This research was based on the data obtained from a questionnaire survey on the consumers' behavior around the Nanjing Road. In this paper, the survey area is divided into several blocks as study units. The consumers' basic behavioral characteristics including gender, age, occupation, living place, distribution of flow, stop times, money consumed as well as spatial phase characteristics (entrance, multistop, and exit) are analyzed. Then the multinomial logit model is calibrated to explain the spatial choice behavior of consumers. The model gets satisfactory results and reveals how physical environment in the commercial space influences consumer behavior. The multistop track is derived by model simulation, which helps to find some behavioral characteristics and problems in spatial usage. Finally, behavior changes are predicted and evaluated based on the model.

View full abstract

Sustainability of human society is at risk due to environmental problems and resources problems. To ensure sustainable development, it is important to change mass production and consumption system to recycling system. Biomass resources are recently expected to contribute to recycling society, because they include energy and nutrient salts. Therefore, we estimated biomass resource potential and its environmental load in Lake Kasumigaura Basin. In addition, we considered necessary measures for proper utilization.
As results of estimation, some features of biomass resources in the basin are shown. Too much livestock wastes are produced in the basin and they emit much amount of green house gas and water pollutants. A supply of compost from biomass resources exceeds its demand in the basin. Utilization of biomass for energy can contribute to meaningful reduction of green house gas emission. Based on these features, we made measures for biomass resource effective utilization.
JEL classification : Q21, Q28, Q42, Q51

View full abstract

Users of cellular phones and Internet increase with rapid development of information and communication technology, and lifestyles of people have been changing greatly. The policies that utilize information and communication technology have proceeded in the field of road traffic systems. The introduction of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) made shift to policies of software side such as information provision of route guidance from policies of hardware side such as construction and improvement of roads under the severe finance situations in Japan. We think that the relationship between ITS and people will be more deepened in the near future.
Internet and cellular phones have become popular in people life, and various types of road traffic information have been provided by them. Drivers' demand for traffic information has been diversified by the development of information technology. It is necessary for us to construct the information provision service system that can meet the needs of users. However, when drivers receive the travel time information, all drivers do not necessarily behave according to the information. We think that drivers decide the planned route by their subjective judgments on travel time. In addition, it is pointed out that the provision of traffic information does not necessarily improve the efficiency of traffic states. Therefore, we have to grasp the mutual relationship between the reaction of drivers who receive travel time information and the change of network performance.
In this study, by using the traffic assignment simulation in a simple road network, we analyze the variation of road traffic condition and the process in which users' travel time perception distribution is formed when drivers repeat travel behavior over a given period with and without the provision of route travel time information under the day-to-day travel demand variation.
As a result, it was found that the parameters of drivers' route travel time perception distributions are converged to constant values, and that the standard deviations of route travel time perception distributions in the case of information provision are smaller than those in the case without information provision.
JEL classification : R15, R41

View full abstract

Some governments regulate a number of surviving firms in a specific industry and/or restraint competition among incumbents to protect them. These governments, however, should implement industrial policies that promote entry and increase the number of operating firms, if they intend to maintain the level of output or employment in the industry.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the policies that a government maintains a target number of firms at the free entry equilibrium in an imperfectly competitive industry, rarely studied by previous researchers. We examine two measures : (1) the government gives a fixed amount of subsidy to firms. (2) The government purchases the output of the industry. We evaluate two measures based on fiscal efficiency, that is, an amount of government expenditure.
Okamura and Iiguni (2003) established that subsidy is more fiscal efficient than the government purchase if perfect competition prevails in the target industry. We prove that the government purchase becomes more fiscal efficient if the target number of firms is small and the market size is sufficiently large.
JEL classification : H20, L13, L15

