization of such active seniors is extremely effective to maintain economical vitality. Specially, NPO activities require the skills and ability of active seniors cultivated in their firms. On the other hand, it is also attractive for active seniors to participate in social contribution activities through NPO where they can utilize their own ability. The purpose of the paper is to seek the enabler of the development mainly focusing on the life courses in the aged society and the role of active seniors, including the viewpoint on NPO activities and gender. The relation between life courses and active seniors are examined first, and the examples of new employment in NPO and volunteer groups except firms are also inquired.
    JEL classification : I0, I3
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  • —The Case of Tokyo Metropolitan Area in Japan—
    Masahiro KAGEYAMA, Suminori TOKUNAGA
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 451-462
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of an agglomeration of the food industry in Metropolitan area by 3-digit Japan Standard Industrial Classification data from 1981 to 2001. We measured agglomeration and co-agglomeration indexes (α, C (r)) as suggested by Devereux, Griffith, and Simpson (1999). The result clearly shows that there was a strong agglomeration in “Sugar processing”, “Animal and vegetable oils and fats”, “seafood products”, “Manufactured ice”, “Soft drinks and carbonated water”. From 1981 to 2001, many industries witnessed decreasing agglomeration. We found that the reason for this was that regional concentration fall below industry concentration. On the other hand, the following industries witnessed increasing agglomeration from 1991 to 2001 : “Soft drinks and carbonated water”, “Canned and preserved fruit and vegetable products”. We observed that industries with increasing agglomeration indices receive demand effect from large market whereas those with decreasing agglomeration indices relied heavily on imported materials. We also observed that co-agglomeration occurred within the food industry, besides between food and non-food industry. Especially, “Soft drinks and carbonated water” and its related industry witnessed strong co-agglomeration. We observed not only single agglomeration of “Soft drinks and carbonated water” but also co-agglomeration of related ones.
    JEL Classification : R12, R3, Q13
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Case Studies
  • —the proposal for making it successful about an in-house think tank organized in an autonomous body—
    Minoru MAKISE
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 463-473
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In Japan, the Comprehensive Decentralization Law (2000) has created an equal relationship between local governments and the national government. Japanese local governments had tended to depend on the national government before the law was enforced, but after the enforcement, the local authorities have had to support and manage themselves without relying on the national government. Local authorities therefore require policy-making capabilities, which can be developed by many means including “municipality think-tanks”, each of which is set up as an organization of the local authority.
    This paper discusses municipality think-tanks, with focus on in-house think-tanks set up within local authorities. The paper provides : 1) a statistical analysis of the state of establishment of in-house think-tanks and 2) clarification of the significance of in-house think-tanks.
    We carried out a questionnaire survey of nationwide local governments of towns with a population of 50 thousand or more, on municipality think-tanks. This survey was unique in two ways : 1) it was the first nationwide survey of municipality think-tanks and 2) the response rate was as high as 71.2%.
    This paper provides useful information for existing local governments to improve their policy-making capabilities and to establish municipality think-tanks.
    JEL classification : R50, R58, R59
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  • —Case Study of an On-farm Facility Consolidation Project in Thailand—
    Yoji KUNIMITSU
    2005 Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 475-485
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: June 01, 2007
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    An on-farm facility consolidation (OFC) project, involving construction of irrigation ditches, drainage ditches and farm roads, was conducted as a public investment in a typical rice producing area on the Chao Phraya Delta by the Thai Government with the support of Japanese technical cooperation. Due to increased public awareness of government activities, demonstrating the effectiveness of public investment is considered extremely important in securing transparency and accountability in both countries. The purpose of this study was to apply a cost-benefit analysis to the OFC project. Empirical results showed that the total benefit was higher than total costs, even under a high social discount rate of 12% for two alternative plans, employing a conventional trapezoidal-shaped concrete lining ditch (trapezoidal ditch) and a U-shaped reinforced-concrete flume ditch (U-shaped ditch). The land-productivity effect accounted for most of the project benefits and shows that, in Thailand, an improvement of farmers' income is more critical than labor-cost savings. The renewal effect also needs to be considered, as this effect was the next highest to the land productivity effect. The trapezoidal ditch, with low initial costs in spite of high running costs and short durability in years, was superior to the U-shaped ditch with the opposite characteristics at a high social discount rate. However, a decrease in the social discount rate to less than 4% would make the U-shaped ditch superior to the trapezoidal one.
    JEL classification : H41, H43, H54, O22, O53, Q15
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