Exploiting an ideal experiment situation, this paper provides clear evidence of consumption smoothing against an anticipated income change. Until FY2002, Japanese public employees received large and predictable bonus payments three times a year, but the third bonus in March was abolished in...

In March, 1999, the Japanese Government handed out "shopping coupons" worth 20,000 yen (about 200 dollars) to families for every child under the age of 15 and to roughly half of Japan's elderly population. In total, 25 percent of Japan's population received the coupons. The coupons expired after...

Part I : New Evidence on the Response of Expenditures to Anticipated Income Changes: Panel Data Estimates on Japanese Bonus System This paper exploits a notable institutional feature of the Japanese economy, the bonus system, to test whether households in Japan smooth consumption under large and...

The 1990s crash in Japan's stock and land market should have had adverse effects on household consumption. This paper takes advantage of a panel data from Japanese households to evaluate the impacts of the wealth gains or losses on households' spending. We obtain the following empirical...

The Japanese economy has suffered from deflation since the mid-1990s. Despite the importance of overcoming deflation for policymakers and academics in Japan, there has been no recent research on what changes deflationary expectations in Japan. This study emphasizes fact-finding from a unique and...

A number of hypotheses have been proposed to examine why Japan's household saving rate was high. This paper takes advantage of a micro-level data from Public Opinion Survey on Household Financial Assets and Liabilities to reexamine the effects of the bonus system on households' savings. We find...

The Japanese economy has experienced price deflation since the mid-1990s. Despite the importance of overcoming deflation, there has been little recent research on price expectations in Japan. This paper takes advantage of an original and rich quarterly household-level data set from the "Kokumin...

This paper exploits a notable institutional feature of salary payments in Japan, the bonus system, to examine whether households smooth consumption under large and regular income changes. Using high quality household-level data from the Japanese Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), our...

This paper uses a unique census data on Japanese nursing homes to evaluate the determinants of nursing home exit and the price elasticity of the institutional care. We take two approaches to address these by making use of micro-level data from Kaigo Service Shisetsu Zigyousho Chousa (Survey on...

This study takes advantage of micro-level information to make a projection of demand for at-home care services in Japan. We have observed a rapid increase in demand for long-term care services after 2001, a large part of which came from an increase in demand for at-home care services. Thus, an...