View full abstract

Digital divide is a challenging issue for Malaysia as approximately half the population still lives in the rural areas. Rural populations are disadvantaged in terms not only of inferior telecommunication infrastructure, but also of lower standard of living as compared to urban dwellers. The affordability of being networked (“Income factor”) is an important issue that can prevent the diffusion of ICT to the mass population ; this particularly affects those living in rural areas. The Malaysian government has already adopted a Universal Service Provision (USP) policy to spread the use of ICT regardless of the differences in geographical location and “income factor”. However, its programs have been limited in scope and coverage.
This paper reports an investigation based upon a questionnaire survey into how Malaysian public servants, as representatives of the general population, both in urban and rural areas, value the use of the Internet as is reflected by their Willingness to Pay for the services. The investigation also examined to what degree “income factor” influences the population's use of the Internet service. The research objective is to measure the differences between the urban and rural respondents in the perceived value of being networked.
JEL classifications : R0, O33

View full abstract

As we know, natural environment is a very important element for social development. We must face and deal with it properly. Since the industrial revolution, the economic system was achieved by mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal of wastes in the past. In order to attain a sustainable society, we must realign our present urban system. Compact city is one solution to attain a sustainable urban system. From this viewpoint, the authors have already published papers [13] and [18] which consider the concept of a compact city [6] and [10] that have been reexamined mainly in European counties and the United States. In these papers, some simulations show a possibility of formation of a compact city. However, there is a shortcoming that the natural environment, which is important in the environmental symbiosis oriented city, is not incorporated. Therefore, this article aims to take into account the natural environment as an endogenous public good and to develop a new dynamic urban model. About the theoretical analysis of a dynamic model, one can find some contributions in the urban economics literature. Palivos and Wang [15] developed an endogenous dynamic urban model and they derived the optimal population by incorporating human capital into the dynamic mono-centric urban framework. Black and Henderson [3] further extended a dynamic urban model into a dynamic system of cities which involves two types of cities with human capital accumulation. In this paper, we construct a dynamic urban model internalizing the natural environment. This model is characterized as a social optimization problem. And we also simulate and analyze the possibility of formation of a compact city with natural environment.
JEL Classification : R11, Q20

View full abstract

National capital region has acted as a Japanese leading role through the current of various times from the war damage rehabilitation to the present. National Capital Region Development Program was projected five times as a readjustment in the National capital region. These projects were aiming to prevent the over-concentration of urban functions in Tokyo. But it is said that over-concentration of urban function in Tokyo has not been solved yet.
So the purpose in this research is to clarify whether the distributive policy is truly proper or not for National Capital Region Development Program.
First, we build up a hypothesis that the amount of production in National capital region varies according to the formation of Independence Urban Area. Secondly, defining Independence Urban Area, we aim to confirm the relationship among several areas by analyzing the amount of monetary transference and production. If Independent Urban Area was to set up and the number of employee dispersed from the central business district, we might draw a conclusion of changing the whole amount of production in National capital region.
By this analysis we can verify our hypothesis.
JEL classification : R11, R14, R38,

View full abstract

This article examined the exchange rate managements in the crisis-experienced emerging market economies after the 1990s. First, we found that the exchange rate flexibility has increased from the pre-crisis period towards the post-crisis period under the “soft peg” regime. Second, we identified a structural change in the factors for determining a reference rate in exchange rate management from the pre-crisis period to the post-crisis period. Third, we found that East Asian countries, in their post-crisis exchange rate managements, might reduce US dollar dominance, while raising the other currencies' weight, and further found that the countries who were not sensitive to inflation rates in their pre-crisis managements, might raise its sensitivity during the post-crisis period.
JEL classification : E44, F31, F33

View full abstract

The primary aim of this research is to examine the potential link between areas considered to have poor retail food access and spatial concentrations of diet-related health problems including type 2 diabetes, obesity and low birth weight in Leeds and Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. The research involves three major steps : (1) basic spatial analysis of disease distribution over the study area, (2) introducing measures of food access and (3) identification of the food access-health relationship with potential policy analysis.
This paper reports the framework for policy analysis using both spatial interaction and microsimulation models. The spatial interaction model is used to estimate areas of the study region which have poor access to food retailers. The microsimulation model incorporates these food access measures and health data as well as socioeconomic and demographic data from several surveys. The model will be first run to predict disease incidence using only demographic variables. Predicted results will be compared to known incidence rates. In areas where the model under-predicts the diseases, environmental factors (including retail food access) will be introduced as an attempt to improve the predictions. This will allow us to identify which variables influence residents' health.
As the microsimulation model identifies the factors negatively influencing peoples' health, it provides a framework for further policy analysis. The model can be used to run ‘what-if’ scenarios to predict the health implications of changes to environmental variables that proved to impact residents' health. The results of these scenarios will provide valuable information to policy makers who are concerned with health inequalities and the health officials who must treat an ever-growing population of obese and type 2 diabetics.

