We investigated whether natural disasters enhance efficiency improvement, capital accumulation, and technological progress. Furthermore, we examined whether the influence of natural disasters depends on the legal origin. By using long-term panel data, this paper decomposes productivity growth...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan are the only cities in the world that have experienced an atomic bomb attack. This paper explores how this devastating experience affected victims’ tendency to trust others. Individual-level data were used to examine the long-term influence of experiencing an...

A growing number of studies have explored the influence of institution on the outcomes of disasters and accidents from the viewpoint of political economy. This paper focuses on the probability of the occurrence of disasters rather than disaster outcomes. Using panel data from 98 countries, this...

Persistent institutions, which are captured by legal origin, are considered to influence the occurrence and intensity of economic crises. However, little is known about how changes in legal origin affect processes of economic development. Using non-European country data, this paper investigates...

Using Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996, I explore the extent to which inequality, age heterogeneity, and human capital have an effect upon neighborhood trust, which is ordinarily considered as a kind of particularized trust. The major findings are as follows: (1) Income...

This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996 to examine how the relationship between government size and life satisfaction changes. The major findings are: (1) Government size has a detrimental effect on life satisfaction when government size impedes economic growth...

This paper uses panel data from Japan to decompose productivity growth measured by the growth of output per labor unit into three components of efficiency improvement, capital accumulation and technological progress. It then examines their determinants through a dynamic panel model. In...

This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the years 1979 and 1996 to examine how the relationship between government size and life satisfaction changes. The major findings are: (1) Government size has a detrimental effect on life satisfaction when government size impedes economic growth...

Using panel data for 24 (OECD) countries during the period 1980–2004 this study examines how social trust affects fertility. The major finding through the random effects approach is that the social trust increases the fertility rate. A 1% rise in the trust rate leads to an increase in...

A growing number of works have explored the influence of institution on the outcomes of disasters and accidents from the viewpoint of political economy. This paper focuses on the probability of the occurrence of disasters rather than disaster outcomes. Using panel data from 98 countries, this...