This paper provides evidence from Internet-based, large-scale survey data of hypothetical choice experiment on the relative utility hypothesis. The methodology exploited here complements previous empirical results from happiness studies, incentivized choice experiment studies, and neuroscience...

Ever since the classical works of Smith and Veblen, economists have recognized that individuals care about their relative positions and status in addition to their own consumption. This paper addresses a new framework of choice experiments in order to specify the shape of utility function with...

The main purpose of this paper is to present the empirical findings derived from the data of small firms that the availability of private and public information on the borrowing firm leads to diverse borrowing patterns among firms. Exploring logit models to characterize the firm's choice of a...

This paper attempts to estimate the causal effect of public capital stock on production using Japanese prefectural data. We first articulate the difficulty of consistently estimating the regional-level production function with public capital due to the endogeneity of the public capital stock...

Ever since the classical works of Smith and Veblen, economists have recognized that individuals care about their relative positions and status in addition to their own consumption. This paper addresses a new framework of choice experiments in order to specify the shape of utility function with...

During the period of 2001-2006, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) adopted a market-oriented policy under the Koizumi cabinet. In 2006, following the formation of the first Abe cabinet, the LDP returned to a traditional redistributive policy. We assume that the supporters of the Koizumi cabinet...

This paper investigates how people's happiness depends on their current activities and on time. We conducted an hourly web survey, in which 70 students reported their happiness every hour on one day every month from December 2006 to February 2008. This method is an extension of the experience...

This paper investigates whether the Japanese voters became happy and/or unhappy due to the results of the General Election in 2009. We conducted a daily web survey for seven days before and after the election, obtaining1068 responses. Estimating a fixed effects model, we found that supporters of...

Using a monthly survey, this paper finds that supporters of the governing cabinet are significantly happier than non-supporters throughout our sample period. We investigate the reason and examine two hypotheses: 1) happy persons support the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and 2) supporters of...