2008年度記録

東北大学現代経済学研究会
2008年度記録

第４２回

日時	4月24日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	中島賢太郎氏（東北大学大学院経済学研究科准教授）
論題	Economic Division and Spatial Relocation: The Case of Postwar Japan
要旨	This paper empirically investigates the effect of accessibility to markets on economic growth by using a new economic geography (NEG) model and the case of the economic separation of Japan and Korea after World War II. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, and gained independence after World War II. This historical relationship between Japan and Korea can be interpreted as one of economic integration and division. We focus on the period of division and estimate the effect of the loss of the accessibility to the Korean market on the growth in postwar Japanese cities. By using a difference-in-differences (DD) methodology, we confirm that cities located close to Korea showed a relatively greater decline after the division of the colonial market, implying that accessibility to markets positively affects economic growth. Moreover, our results suggest that the large Japanese migratory movement observed in 1950--1970 can be interpreted as the relocation of industry that resulted from the division shock in 1945.

第４３回

日時	5月15日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第２１演習室（文科系総合研究棟１０階）
報告者	植杉威一郎氏（一橋大学経済研究所准教授）
論題	The Effects of Collateral on Small Firm Performance in Japan (with Arito Ono and Koji Sakai)
要旨	This paper examines how collateral and personal guarantees affect firms’ ex-post performance in the Japanese small business loan market. Based on a unique firm-level panel data set of about 1,000 small and bank-dependent borrower firms, we find the following. (1) Borrowers which newly provide collateral to lenders observe a more sizable reduction of riskiness than those without such security. (2) In contrast to the reduction of borrowers’ riskiness, financial condition including lending attitude and monitoring frequency do not observe significant improvements. (3) Improvements in terms of riskiness are more sizable and statistically significant among physical collateral providers than among personal guarantee providers. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that by providing collateral, borrowerscurb their motivation for moral hazard to further reduce their riskiness.

第４４回

日時	6月19日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	奴田原健悟氏（東京大学大学院経済学研究科D3）
論題	Nominal Rigidities, News-Driven Business Cycles, and Monetary Policy (with Keiichiro Kobayashi)
要旨	A news-driven business cycle is a business cycle in which positive news about future causes a current boom defined as simultaneous increases in consumption, labor, investment and output. Standard real business cycle model does not generate it. In this paper, we find that a simple New Keynesian sticky-price model with capital accumulation can generate news-driven business cycles. The key mechanism of booms and recessions is that markups vary through nominal rigidities when the news arrives.

第４５回

日時	6月26日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	敦賀貴之氏（関西大学経済学部准教授）
論題	The law of one price without the border: the roles of geography versus sticky prices(with Mario J. Crucini, Mototsugu Shintani)
要旨	We examine the role of nominal price rigidities in explaining the deviations from the law of one price among cities in the same country. Focusing on intra-national relative price isolates the border effect and thus enables us to extract the pure effect of sticky prices. A two-city model with nominal rigidities and transportation costs predicts that the variation of relative price is lower for the good with slower price adjustment after controlling for the distance. Using highly disaggregated retail price data from Japanese cities, we nd the strong evidence supporting the hypothesis. Finally, we quantify the effect of nominal rigidities in comparison to the distance effect. Our estimates suggest that the distance equivalent of nominal rigidities can be as large as the `width' of the border typically found in the literature of international law of one price deviations.

第４６回

日時	7月3日(木） 14:40-17:50 （第１報告：14:40-16:10；第２報告：16:20-17:50）
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室 (文科系総合研究棟４階)
報告者１	江口匡太氏（筑波大学システム情報工学研究科准教授）
論題	Employment Protection Regulation and Incentives: Differences between Procedural Inconveniences and Severance Pay
要旨	We consider the effects of employment protection regulation to incentives of workers and the labor market with search friction. Two types of the regulation are concerned: one is severance pay and the other is procedural inconvenience like providing advance notice or requiring negotiation with unions. The former is just transfer, but the latter yields social wasteful transaction cost. We would show that the procedural inconveniences give less damage to incentives of workers than severance pay, and conduct numerical illustration to highlight that appropriate regulation may reduce job flow and unemployment rate and improve welfare. Moderate procedural inconveniences improve welfare, but severance pay is unlikely to be consistent with the incentive compatibility of workers.
報告者２	新谷元嗣氏（Vanderbilt University）
論題	Can News be a Major Source of Aggregate Fluctuations? A Bayesian DSGE Approach (with Ippei Fujiwara and Yasuo Hirose)
要旨	In this paper, we examine whether the news shock, as explored in Beaudry and Portier (2004), can be a major source of aggregate fluctuations in the US economy. For this purpose, we extend the canonical dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, a la Smets and Wouters(2007), by allowing news shocks on the total factor productivity and estimate the model using the Bayesian likelihood approach. Estimation results show that (1) the news shock plays a significant role in the US business cycles; (2) the longer the forecast horizon of the news shock becomes, the more effects it does have on nominal rather than real variables; (3) the overall effect of the productivity shock on hours worked becomes ambiguous when the news shocks are also given to the economy together with the contemporaneous shock.