View full abstract

Multi-Modal freight models are traditionally built following the well known “four steps model” in which generation, distribution, modal-split and assignment are seen as separated modules. An alternative approach is to represent the multi-modal network by means of a “mono-modal” one, in which each particular transport operation (loading or unloading operation, transhipment, ...) is represented by a dedicated “virtual link”.
This approach, promoted by several authors, often referenced to as “super networks” or “virtual networks” is proven to give interesting results, but has some kind of “hidden trap”, linked to transport distances, that will be presented in this paper and that can only be solved using appropriate assignment techniques.
In a previous paper by Jourquin and Limbourg [15], it appeared that the equilibrium assignment techniques only partially solve the “distance trap”, because the obtained solutions are very close to those obtained by a simple “all-or-nothing” assignment. This can mainly be explained by the fact that, in inter-urban, inter-regional or international traffic, only a small part of the journey is done during the peak-hours in congested areas, and that the demand data that can be collected on large areas is often available only on a yearly basis, making it practically impossible to have a good estimate of the demand at a given period of the day.
However, one can not consider that all the traffic between a given pair of origin and destination will be charged on the same transport mode and/or route. This paper outlines a new usable deterministic multi-flow/multi-modal assignment technique that can be applied on large (virtual) freight transportation networks and that offers a satisfactory solution to the “distance trap”.

View full abstract

Creativeness is not only the trademark of successful entrepreneurship in a business environment, but is also a necessary ingredient for success and achievement in a complex policy system. The urban environment is one of the places ‘par excellence’ where creative ideas and actions can flourish, if they are supported by smart policy. Urban planning is one of the multi-faceted constellations that have triggered an uninterrupted attention in the literature after World War II. It has in recent years put creativeness high on the strategic agenda. This paper aims to offer new perspectives for strategic development of an urban system, on the basis of creative knowledge management that should induce innovative investment developments in an urban setting. The ultimate goal would be to make the city more attractive and thereby to contribute to urban welfare as a multi-attribute policy objective.
The conceptual framework of the paper is elucidated by presenting an empirical comparative case study on Italian urban areas, with a major interest in Caserta (in the Campania region in Italy). The analytical framework deployed in this paper is based on recent multi-criteria methods.

View full abstract

Economic development of Poland requires significant investment in many areas. A shortage of domestic capital means that greater attention should be paid to foreign capital, in particular foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI should play more significant role in stimulating technological development, restructuring transformations in the industry and decreasing the rate of unemployment.

View full abstract

Wetland ecosystems have numerous sustainable functions and services-these ecosystems are also at the greatest risk of being converted to other competitive land uses, especially when their locations are urban. The wetlands located on the eastern fringes of the city of Kolkata are faced with critical questions of development versus conservation, and evidently, there is an urgent need to prioritise management options. This paper is based on the assumption that long-term benefits of wetland conservation have not been sufficiently perceived. The study first attempts to analyse peoples preferences regarding conservation by assessing stakeholders' willingness to pay and then proceeds to evaluate the determinants of their preferences. This approach helps ascertain community preparedness and awareness about a critical resource like wetlands. It concludes that preferences are associated with socioeconomic as well as environmental parameters, while a strategy to educate people regarding the role of wetlands must come to fore with immediate effect.

