The Japanese government announced commitment to African growth including support for the OVOP movement, which originated in Oita Prefecture, at TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) VI in 2008. At present, twelve African countries including Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi are expanding the OVOP movement.
The Thai government introduced the OVOP movement and scaled it up to a One Tambon One Product (OTOP) movement, strongly guided by government initiative. In this paper, we examine the impacts of the movement in the Northeast provinces of Thailand. OTOP encourages cottage producers through integration of power from all related government agencies. The movement was started by government initiatives, but gradually brought the concept of “self reliance” to the village people. In addition, OTOP has provided an “OTOP five star logo” so products gain new markets.
The authors conducted field surveys in Northeast Thailand to understand the effectiveness of the movement. This paper presents the survey results with the specific data and interview responses from the OTOP producers.
Finally, we identified some important factors in the movement. Simple regression analysis revealed a strong correlation between OTOP income level, member's age, car ownership and strong leadership. However, no significant relationships between income and education level or motivation of participation were observed. These findings are indispensable as policy implications for the African OVOP movement.

JEL Classification: R58

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This study attempted to identify the determinants of location choices for Japanese textile manufacturers in China, with special attention on the effects of water resources and agglomeration. Surveys of six manufacturers were conducted, resulting in the development of hypotheses for investment incentives based on an analysis of business activities. Using a theoretical model, a negative binomial model was introduced for estimation with a set of annual panel data. In the estimation, 272 newly established plants from 1992 to 2007 were taken as dependent variables, and eight independent variables were tested as determinants of location choices. The significance of industrial water abundance was tested in upstream and downstream processing sectors separately. In all estimations including those for the entire textile industry, upstream and downstream sectors, coefficients of market size, policy zones and seaports were positive and statistically significant, whereas wage rate was negative and highly significant. As expected, the water supply coefficient was particularly positive and highly significant for upstream textile plants, but not significant for downstream textile plants. Keiretsu and agglomeration variables had significant effects on the entire textile industry. Especially, the downstream textile industry location choice was affected more than the upstream textile industry location choice.

JEL Classification: C23, F23, R11, R30

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Two final goods, one primary factor and one resource model was developed to examine the effects of free trade on a small open economy when open-access resources are used as an intermediate to produce the final goods. We suppose only the final goods to be tradable and restrict our attention to the steady state of this economy. Then we investigated the production patterns and economic welfare. The mechanism behind this model follows the Rybczynski theorem in the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model, but responses to the resource harvest and outputs to a change in the relative price are ambiguous. The production patterns and welfare gains depend on the equilibrium resource stock before trade. Under some circumstances, a small open country may suffer from trade, while free trade may also mitigate the overuse of the resource stock.

JEL Classification: F11, F18, Q22, Q27, Q28

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This paper investigates the theory behind the performance of non-profit organizations' investment activities toward damage removal. Here “ damage removal” is defined as actions undertaken for the security of drinking water, the reforestation of desertified land, and the removal of land mines. I also look at the problem of information sharing when organizations can choose to increase or decrease the investment level under uncertainty, and their investment actions generate spillovers of technology, skills and knowledge for damage removal.
I assume that the production function and the probability distribution are continuous and differentiable under general conditions. If the degree of risk aversion of organizations is high enough, information sharing is not beneficial, and hence may not be formed between organizations for damage removal efforts.
When we deal with the construction of a scheme to share information, our results suggest this sharing system does not improve the present state of damage control if participants only consist of non-profit organizations with strong risk-aversion. If the organizations studied wish to improve the present quantity of damage removal, each organization should be required to adopt a degree of risk aversion within a fixed range.
On the contrary, the expected utility, namely the prospective level of damage removal, can be improved by information sharing when this constructed scheme targets a group of organizations operating below a critical level of risk aversion.

