This paper examines the effectiveness of consumer subsidies to encourage the installment of solar panels in Japan. Such subsidies can be justified on the ground that the prices to consumers of the conventional energy alternative do not reflect their full social costs. The paper...

This paper simulates the power source mix of Japanese electricity in the year of 2023 based on the information publicly available from electricity companies and electric power system council. It evaluates eight scenarios based on three important parameters for the Japanese electricity market:...

This paper examines the economic consequences of a horizontal merger between Korean automakers that took place in 1998, with a particular emphasis on export market behavior. Estimates of structural demand and supply reveal that the merger enhanced production efficiency of the merged party by 6.3...

This paper examines the impact of new technology on plant-level productivity in the Japanese steel industry during the 1950's and 1960's. We estimate the production function, considering the differences in technology between the refining furnaces owned by a plant. We find that a more productive...

This paper examines the effect of economic integration on the product-level consumption patterns across the OECD in the past decade. Estimation results find evidence of strong convergence in cross-country consumption patterns with substantial heterogeneity across products and countries. The...

This paper examines the economic impact of re-invention - the degree to which an innovation is modified by user - on industry growth and productivity. The paper focuses on two re-inventions made by a Japanese steel company; these inventions improved the productive efficiency of Austrian-made...

The national treatment obligation, along with the most favored nation obligation, is an important principle of non-discrimination adopted by theWorld Trade Organization. It requires that foreign products be treated no less favorably than national products. This paper empirically examines the...

This paper estimates a dynamic oligopoly model of product innovation and proposes an approach to evaluate an equilibrium effect of public policy on firm's innovation activities. The model considers a multi-agent Markov-Perfect Nash Equilibrium, allowing for firm's dynamic decision making on...

This paper examines the effects of large-scale penetration of solar PV in Japan. Since the government adopted in 2009 the feed-in tariff on renewable energy sources, the solar PV has been popular for both for residential and non-residential users. This paper employs power system simulation and...