Empirical studies have shown that preferences for redistribution are significantly correlated with expectations of future mobility and the belief that society offers equal opportunities. We add to previous research by investigating the role of individual and social norms on rent seeking. We find...

The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake hit Japan in 1995, causing devastating damage to the economic landscape of southern-central Japan. However, the earthquake also caused people to realize the importance of social capital in Japan. Based on a large, individual-level database comprising...

The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995 has had a significant detrimental effect on the economic conditions of southern-central Japan. However, the earthquake also led people to acknowledge the importance of the many volunteer activities in Japan at that time. Using a large sample of...

High school baseball is very popular in Japan. All games of the high school baseball tournaments are publicly broadcasted. This paper hypothesizes that high school baseball influences the happiness level of the Japanese. Individual level data in Japan was used to test this hypothesis. The key...

The concept of Smart City is considered increasingly strategic for the solution to the questions related to the irreversible urban agglomeration growth. Created in the nineties in parallel to the liberalisation process of telecommunications and the development of internet services, this...

Transforming a city into a Smart City is a complex and multidimensional process which changes over time since all the involved stakeholders work to achieve more and better results. “To be smart” affects many aspects of a city including economics, government, people, living, mobility,...

We analyze the effect of a wife’s human capital on her husband’s earnings, using individual-level data for Japan in the period 2000?2003. We find a positive association between a wife’s education and her husband’s earnings, which can be attributed to the assortative mating effect as well...

This paper explores how social capital is related with self-rated health status in Japan and how this relationship is affected by gender, using data for 3075 adult participants in the 2000 Social Policy and Social Consciousness (SPSC) survey. Controlling for endogenous bias, unobserved city...

This paper aims to explore how social capital is related to self-rated health status in Japan and how this relationship depends on the extent to which a person is embedded into community. The study used data from 3 079 adult participants in the 2000 Social Policy and Social Consciousness (SPSC)...

This paper explores the relationship of social capital to self-rated health status in Japan, and how this is affected by the labor market. Data of 3075 adult participants in the 2000 Social Policy and Social Consciousness (SPSC) survey were used. Controlling for endogenous bias, the main finding...