JEL Classification: D81, L31, L38

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Bio-ethanol (BE) plays an important role in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since East Asian countries face different economic and political situations and are located under different climatic conditions, GHG emissions, production costs and materials available for BE production differ, it is crucial to optimize production and trade of BE among East Asian countries by coordinating policies. This paper aims to show the economic merits of a policy coordination scheme for BE production and trade.
The East Asian inter-regional I/O table was estimated from the GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project, ver. 7) database to calculate production induced by investment for plant construction and working expenditure of annual production. Two different scenarios, the self-sufficient production scenario and policy coordination scenario, were considered to achieve an E10 policy with minimization of total CO2 emissions. In each scenario, an optimal level of production and trade quantity were calculated by a linear programming model (Takahashi, et al., 2010).
The simulation results demonstrated that, first, the policy coordination scenario yielded a higher production as a benefit in the whole region than the self-sufficiency production scenario. Second, Japan and the USA greatly benefited from policy coordination even though the amount of their BE production increase was small. This is because these countries provide production machinery for plant construction and chemical materials for BE production. Third, BE production under policy coordination contributed to promoting pro-poor growth in the least developed countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam by improving agricultural production.
Therefore, policy coordination for BE production and trade is a beneficial idea for development of East Asian countries. Particularly, Japan as a member of East Asia should take an initiative by investing money. In addition, the inter-regional I/O analysis employed in this study is useful for showing the benefits to policy makers.

JEL Classification: C67, Q27, Q28, Q58, Q54

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In this paper, the author conducted a comparative analysis of cross-industry exchange activities and industrial clustering projects to examine the effectiveness of both exchange activities among companies and policies conducted by the government.
First, it has become clear that positive participation by every individual company is necessary for success in business cooperation. Experiences of the cross-industry exchange activities tell us that tightening the relationships among members is the first step, and expanding the activity field outside the group to collect necessary information is the next step. Industrial clustering projects are led by the regional Bureaus of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which connotes the risk that each participant becomes passive. In order to clear the risk, growing of the local groups and existence of a leader from the private sector are inevitable. In addition, positive participation is supported by small group activities. We found that new small group cooperation is growing in the Tokai clustering project. The government sector can prepare meeting points to promote business matching. In this context, one cross-industry exchange group in Kita-Kyushu City made it clear that strong leadership in the private sector, together with the support of the local government as a secretariat, are the conditions for success.
Another important point to be discussed is evaluation of concrete policy measures to subsidize new business projects by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, prudent consideration is necessary when focusing on the industrial cluster formulation. We found, through the experiences of both cross-industry exchange activities and industrial clustering projects, that such subsidies stimulate the SMEs to try new business projects, even though most subsidized projects do not bear fruit. Compiling the experiences of the new project attempts leads to business cooperation. Although it may be difficult to screen the subsidized projects and to evaluate the policies, as indirect effects should be considered, measures to support SMEs' new business projects should be prepared.

JEL Classification: L53, L60

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Sports facilities are defined as quasi-public goods and most are supported by public administration, because sports affect education, improve health, develop the sports industry, and reinvigorate local economies. However, public facilities need to be evaluated from the viewpoint of social benefits and management expenses.
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the evaluation of public sports facilities by residents. We carried out a residents' consciousness survey of Gifu Memorial Center where many large scale sports events are managed. We analyzed the survey results using factor analysis and covariance structural analysis The results of our analyses are summarized as follows. First, the factor analysis identified three effects; direct effects, indirect effects and existence effects. The direct effects are evaluated by the sports events, facilities and management. The indirect effects are evaluated by sports promotion and local revitalization. The existence effects are evaluated by park features and emergency gathering area.
Second, the values of the latent variables that can be inferred from measurements of the observable variables provide corroborative evidence of the relationship between the evaluation of the facilities and expectations through the covariance structural analysis of residents' consciousness. In particular the residents feel satisfaction for the facilities and expect sports and education in community service promotional events.
Third, the evaluation of the Gifu Memorial Center by residents fluctuated according to a difference in the residents' preference for sports and their health consciousness. Residents that have a preference for and actually participate in sports set a high valuation on sports facilities, but residents that have no interest in sports are indifferent about the facilities. Furthermore, the neighborhood residents highly evaluate existence effects and local revitalization.

