In this paper, we attempt to shed light on whether Japanese households are rational or if their behavior is influenced by culture and social norms by examining their saving and bequest behavior. To summarize our main findings, we find that Japan's household saving rate showed great volatility,...

This article uses survey data of 90,000 union employees working in 62 publicly-traded companies in Japan between 1990 and 2004 to study the effect of both own and self-reported reference wages on workers' subjective well-being levels. The availability of self-reported reference wages generates...

While search experiments are available in several designs, accumulating ex- perimental evidence suggests that individual search behavior depends on design details. This paper reports the first classification and comparison of several search experiment designs widely accepted in search studies....

In a two-country model with habit formation, we focus on interdependent macroeconomic adjustments to global and country-specific income shocks.Global habits and habit differentials play key roles in the global equilibrium dynamics, possibly nonmonotonic, and in the determination of international...

In the theory of endogenous time preference, one of the most common and most controversial assumptions is that the degree of impatience, measured by the rate of time preference, is increasing in wealth. Although this empirically-unjustified assumption often helps ease dynamic analyses by...

Unlike the standard assumption that the degree of impatience, measured by the rate of time preference, is increasing in wealth, empirical studies support that impatience ismarginally decreasing. By introducing decreasing marginal impatience into the neoclassical monetary growth model á la...

Economic interdependence of heterogeneous habit forming consumers is examined by using a two-country model. Due to endogenous interest rate adjustments, consumption-habit dynamics in one country are affected by the other country's habits and preferences. To characterize the interactive dynamics,...

Temporary agency work (TAW) is believed to facilitate the matching between firms and on-the-job searchers. This leads to shortening of the unemployment and job search duration. On the other hand, firms that hire temporary workers have less incentive to train them, which makes it difficult for...