We estimate the consumption values of urban agglomeration economies and social overhead capital for Japanese metropolitan areas. Following the pioneering work of Tabuchi and Yoshida (2000), our approach exploits the fact that consumers tolerate higher living costs if they benefit from urban...

In the U.S. a variety of statistical data are provided for metropolitan areas defined by the government. There is no counterpart in Japan and the only metropolitan area definitions that are available are those proposed by a few researchers. This article proposes a new metropolitan area...

The Japanese government has advocated a wide range of policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, e.g. improvements of gas mileage, development of alternative fuel vehicles, shifts to walking, bicycles and public transportation for passenger transportation and to...

When lot side is endogenous, hedonic prices do not provide a correct benefit measure of a large public project even if population is homogeneous. Except for some polar cases where they yield correct estimates, the use of hedonic prices results in over-estimation. The results are extended to...

This paper clarifies the source of a difficulty in estimating structural equations in hedonic models and then develops an estimation method which avoids this difficulty. Both Quigley's and our method are applied to Japanese housing data and the estimates compared.

Labor management practices in Japan are quite different from those in the United States. Based on recent developments in contract theory, we develop a conceptual framework to understand why the differences have been maintained for a long period time. Our basic message is that the American and...

This paper examines three benefit measures of a large transportation improvement in a general equilibrium framework. Three issues are analyzed. The first is whether the measures can be reduced to the area to the left of a suitably defined transportation demand curve. Second, the measures are...

S. Scotchmer has shown that, even if the population is homogeneous, hedonic prices do not correctly measure long-run benefit s of a large public project. This paper examines the direction of err ors and shows that the use of cross-sectional land rent differentials leads to overestimation of the...

Workers in a long-term relationship often have an incentive to hide their ability early in the relationship to avoid having the firm increase the level of output expected from them in the future. The authors show that competition for older workers will permit the implementation of efficient...