第４７回

日時	7月17日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	神事直人氏（岡山大学経済学部准教授）
論題	Labour Market Imperfections and International Duopoly
要旨	In this paper, I investigate the effects of monopsony power in the labour market when firms strategically interact in the output market. Two firms (North and South) compete in the Northern market. The Southern firm has monopsony power in the labour market, while the Northern firm does not. I show that the monopsonistic labour market in the South is actually beneficial to the Northern firm. Northern consumers, however, suffer from it. Imposing social clause tariffs or labour standards results in conferral of a strategic advantage on the Southern firm, whereas it may improve Northern social welfare.

第４８回

日時	10月16日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第402演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	塩路悦朗氏（一橋大学大学院経済学研究科教授）
論題	不確実性の増大と流動性資産需要：動学的一般均衡モデルによる分析
要旨	本稿の第１の目的は不確実性の拡大・縮小がマクロ経済変動に与える影響を分析するための新しい枠組みを提示することである｡一般に、不確実性の増大は金融仲介の収縮を通じて経済活動の後退につながると考えられている｡すなわち銀行は貸出のリターンの不確実性が増すとより慎重な貸出態度をとるようになる一方、預金者は銀行の経営状態に疑念を抱くようになり預金以外の資産にシフトするようになる｡しかし経済学の世界においてはこのような現象を動学的な一般均衡の世界で表現することは行われてこなかった｡そのひとつの理由は現在のスタンダードな分析手法が不確実性の増大という２次のモーメントに対するショックに対する動学的反応を導くのに適していないということにある。従来はもしこのような分析を行おうとすると計算負荷の高い手法に頼らざるを得ず、変数の多い複雑な一般均衡モデルを解くことは非常にコストが高かった｡本稿では最近になって経済学への応用が見られるようになった新しい手法であるMarkovian Jump Linear Quadratic (MJLQ)アプローチを不完全競争・外部経済があるケースに拡張することに成功した｡これによって短時間に複雑なモデルを解くことを可能となった｡このような手法は今後政策分析の場でも有用となってくると期待される｡本稿の第２の目的は、上記の枠組みを用いて不確実性の増大が流動性資産に対する需要をどのように変化させるかを明らかにすることである｡一般に、不確実性が増大したとき、人々は長期的なコミットメントを回避するようになって非流動的な資産よりも流動的な資産を選好するようになると考えられている｡これは預金者側で言えば定期性預金のような非流動的預金の需要が相対的に減少し普通預金のような流動性預金の需要が相対的に高まることを意味している｡貸し手側で言えば銀行が借り手に対して長期的にコミットするような長期貸出を絞り込んでより短期的な貸し出しを選好するようになることを意味している｡このような現象は現実的と思われるが､これを動学的一般均衡の枠組みの中で分析することはこれまで容易ではなかった｡本稿では上記のアプローチを応用することでこの分析を比較的容易にしている。流動性需要の分析は中央銀行にとって一つの重要な関心事であるため､このアプローチの応用可能性は広いと思われる｡

第４９回

日時	10月23日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	法学研究科第224演習室（演習室10番）（文学研究棟2階(この地図の16番の建物です)）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	北川章臣氏（東北大学大学院経済学研究科教授）
論題	"Hopes" and "Despairs" in the Labor Market: An Economic Theory of Working Poor
要旨	This paper extends Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984)’s efficiency wage model to explore the possible interaction between firms’ hiring policy and outsiders’ employability. Specifically, firms determine their hiring policies, based on the accepted view about the employability of outsiders, whereas outsiders decide whether or not to maintain their employability, given firms’ hiring policies. Such an interaction is responsible for the unconditional existence of the “no-second-chance”equilibrium, in which firms believe that outsiders are no longer employable, and thus choose to fill their vacancies exclusively with new entrants into the labor market, which discourages outsiders from making efforts to preserve their employability. On the other hand, the “second-chance” equilibrium, in which firms believe that outsiders are still employable, and thus choose to fill some vacancies with them, exists only when the labor demand is sufficiently active. Outsiders are motivated to preserve their employability if and only if there is a good chance of being re-hired and making a good living again, which entails a sufficiently high demand for labor.