JEL Classification: R11, H75, I18

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We develop a two-sided market model to analyze the Japanese mobile internet market in which revenues from digital content are rapidly expanding. To pursue new revenue from digital content, mobile telecommunications carriers strategically integrate platform functions (PFs) , such as billing and authentication, into their networks. PFs are necessary for content providers (CPs) to charge users, so it is crucial for them to access PFs in a fair and open manner. Consequently, it seems appropriate to examine the need for government intervention in the transactions between CPs and telecommunications carriers, because telecommunications carrier PFs are bottleneck facilities for CPs. However, the effects of possible intervention should be respectively examined as related to the market environment.
We studied the effects of market structure on social welfare with a two-sided market model in which a telecommunications carrier sells mobile telecommunications services to consumers and sets the fees for CPs. Apart from preceding literature focused on advertising model, we introduce a billing model in which the telecommunications carrier purchases content from CPs and sells the content to consumers. A monopolistic telecommunications market is assumed in our model and three different market structures are compared to each other; (1) vertical integration, (2) monopoly in content market and (3) duopoly in content market.
First, we found that both the industry profit and the social welfare of (1) were largest. Second, our model also showed that the social welfare of (3) exceeded (2) . However, the industry profit of (2) surpassed (3) . These results indicate that CPs have the incentive to monopolize competitive content market, but content monopoly decreases social welfare. Therefore, if our model adequately works in a market with content industry independent from telecommunications carriers, government intervention should be considered to maximize social welfare.
Finally, we extracted additional implications from the model. The welfare of (3) may exceed (1) because an increase in the number of CPs creates product differentiation that can increase consumer utility. Based on this idea, we also examined the effects of some parameters on social welfare as a step toward further analysis.

JEL Classification: D11, D85, R11

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In cold regions, winter road maintenance is very important for securing both social and economical activities. Therefore, road management authorities spend large amounts of money on winter road maintenance. Winter road maintenance reduces mean travel time and strengthens travel time reliability, but an evaluation of the efficiency of winter road maintenance has not been carried out. Possible effects of winter road maintenance include improvement in travel time, travel cost, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and travel time reliability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of winter road maintenance by applying a stochastic user equilibrium assignment model, which we developed, with traffic capacity of a road expressed as a random variable, i.e. normal distribution. The resultant travel time of a route in a road network is expressed as a random variable. Mean travel time, travel cost, CO2 emissions, and travel time reliability were then chosen as the evaluation indexes for winter road maintenance. Using the variance of random route travel time, evaluation of travel time reliability can be determined. In cold regions, the effect of ‘travel time reliability' is thought to be an indispensable index. Previous studies have not attempted to quantify the effect of travel time reliability due to both the lack of winter traffic data and the absence of adequate network models that can address the uncertainty of travel time under winter traffic conditions. In this study, mean traffic capacity, the variance of traffic capacity and free flow velocity were assumed to change depending on the level of winter road maintenance. This study evaluates three road conditions, conditions in summer, conditions in winter i.e. present road conditions in winter, and conditions where the level of winter road maintenance for the national roads is decreased to the level for other types of roads. The road network used in this study was the whole road network in Hokkaido, Japan, the numbers of links and nodes in the network are 7,167 and 4,619, respectively. A slight increase in the CO2 emission costs compared with the present winter conditions was estimated when the level of winter road maintenance was decreased. As for the travel time reliability, there was a large difference when compared with the total travel costs. If the level of winter road maintenance decreases, an estimated total loss of 102.05 billion yen per year will occur.