View full abstract

We set up a theoretical model to investigate the impact of immigration under unionization in a two-sector economy that consists of unskilled labor and skilled labor. The effect of immigration on wages and skill formation as well as welfare is studied. We show that skilled immigration increases wage inequality of the two types of labor, unskilled immigration encourages skill formation, whereas skilled immigration discourages skill formation. We find that skilled immigration benefits the host country.

View full abstract

The management of water resources is an essential problem for our life and social and economic activities. There has been a serious shortage of water in East Mikawa area of Japan. Many automobile firms are concentrated in this area and they need industrial water as an important intermediate input. This area has a plentiful agricultural base. The productivity of agricultural business also strongly depends on the water supply from Toyogawa River and waterways.
In this paper, we try to analyze the relationship between the regional economy and water resources in East-Mikawa region. The targeted area is divided into four sub-regions, i.e. Toyohashi, Toyokawa, Tahara, and Shinshiro blocks. Some variables which related with water demand and supply are estimated by the econometric method. Comparing the estimated equations, we could get several findings. Firstly, the agricultural water supply depends on the regional economy because the agricultural sector is a major industry in this region. Secondly, the manufacturing sector will be also affected if the rate of water saving is very high. Thirdly, it is expected that the demand of tap water increases due to changes in the life style. In this region, a new dam is planned. Our result suggests that it is necessary to pay attention the relationship between regional economic structures and water resources in East-Mikawa region.
JEL classification : R11, R15

View full abstract

Using GTAP's CGE Model, this paper implements a comparative analysis of bilateral and regional free trade arrangements between Japan and partner countries within Asia-Pacific region with which negotiations are currently under way. These countries include Singapore, Mexico, Korea, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Indonesia. Some of these negotiations have already been concluded giving rise to the Japan-Singapore FTA (concluded in 2002), Japan-Mexico FTA (2004), Japan-Philippines FTA (2005) and Japan-Malaysia FTA (2005). Negotiations are still advancing with other countries. At the same time, negotiations are ongoing with ASEAN bloc of countries towards a regional trade agreement. The scenarios employed in this paper involve a complete elimination of tariff in all tradeable commodities between Japan and the partner countries. We employed both Version 5 (1997) and Version 6 (2002) of GTAP base data for the simulations. Simulation results with the different base data show that there is a significant decrease in gains (both in welfare and GDP expansion) over the two years—a situation that points to the aftermath of the 1997 Financial Crises. Comparing the bilateral and regional options, simulation results show that, in tune with now established theory, the benefits accruable from a regional or multilateral free trade regime far outweigh that from a bilateral trade strategy.
JEL classification : D58, R13, F13

View full abstract

Recently, lots of advanced nations are facing aging problems. The speed of aging in Japan is quite high above all. This means that the number of elderly people per an adult who have to care them socially is increasing. Although it was once natural that elderly parents live with and be cared by their family, it is becoming difficult to do this.
Needless to say, the expansion of public elderly services is very important. However, the roll of government is not only supplying it of course. The (national or regional) government have to levy and distribute taxes on people so as to extend social welfare (services) with considering and balancing the satisfaction of all the people in the nation or region.
In this paper, we consider the economy like this ; there are elderly and young people, and a regional government. Elderly people suffer from one kind of disutility which accompanies their life. The government carries out the regional welfare policy consisting of the redistribution and the public elderly service. Here, we assume that there is the shadow cost when regional government levy taxes on (or subsidize) elderly people.
We also assume that there are both types of elderly and young people that they have family in the same district and not. The elderly people that have their child can reduce (or increase) their disutility if they live with their children. Using this regional society model, we analyze the interaction of the regional welfare policy and the possible bargaining concerning decisions of people to live with family or not.
The main results are as follows ; First, independent to the possibility of the bargaining between a parent and his (or her) child, the income of elderly people is qualitatively higher than that of young people after the taxes. Second, in this system of tax collecting, the child would be burdened the strictly positive ratio of their parent's pre-bargaining disutility level. Third, if the regional society is quite aging, and if the ratio of the elderly people that don't have family in this district to the elderly that have is less than the shadow cost, then the young people will be levied all the income of them. And even if the ratio of the elderly people that don't have family in this district to the elderly that have is more than the shadow cost, it might be occurred that all income of the young be levied by the government.
JEL classification : D31, I31