第５０回

日時	10月30日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	大久保敏弘氏（神戸大学経済経営研究所准教授）
論題	Tax Competition with Heterogeneous Firms (with Richard Baldwin)
要旨	This paper studies tax competition in a setting that allows for agglomeration economics and heterogeneous firms. We find that the Nash equilibrium involves the large rich country charging a higher tax than the small nation, with this rate being too low from a social point of view. Tighter integration of markets leads to an intensification of competition and a resulting drop in Nash tax rates and a narrowing of the gap. Since large, productive firms are naturally more sensitive to tax difference in our model, tax competition turns on the marginal movement of large firms. As a consequence, tax competition has consequences for the average productivity of the big and small nations’ industry. In particular, by charging lower tax rates, the small nations are able to attract few high productivity firms.

第５１回

日時	11月13日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	岡澤亮介氏（京都大学大学院経済学研究科博士課程）
論題	Mismatch and Factor Immobility (with Ken Ariga)
要旨	This paper builds and calibrate a model of competitive search that can reproduce a set of stylized facts concerning major impacts of the decade long stagnation and subsequent changes in the labor market in Japan. We highlight the role played by varying degrees of relation specific investments in forming employment relations. Depending upon the degree of specificity, a job slot can be immediately destructed, or, only the filled jobs survive, or, jobs survive as far as workers with specific training remain in the market. We obtain a rich variety of aggregate labor market responses to a negative productivity shock. By embedding such a system of employment in an economy plagued with limited capital mobility, we can generate upward drift in Beveridge curve, pro-longed periods of labor adjustments, decline in the share of jobs with costly investment in training, and strong cohort effects. The paper also simulate impacts of 'zombie' jobs, firing cost, and downward wage rigidity.

第５２回

日時	11月20日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	法学研究科第224演習室（演習室10番）（文学研究棟2階(この地図の21番の建物です)）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	山本和博氏（大阪大学大学院経済学研究科准教授）
論題	Trade and mergers in the presence of firm heterogeneity (with Noriaki Matsushima, Yasuhiro Sato)
要旨	We investigate the role of firm heterogeneity in considering profitability and desirability of mergers in the international economy. Analysis shows that higher trade costs make only cross-border mergers profitable whereas larger firm heterogeneity is likely to increase both domestic and cross-border mergers. Furthermore, it is shown that whether or not a merger leads to merger waves depends on the types of firms involved in it. It is also demonstrated that larger firm heterogeneity can reduce the discrepancy between profitability and desirability of mergers when the trade cost is sufficiently low.

第５３回

日時	11月27日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第401演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）
報告者	中林真幸氏（東京大学社会科学研究所准教授）
論題	Imposed efficiency of the Treaty Port: Japanese industrialization and Western imperialist institutions
要旨	Expansion of impersonal market trades under governance mechanism with third party enforcement has driven modern economic growth. In order for third party governance to work well, standardization of trade practices is critical, which supports court-verifiability and decreases transaction costs. However, difficulty of standardization depends on feature of items trades. While trades of industrial commodities are relatively standardizable, those of labor are not necessarily. Thus a successful economy has experienced subsequent and well-coordinated diffusion of impersonal trades from more standardizable markets to less standardizable ones. In late 19th century Japan, on which international free trade was imposed by Western powers, treaty port governed by Western institutions worked as a pivot of coordinated modernization of domestic markets.