JEL Classification: R42, R48

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This paper analyzes trends in demographic shift from regional areas to large metropolitan areas, and economic factors resulting from this demographic shift. First, we analyzed the status of demographic shifts between the large metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Aichi Prefectures, and then other individual prefectures for 5-year periods starting from 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000, and for age segments of 5-14, 20-24, 25-64 and over 65 years. As a result, we observed population inflow from regional areas to the large metropolitan areas in Tokyo and Osaka Prefectures for the age segments up to 24 years old and population outflow from large metropolitan areas to regional areas for the age segments of 25-64 years, except for the period starting from 1970. As for Aichi Prefecture, the trends of population inflow from regional to metropolitan areas was observed since 1990 for the age segments above 25 years as well as the age segments up to 24 years
Next, we extracted “inflow populations to Tokyo, Osaka and Aichi Prefectures from other individual prefectures” as the ratio of inflow/outflow populations to each prefecture's population and “regional economic factors constituting the regional economy” as the ratio of each prefecture's factors against Tokyo, Osaka and Aichi Prefectures for the above-mentioned periods, and conducted attribution analyses with a multiple regression analysis approach. As for regional economic factors, we adopted 13 factors including industrial composition ratio, administrative investment, academic background index, sales turnover in retail industry that resulted in the economic factors attributing to demographic shifts for each period. The factors affecting the three large metropolitan areas most were the “tertiary industry ratio” , “industrial shipment value”, “administrative investment value” and “retail sales value”.
To control population outflows from regional areas to large metropolitan areas in the future, upgrading industrial structure, turning from a reliance on public works and improving intellectual levels should be important.

JEL Classification: R00, R1

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In this paper, I clarify how peer effects, both positive and negative, can affect differences in the level of human capital between two types of students that have different preferences for education investment. First, our results show that education investment for each type of student increases with a rise in the population of its own type of students, but falls with an increase in the population of the other type of students. Second, when the degree of negative peer effects is sufficiently small, the difference in the level of human capital widens with an increase in the population of students with a high preference for education investment. Third, when the population of students with a low preference for education investment dominates that of students with a high preference, the increase in the degree of peer effects causes the difference in the level of human capital to become more divergent.

JEL Classification: I2, J24

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Needless to say, coherency of a local community is a decisive factor for creating a sustainable community. However, global standards have spread even to remote rural villages in Japan, so the distinguishing features of a local community have disappeared. We propose sustainability of community buildings is closely related to the community's traditional culture. Therefore, we aimed to identify a role of traditional culture and show its effects on the ability of community-based organizations to build a sustainable community.
There are two types of community-based organizations. One organization is deeply rooted in traditional culture. For example, a Japanese neighborhood association working to hand down the community traditions from generation to generation in the rural villages, but these organizations don't necessarily have a strong intention to build a better community. The other organization is formed by citizens through common intentions for community buildings. Voluntary networks such as non-profit organizations have a strong desire to build a specific community, but have no plans to sustain the organization after accomplishing their purpose.
In this study, a strategic gaming simulation was designed to awaken regional context in rural citizens. In some villages of “Kaneyama” town, “Bangaku” a performing art peculiar to this locality is kept alive. We focused on three villages: Inasawa Village where “Bangaku” has been performed for a long time, Yanagihara Village where “Bangaku” was recently restored, and Miya Village where no performing art deserving special mention exists. The three villages are next to each other and their natural environments are very similar. Our expectation was that local citizens involved in traditional culture activities such as “Bangaku” would awaken to a regional context when they participated in the simulation, “context-discordance gaming” , designed for this study.
Effects on real citizens' attitudes for community buildings were verified by observing meddlesome discussions of outsiders'. University students were adopted as outsiders in the gaming simulation. They carefully read the literature on “Kaneyama” town, made field surveys and interviewed real citizens on community buildings. Next, the students designed a community building for the villages to be accepted by the actual citizens. Finally, they proposed the design to the citizens.
In conclusion, we could find a strong awareness of regional context in citizens living Inasawa Village, suggesting the effects of traditional culture activities make a community sustainable.

