The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between the characteristics of residents and a Hazard map of Komatsushima City in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. This paper reveals the problems and adequate policies for disaster mitigation at Komatsushima City. In our analysis we use Geography Information System (GIS) to determine the problems. Moreover, we consider the characteristics of residents in each area and forecasted flood areas in Komatsushima City. We also consider the location of temporary emergency evacuation spots determined before the Great East Japan Earthquake by Komatsushima City based on a Hazard Map. As the results of our analysis, we show that it is necessary to reconsider the locations based on a revised Hazard map.
JEL Classification: Q54, R53

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In general considerably more is known about the geography of economic levels (variates) than the geography of economic relationships (covariates). While place-specific factors are known to affect the sizes of local or regional multipliers, it is not known how these multipliers systematically vary from one place to the next.This paper examines geographic variation in the sizes of (aggregate) economic base multipliers during the years 1980, 1990, and especially 2000. Employment multipliers are estimated for hundreds of micropolitan counties found across the U.S. in the 48 contiguous states. These economies occupy an intermediate position in size and complexity between less dense rural economies and more dense metropolitan economies.The spatial expansion method is adapted to estimate the spatial heterogeneity in the key relationship between nonbasic (local) and basic (export) jobs across the micropolitan counties. Non-earnings income also has an important effect on the spatial attributes of this relationship and less important effects are identified for human capital and industrial specialization. These regression results are in turn used to estimate the properties of a continuous spatial surface for micropolitan multipliers. The properties of this surface changed during the study period 1980-2000 as the micropolitan counties grew in size, the national space-economy was restructured, and the effects of non-earnings income became more pervasive.
JEL Classification: R11, R12, R15

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This paper measures the technical efficiency of joint public-private venture railways and private railways in Japan using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis.　We compare the following four groups using student’s t-tests: Group 1 is composed of rural railways operated by joint public-private ventures, Group 2 is composed of rural railways operated by the private sector, Group 3 is composed of urban rapid transit railways operated by joint public-private ventures, and Group 4 is composed of urban rapid transit railways operated by the private sector.　The results show that the null hypothesis of no difference between Group 1 and Group 2 in mean efficiency is not rejected, and the null hypothesis of no difference between Group 3 and Group 4 in mean efficiency is not rejected.
JEL Classification: R32, L33, H42

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The Indonesian government has set a target to reduce between 26% and 41% (0.767 to 1.2095) Gt of CO2e by 2020 based on 2005 emissions. This study determined the potential for achieving this target using Kupang City as a case study. We introduced Kupang government needs and the current social-economic situation related to GHG emissions, constructed a Kupang IO Table for 2010, estimated potential pollutant sectors, increased the final demands in the leading sectors and investigated how these impacts are related in the sectors. We also estimated the amount of indirect GHG emission coefficient for every sector and the total amount of GHG emissions caused by economic activities indicated in the Kupang IO Table. In Indonesia, this is the first study to construct and calculate GHG emissions based on an IO table at the regional level. Our analysis showed approximately 0.09% to 0.1% of total GHG emissions in Indonesia by 2020 was emitted by economic activity in Kupang in 2010. As a proposal to the government, we designed a current and future framework to provide an optimal solution to integrate related sectors, natural resources, final demands and outline the feasibility of introducing renewable energy technology including energy supplies from a waste treatment plant.
JEL Classification: O21, O25, O44, R50, R58

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　　Active discussions have taken place in Japan since the 1980s over the diversification and personalization of families and their members.　The obviousness of the nuclear family as a form and modern family ideology now appears to have lost relevance.　Current child abuse prevention measures regard families with no father as a defect and single-mother families as being at risk of child abuse.　　
This study examined whether public institutions have a tendency to determine single mothers as child abusers, using data on abuse cases handled by a child consultation center.　Based on the results of looking at the relationships between family types and the severity of abuse as well as the number of notifications of abuse, it was found that people were more likely to notify a child consultation center of the possibility of abuse for single-mother families than two-parent families with fathers and mothers and tended to report the level of severity at the single-mother families as being “at risk of abuse” and the type of abuse as neglect.　Interviews with six single mothers judged as abusers suggested the possibility that public services provided by public institutions were a burden on them.　Single mothers judged as abusers are placed on the watch list of public institutions.　According to the interviews, these single mothers felt that rejection of public services made the surveillance stronger and that they were rejected from the regional community.　These single mothers were frustrated with the regional community.　However, they neither tried to fight against the community nor become assimilated into it, in an apparent attempt to maintain a stable life.
JEL Classification: Z19

