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 struck Japan in 1995, causing devastating damage to the economic landscape of south-central Japan. The earthquake also caused people to realize the importance of social capital in Japan. Based on a large, individual-level database comprising 488,223...

We illustrate how the desire to live in a fair society that rewards individual effort and hard work triggers an unselfish though rational demand for redistribution. This leads the well off to prefer higher taxes and the poor to reject extreme progressivity. We then provide evidence of these...

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...

I investigated how people's childhood experiences of involvement in team sports helped them develop non-cognitive skills, which later prompted them to make charitable donations to disaster victims. I independently collected individual-level data from approximately 7000 observations in 2016. The...

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...

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...