JFL Classification: Z11, Z12

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The main purpose of this article is to analyze impacts of the development of high-speed transportation infrastructures (shinkansen lines, expressways and airlines) on regional economy with a domestic interregional input-output model from 1965 to 2000 for nine regions in Japan.
In general, there are many studies that have analyzed transport infrastructure development. Most of them have focused on supply-side analyses. However, we must not only focus on supply but also look at the side of demand. Therefore, in this study, we developed an Input-output model based on the Leontief Model. This model focuses the demand-side model. Then, we developed a potential model that is more concerned with the opportunities for interaction between regions. We interlinked this potential model with the interregional input-output model to evaluate the economic impacts from the transportation infrastructure. As a result, we identified the relationship between the regional economic growth and transportation infrastructure.

JEL Classification: R15, R40

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With the reform of the hukou (registered permanent residence) system in China, many farmers are moving to cities for work. Depending on whether the hukou is changed, mobility characteristics are studied as either migration or floating migration. Based on survey data from Lulong and Changli Counties of Hebei Province, China, this paper considers four aspects of migration and floating migration: individual characteristics, household characteristics, home region characteristics and destination characteristics. Farmers with a low educational level, less training, and whose family owns more land or has a larger social network are more likely to engage in floating migration. Farmers' educational level and amount of training in migration are higher than those in floating migration. In terms of the destination characteristics, regions with a low unemployment rate or large surface tend to attract migration; most farmers with floating migration are prone to move to the regions with a high unemployment rate or small surface. Another notable finding is the difference of distance. Most of the destinations of floating migration are in North China near Hebei Province; therefore, small distance plays a vital role in attracting floating migration. However, besides northern regions, the southeast coastal areas have attracted migration, which implies that distance may not be an important factor affecting migration.

JEL Classification: C42, J61, R10, R23

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Basic telephone service has long been defined as universal service, access to which is guaranteed across the entire nation by regulatory systems such as a universal service fund that collects contributions indirectly from general telecom users to compensate for the costs of providing the service to disadvantaged regions. As broadband spreads nationwide and telecom networks become broadband and IP-based, both regulatory bodies and academics have suggested that the definition of universal service may need to be changed to guarantee connectivity rather than a specific service.
To assess whether the existing system is still appropriate for newly-defined universal service, not only must its social benefits exceed the costs in terms of cost-benefit analysis, but also the method of charging telecom users for universal service should be consistent with the attributes and preferences because these have an impact on the benefits.
This paper investigates the relationships between the benefits of the universal service system and people's attributes and preferences in Japan, assuming that broadband is designated as a universal service. Benefits were estimated as users' willingness-to-pay (WTP) from web survey data by a contingent valuation method (CVM) using a logit model based on the random utility theory. Preference for the universal service system was measured as the reasons respondents said they were willing to pay for the assumed universal service, i.e. the economic rationales (such as network externality, redistribution, regional policy and merit goods) as well as self-interest.
The estimation showed that the median WTP for broadband as universal service is approximately 100 JPY. In terms of relationships with the benefits, the analysis suggested that the self-interest of inhabitants and visitors in disadvantaged regions significantly affects their WTP. Also, redistribution among regions, which more than half of the respondents stated was the reason they supported the universal service system, was found to significantly affect WTP. This suggests that redistribution justifies a new universal service system in Japan. Other rationales or user attributes including income, communications expense, sex and age did not appear to have a significant influence.
From these results, implications are drawn on how future universal service regulation should be handled, despite some limitations associated with the survey method. Finally, challenges for future studies on universal access are mentioned.