View full abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of electric power sector reforms on industrial and household prices in the electricity supply industry using panel data for Asian developing countries and Latin American countries for the period from 1985-2002. We found that variables such as the IPP entry, unbundling of generation and transmission, establishment of a regulatory agency, and the introduction of a wholesale spot market have various impacts on electricity prices, which is not all consistent with expectations. It is important to note that attention should be paid to interpreting the statistical results when considering the sector structure of each region and the effectiveness of the regulations. In addition, power sector reforms in developing countries should be accompanied by continuous investment in infrastructure since the countries need to respond to rapid economic growth. In formulating the power sector reform policy in the region, it is necessary to achieve a balance between investment and competition. Controlled competition guided by strong government initiatives should be expected and the timing of the introduction of reforms should be carefully considered in the light of the economic structure of the individual countries.

View full abstract

Factors that influence an increase in per capita net income of rural residents in China were investigated using a market potential analysis. The market size of vegetables and the traveling time as economic distance were noted in the calculations. The results indicate that the vegetable market potential was correlated with the income of rural residents. This indicates the vegetable market potential is one factor that increases the income of rural residents. The differences between the coefficients of regression for coastal and inland regions indicate income gaps are expanding under the present structure. Moreover, China's transportation policy, which plans to construct five latitudinal highways and seven longitudinal highways, will equally increase market potential all over China. Therefore this will expand the income gap between coastal and inland regions.

View full abstract

This paper analyzes the regional disparities making use of the old municipal units (Meiji administrative villages). In order to make the difference between urban and rural area clear, it is desirable to use micro-scale statistics. But the divisions are sometimes modified, therefore the time series analysis is difficult. To solve the problem, we use “Census of Agriculture”. The Census tallies data from the old municipalities, which had been used from 1889 to 1953. The meso-scale data is useful to relate the smallest communities (village) to the present municipalities.
We collected 15 variables on agriculture about municipal units in Chiba prefecture and integrated them into 3 principal components based on factor analysis. Then we compared the components to the indexes of (1) the retail centrality, (2) train hours for Tokyo, and (3) the fluctuation of population and land utilization during 20 century. We concluded that multiple agriculture were developed near Tokyo.
JEL classification : R11

View full abstract

The aim of the current study is to introduce a new point of view about treating the locational attributes of the housing units in the specification of hedonic price equations. The classical single center city model estimates a negative price gradient from the central business district, but this model is no more valid for the multi-centered modern metropolitan cities. The price formation of the housing unit is determined with a complementary spatial interaction between the housing unit and all the urban services that take place around the housing. Moreover, the proximity to these centers is not sufficient enough to define this spatial interaction because the effect of the urban services on the price of the housing unit varies according to their attractiveness or mass too. This study extends the prior model specification efforts by introducing accessibility measures that are derived from the potential model into the hedonic price equations.

