This article explores the long-term consequence of a prevailing superstition regarding women who were born in 1966, a year of the fire horse, who were around 44 years of age in 2010. The findings indicate that 'fire horse women' are disadvantaged in some aspects such as divorce rates,...

This paper examines the labor supply outcomes of family care provision for Japanese households in 2010, ten years after the introduction of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program. We found that family care provision for parents adversely affected labor market outcomes of main...

In this study, we explore the causal relationship between length of stay (LOS) in hospitals and the treatment outcome for Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) patients in Japan, where the average LOS (ALOS) is the longest among OECD countries. Using chart-based data, we address the endogeneity...

Utilizing original panel data collected in 2007 and 2010 in rural Indonesia for 2261 households located in 98 villages in 7 provinces, this paper investigates the food markets' functions with different extents of integration, and aims to interlink three important factors in the process of...

Summary We evaluate the impact of agricultural credit program participation on children's school attendance in rural Malawi. Our paired-site sampling survey reveals that credit uptake decreased school attendance by young girl children. This finding raises concerns that young girl children are...

This article estimates the determinants of the living arrangements and school enrollment of orphans in Uganda. The results indicate that orphans, those who have lost at least one biological parent, are more likely to be found in female-headed households than male-headed households. As the...

Absenteeism among public health workers is common in developing countries. Absence rates among public health workers are above 25 per cent in the five developing countries that Chaudhury et al. (N. Chaudhury, J. Hammer, M. Kremer, K. Muralidharan, and F.H. Rogers (2006) Missing in action:...

The year of the fire horse (called “Hinoeuma” in Japanese) is one of the sixty Chinese zodiac symbols used to count years. According to superstition, fire horse women are said to have troubled marriages, to mistreat men, and to cause early deaths for their husbands and fathers. No such...

Monopsony is often observed in local agricultural markets in developing countries because of the high entry cost to buyers; farmers in such markets therefore sell their agricultural products at a lower price. However, this situation seems to be changing with the diffusion of mobile phones. This...