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　　This study reveals the spatial structure of railroad station areas that are smaller than municipal divisions.　A town is regarded as the areas around a station.　The scale of a town is measured by the number of passengers that go in and out of the station.　The chain of railroad station areas from the terminal station, the largest station in the area, in the metropolis to the suburb creates an urban area.
　　There are two types of the above chains in metropolitan areas of Japan.　In one the station nearest the terminal station is small and the second largest station is far from the terminal station.　In the other the second largest station is located next to the terminal station and other stations become gradually smaller as they move away from the terminal station.　This study can contribute to plans for the development of station areas in a metropolitan area as it elucidates the mechanisms of the spatial structure in the urban area.
　　In the main body, a town is regarded as the circular railroad station area to simplify the model.　Then the rank-size and gravity models were applied to perform a simulation analysis to understand how gaps in the size of stations in the metropolitan area, the number of stations, and the traffic conditions affect the relative interactions based on the relationships between stations nearest to the terminal station and the terminal station itself.
　　As a result, the relative interactions showed that the distance between the terminal station and the next station is greater when the number of stations is small, the gap between the size of stations is small, and the size of the terminal station in the metropolitan area is large.
　　The above model was applied to a railroad route in the metropolitan area of the Kanto region using a discriminant analysis.　The results were partially similar to the simulation analysis.
JEL Classification: R12, R40

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　　This paper aims to survey the performance of social enterprises and examine how they solve various social problems.　Social enterprises can be regarded as a new model of modern nonprofit organizations.　They work to challenge and solve the various social problems we face today, such as environmental and well-being issues, inequality of educational opportunities, and disparity in income distribution.
　　Although prompt action must be taken to overcome these problems, government by itself cannot resolve the problemsm satisfactorily, so social enterprises have recently stepped in and are changing the boundaries.　From the viewpoint of sustainability, these enterprises need to profit through their own business to accomplish their various targets.　They also need to receive contributions or investments to continue their activities.　Many start-up social enterprises struggle to obtain resources, such as manpower, contributions and grants.　Success stories in social enterprises impact various fields.　Through struggles and tough experiences, some enterprises obtain business know-how so they can support other members.　This movement suggests that the citizens support social enterprises like incubators.
　　Ministry of International Trade and Industry （MITI） reported about 27 cases in the recovery process from the Tohoku Earthquake in the Social Business Case Book.　We examined these cases and show how social oriented corporations and business oriented non-profit organizations deal with the various tasks.　Short-term problems, such as basic services for daily life, were addressed by seven non-profit organizations and three for-profit organizations as their mission.　Medium-term or long-term problems, such as business chances, were dealt with by for-profit organizations.
JEL Classifications: D63, H44, M14

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The number of visitors to Japan from foreign countries exceeded 10 million people in 2013.　At present, more are expected in the near future, so regional inbound policies have become important for increasing foreign visitors.　Taking this into consideration, in this report, the effects of the inbound policy is analyzed from the viewpoint of a wide area inbound policy.
　Many wide-area inbound tourism associations are making an effort to promote an increase in foreign visitors, and one main supporter for the budgets is the local governments.　As the main members of the inbound tourism associations and with knowledge of many attractive sightseeing spots in their areas, local governments may hope that associations will lead foreign visitors to their areas for economic benefits.
　　Based on this situation, the correlations between the wide area inbound policy and the economic effects of each prefecture in the ‘Chubu Wide-area Tourism Promotion Council’, which consists of nine prefectures （Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie and Shiga Prefectures） in the central area of Japan were analyzed, using the Chubu Inter-industry Relations Table （I-O Table）.
　　According to the results, the inbound policy of the Council leads to the possibility that each prefecture may receive economic benefits to some extent, even though the policy itself doesn’t lend a specific merit to a specific region.　On the whole, the inbound policy of the Council provides:（1） information on places that foreign visitors would like to visit and （2） what each local government wants to show to foreign visitors.　As a result, the combination of these points is relatively balanced at present.
JEL Classification: R11, R15, R58

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