View full abstract

In this paper, we study the effectiveness of tax incentives and the variation in vehicle user costs on the environmental impact of private car use across cities in OECD countries and in some non-OECD countries in Asia. We present a simple model of private car stocks, vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) per capita and per car and CO₂ emission in relation to acquisition, ownership and fuel taxes, the pre-tax user cost of cars, and income per capita. In contrast with earlier studies that have tended to focus on samples of revealed or stated preference data from specific highly developed countries (or small groups of countries), we estimate our model by means of data from 68 large cities, among which 49 from OECD countries and 19 from non-OECD countries in Asia. The implications for sustainable development of the structural differences between these taxes in terms of the model outcomes are identified. Our results indicate that acquisition and ownership taxes have little impact on behavior and environmental performance, but fuel and other use-related taxes are effective.
Hence our econometric analysis suggests that taxes on variable costs have a greater impact on car ownership and use than taxes on fixed costs and that the former can be an effective way to reduce CO₂ emission levels, despite the rebound effect. However, given the complexity of the transport sector and the wide range of behaviour responses that can take place in any given socio-economic and institutional setting, a ‘one size fits all’ conclusion should not be drawn from the rather low-dimensional analysis conducted in this study.
A very clear finding is that our results confirm the importance of the fuel tax as an effective policy instrument in transportation. The fuel tax coefficient is highly significant in our econometric model. A 1 percent increase in the fuel tax per kilometre travelled reduces car ownership density, VKT per capita and CO₂ emission all by about 0.6 percent. The results are consistent with the expectation that increased fuel taxes discourage further growth in car ownership, lead to switches to other transportation modes and also lead to manufacturer and driver responses that lower CO₂ emission per capita. The impact on average annual vehicle kilometres travelled per car is much less, however. The elasticity is -0.1 (significant at the 5 percent level). This low elasticity is due to the so-called rebound effect : the increasing price of fuel has led manufactures to design and sell new cars with ever-more economical engines. Consequently, the disincentive of the higher fuel price is partially offset by the greater economy, leading to a lower overall impact on average VKT travelled per car per year. While the results suggest the greatest responsiveness of private car ownership and use to the fuel tax, they do not preclude that a combination of tax instruments would be more effective than a single one.
JEL classification : O57, Q51, Q56, Q58, R48

View full abstract

The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in 2002, adopted the target of halving the population that have no access to toilet or similar sanitation facilities by 2015, based on the understanding that access to sanitation facilities constitutes a basic human right and foundation of sustainable development.
Bangladesh, in South Asia, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world having a population of more than 140 million. This country has many difficulties and vulnerabilities. Natural disasters such as annually occurring floods and cyclone are typical examples. Arsenic contamination of more than 30% of tubewells which is prevalent in this country as main drinking water source may another serious difficulty. Social vulnerabilities in this country such as high population density, poverty and low literacy rate extends the impacts on a variety of parts of society. At present, struggling against these difficulties, vulnerabilities prevent the solutions.
As for the access to toilet, more than 60% of people in Bangladesh have not any toilets or using quite unhygienic type of toilets which has no sub-structure. Although the government is now promoting to spread a type of toilet named pit latrine, which stores human excreta in the hole made on the ground, this type of toilet is presenting problems in sanitary and environmental aspects. It does not have any treatment on the pit's bottom, polluted water is prone to seep into groundwater. As most people do not have a system of transporting human excreta in the pit or a place to bury them, people are compelled to build a new pit once it is full. The life cycle of pit latrine is considerably short, consequently it can be said that pit latrine is not sustainable.
In order for communities in a developing country to be able to make sanitary latrines and better human excreta management available to themselves, it must be made clear which technologies would be acceptable to local residents and how these technologies might be implemented.
In this paper, the authors proposed a process for local communities to accept appropriate technologies as their own initiative, installing and maintaining toilets in a sustainable manner, based on the discussion about current problems on sanitation and toilets as well as on the constraints that prevent them from improving the current situation. In this process, authors identified necessary factors for their decision making on sanitation improvement. Moreover, authors suggest some alternatives on locally appropriate technologies for rural people to cope with the problems such as improving toilets, sanitary management and utilization of human excreta derived resources.
JEL classification : I31, O33, O53

View full abstract

Recycling System of Electric Appliances has been the first recycling-oriented system in all the industrial area. The system is substantially affected by the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and therefore it naturally attracts as an object of research investigation.
First, this research analyzes whether the system may contribute to “environment conservation”. Second, this research possesses a novelty in geographical focus on Tokai-Hokuriku region, primarily analyzing whether the system may create environmentally-sustainable management.
The results show that the recycling system does not meet the standards to generate a benefit. Problem seems to be threefold : the reduction of logistics cost, the improvement of efficiency of the recycling rate together with reduction of recycling costs, and increase of net profit on sales of recycling.
This project presents first results of the analysis. Proposed improvement of the research lies in an application of longitudinal data, which will be worked on hereafter.
JEL classification : Q53, Q56

View full abstract