第５４回

日時	12月11日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	法学研究科第224演習室（演習室10番）（文学研究棟2階(この地図の21番の建物です)）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	山田知明氏（立正大学経済学部講師）
論題	Income Risk, Consumption Inequality, and Macroeconomy in Japan
要旨	In this paper, using an overlapping generations model with heterogeneous households, we investigate economic inequality in recent decades in Japan. We decompose the causes of the economic inequality into three factors: (a) macroeconomic variables factor, (b) a demographic factor, and (c) the idiosyncratic income risks factor. We find that the income and wage inequality generated by the model closely replicates the actual evolution of the inequality in Japan. On the contrary, the consumption inequality in the data is much more volatile than that predicted by the model. Based on a counterfactual simulation, we demonstrate that in addition to the demographic factor, time-varying macroeconomic factors play an important role in the evolution of economic inequality. In particular, we show that the low growth rate of total factor productivity in the 1990s in Japan limited the dispersion of economic inequality.

第５５回

日時	12月18日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	法学研究科第224演習室（演習室10番）（文学研究棟2階(この地図の21番の建物です)）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	中島賢太郎氏（東北大学大学院経済学研究科准教授）
論題	Agglomeration or Selection? The Case of the Japanese Silk-Reeling Industry in 1896-1916 (with Yutaka Arimoto and Tetsuji Okazaki)
要旨	Plants in clusters are often more productive than those located in non-clusters. Higher productivity in clusters could be caused by agglomeration effect in which improves productivity of all plants in a region, or plant-selection effect that drives out low productive plants by intense competition in a cluster. This paper uses plant-level data on the Japanese silk reeling industry in 1895-1916 to distinguish between these two effects. We identify the plant-selection effect by using different implication on the distribution of plan-level productivity of the two effects. We found that plants in clusters were more productive. The widths of distribution of plant productivity in clusters were narrower and severely truncated than those in non-clusters. Moreover, high-cost (low-productivity) plants had significantly higher probability of exit in and only in clusters. These results imply that the plant-selection effect was one of the sources of the higher plant-level productivity in clusters.

第５６回

日時	1月15日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第402演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	中嶋亮氏（筑波大学人文社会科学研究科講師）
論題	The Effect of Collaboration Network on Inventors' Job Match, Productivity and Tenure (with Nobuyuki Hanaki and Ryuichi Tamura)
要旨	It has been argued in the economic literature that job search through informal job networks improves the employer―employee match quality, especially in high wage sectors. This paper argues that inventors' research collaboration networks reduce the uncertainty of firms about the match qualities of inventors prior to hiring. We estimate the effect of inventors' collaboration networks on their productivity and mobility using the U.S. patent application database. It is found that network-recruited inventors are more productive and have longer tenure than publicly recruited inventors. The evidence from fixed-effect regressions shows that the higher productivity and longer tenure of network-recruited inventors are not solely attributable to their unobserved ability. These results are consistent with the job match hypothesis between inventors and firms through their collaboration networks.

第５７回（東北大学大学院国際文化研究科　木曜研究会と共催）

日時	1月29日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	国際文化研究科棟会議室（国際文化研究科棟1階(この地図をご覧ください)）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	木内祐輔氏（大阪大学大学院経済学研究科博士課程）
論題	The Design of Social Security System: Pension System vs. Unemployment Insurance
要旨	This paper shows how the social security system evolves as attribution of voters changes. In our setting, policy determination is based on majority voting and the government has two kinds of social security policy; pension system and unemployment insurance. That is, when the workers constitute the majority of voters, pension system is supported and when the unemployed is the majority, the unemployment insurance is adopted. Under this setting, employing the concept of structure-inducedequilibrium developed by Shepsle (1979), the present paper shows how the contents of the social security system evolves depending on the dynamics of capital accumulation and the unemployment rate, and shows the possibility that the one or other of social security system completely evaporates in certain instances.

第５８回

日時	2月12日（木） 16:20-17:50
場所	経済学研究科第402演習室（文科系総合研究棟４階）（ふだんと異なる会場です。ご注意ください！！）
報告者	楡井誠氏（一橋大学イノベーション研究センター准教授）
論題	Aggregate Fluctuations of Discrete Investments
要旨	This paper demonstrates endogenous fluctuations of aggregate investments when firm-level investments follow an (S,s) policy and exhibit strategic complementarity. We present a method to characterize the aggregate fluctuations that arise from the interaction of the (S,s) policies. A closed-form distribution function of the output growth rate is derived in general environments. We show that the growth rate has a strictly positive variance even when the number of firms tends to infinity if the production exhibits constant returns to scale and the real wage and interest rate are fixed.