The purpose of this study is to evaluate the economic benefits of country of origin labeling (COOL) regulation by estimating the consumer's willingness to pay (WTP) for Taiwan products vs. other imported products if clearly labeled with their countries of origin. We employ the Vickrey...

Economic interdependence of heterogeneous habit forming consumers is examined by using a two-country model. Due to endogenous interest rate adjustments, consumption-habit dynamics in one country are affected by the other country's habits and preferences. To characterize the interactive dynamics,...

In this paper, I conduct an analysis of consumption and saving behavior in Japan, looking both at trends over time and comparisons with the other industrialized countries. I find that some of the conventional wisdoms (that the Japanese are asset-rich and hold conservative portfolios) still hold...

By using a two-country model with habit-forming consumers, this paper shows that the transfer paradox can take place in the free-trade, dynamically-stable world economy. When the debtor is more habituated to consumption than the creditor, an income transfer from the creditor to the debtor raises...

This paper studies the relationship between horizontal product differentiation and the welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination in oligopoly. By deriving linear demand from a representative consumer's utility and focusing on the symmetric equilibrium of a pricing game, we...

In this paper, we use Japanese micro data to examine what characteristics borrowing-constrained households have and whether borrowing constraints have an important influence on household consumption behavior. We identify borrowing-constrained households using three different indicators, some of...

We use scanner data of supermarket sales to investigate the effects of the EU School Fruit campaign, conducted in a sample of primary schools in the city of Rome during 2010 and 2011, on the consumption of unhealthy snacks. We allocate supermarkets to treatment and control groups depending on...

In this paper, we consider two firms diffusing incompatible technologies and their decision of consumer targeting. The technology adoption is made in two steps. First, once the firms sell their products to their respective targeted consumer, the technology is diffused successively by...

When a durable good of uncertain quality is introduced to the market, some consumers strategically delay their buying to the next period with the hope of learning the unknown quality. We analyze the monopolist's pricing and waiting strategies when consumers have strategic delay incentives. We...

A model of rational addiction (RA) with optimal inventories is developed and empirically tested using data on purchases in Japan. If a consumer has information regarding a future price increase, then she may hoard addictive goods; in this case, the optimal inventory period increases with the...