JEL Classification: L96, L51, D61

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Population densification and retreat from suburbs are becoming popular tactics to adapt to shrinking metropolitan regions. Nevertheless, strategies dedicated to the subcenters have been neglected, constituting a policy blind spot. In reality, local governments try to establish and maintain a place as a partial center within an area from the viewpoint of activation. However, a high probability exists that such a scheme can engender inefficient activities throughout the area in the future. Therefore, if reduction in the number of central areas is intended for the future, then an important issue is how such places should be “carefully selected” and what kind of central places should “be selected” from the viewpoint of the local government. Nevertheless, almost no urban area has experience in “carefully selecting” central places. In the Berlin metropolitan region, a project was undertaken to considerably reduce the number of central areas in the metropolitan area.
This study specifically examined the Berlin metropolitan region, which has reduced its number of subcenters. Particularly, Hennigsdorf is the only municipality that has been permitted as a new subcenter under this plan. Details are as listed below.
1) In Hennigsdorf, no large-scale urban renewal project that requires assignment of a new central place has been undertaken.
2) Fundamental structures of cities and facilities are satisfied when railroad stations constitute a definite central place. Many businesses can be located within walking distance in the central and neighborhood areas of the station.
3) Use of automobiles is completely suppressed, favorable spaces for walkers are thereby obtained and low-cost, high-quality, medium-rise housing complexes are provided through renovations.
Consequently, Hennigsdorf presents no particularly strong principle except that “city planning is not influenced by automobile traffic”. This case demonstrates that realistic consideration of daily life circumstances is a necessary condition for envisioning the central area of a future city.

JEL Classification: R14, R52

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In this paper, I analyze the influence that low fertility and aging under a population policy gives the Chinese community. In recent years, China continues to experience remarkable economic growth in the world. On the other hand, many problems such as problems in city and farming village policies, populations, labor, income gaps, the environment, water resources, energy, finances and real estate are accumulating in China. Therefore, to study these problems on the global scale, China can be regarded as a model country. Especially, low fertility and aging advance rapidly in China under the influence of the “One-Child Policy.” Therefore, the analysis of Chinese regional (population) structure is essential for China to continue stable development, and grow into a healthy developed country.

JEL Classification : C82, J00, O29, R00

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Safe water supply and sanitation are basic human needs and the basis of sustainable social development. In Bangladesh, an urgent issue related to water supply is wide spread arsenic contamination of groundwater, on which most people in this country rely for drinking water through tube-wells. Although surface water is an alternative drinking water source, low coverage of improved sanitation and lack of appropriate human excreta management causes surface water pollution, which restricts the use of surface water for drinking. Through water quality conservation, safe water supply and improved sanitation should be integrated to obtain the better living environment. In rural areas of Bangladesh, people suffer from disease due to unhygienic environments, and medical expenditures burden family finances. Inappropriate human excreta management also hampers nutrient cycling and leads to soil degradation of farmland threatening agricultural productivity. Therefore, sanitary improvements with appropriate human excreta management relate to safe water supply and poverty alleviation.
In this study, a project aiming to improve the living environment through safe water supply and sanitation was undertaken, establishment of a community based organization (CBO) was also incorporated. In the project area, all of the tube-wells were contaminated with arsenic. However, due to limited support from outside, most villagers were drinking arsenic contaminated groundwater. Under previous situations, although people were aware of the health risks of arsenic contamination, willingness to improve their hazardous situation was low due to a lack of prospects for obtaining a safe water supply. The purpose of this study was to present a scheme based on discussions on the locally appropriate technology options that consider continuous community based management. The pond sand filter (PSF) system was selected, PSF increases the local people's concerns on the quality of pond water, which is their drinking water source, and the sand filter targets community based management. Ecological sanitation was combined to prevent pond water pollution.
The authors show how the local people have increased their awareness of water and sanitation issues and willingness to improve their living environment after installing the facilities. The results revealed that the present scheme has encouraged the local people to understand the perspectives of an improved living environment, which has accelerated an increase in their willingness to improve living environment.

JEL Classification: I18, I38, R11

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