GRIPS Discussion Papers

政策研究センターでは、政策研究大学院大学として組織的に研究活動しているプロジェクト（政策研究センターのリサーチ･プロジェクトなど）の成果と、研究者（執筆者）個人の研究成果の公表の場として、「Discussion Papers（ディスカッション・ペーパー）」の発行・配布およびウェブ公開をしております。
The Policy Research Center is a central research facility of GRIPS and has an important place in the provision of Discussion Papers on a wide range of policy-related issues in English as well as in Japanese. These papers are also released on the Center's web site to share the research results of researchers and individual students.

2011年1月以降のDiscussion Papersはこちらをご覧ください。
For the Discussion Papers accepted after January 2011, please see here.

Cultural Policies in Europe. From a State to a City-Centered Perspective on Cultural Generativity Pierre-Michel Menger Abstract Cultural policy in Europe is deeply rooted in the Welfare State doctrine that has been prevailing during the last half century. Its implementation has gone along with the invention and rise of educational policy, social policy and health policy. This paper sketches its evolution as a four phase move towards what has been emerging as the central dual content of the current public cultural policy: preserving and promoting heritage, and bringing the creative industries at the core of the so-called knowledge society. The general evolutionary trend shows four distinct phases: 1) the creation of a systematic cultural supply policy based on a limited definition of culture suitable for public financing and based on a vertical concept of democratization by conversion; 2) the gradual decentralization of public action, which leads to an increasing disparity in its aims and functions, and which challenges the initial universalist, top-down egalitarian model; 3) a revision of the legitimate scope of public action, which declares symbolically obsolete the founding hierarchy of cultural politics, that which would oppose high culture, protected from market forces and entertainment culture and governed by the laws of the industrial economy; 4) an increasing tendency to justify cultural policy on the basis of its contribution to economic growth and to the balance of national social diversity, which legitimises the regulatory power of public action as well encouraging the expansion of the creative industries and the demands for the evaluation of procedures and results. The last section of this paper moves away from the state centered perspective and focuses on the city as the incubator of cultural generativity, in order to suggest how a city-centered approach to cultural development challenges the state-centered doctrine of cultural policy. Key Words:policy; culture; creativity; welfarism; global city; sociology; urban economics. Report No. : 10-28 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=404KB
The lion’s share. An experimental analysis of polygamy in Northern Nigeria. Alistair Munro, Bereket Kebede, Marcela Tarazona-Gomez and Arjan Verschoor Abstract: Using samples of polygamous and non-polygamous households from villages in rural areas south of Kano, Northern Nigeria we test basic theories of household behaviour. Husbands and wives play two variants of a voluntary contributions game in which endowments are private knowledge, but contributions are public. In one variant, the common pool is split equally. In the other treatment the husband allocates the pool (and wives are forewarned of this). Most partners keep back at least half of their endowment from the common pool, but we find no evidence that polygynous households are less efficient than their monogamous counterparts. We also reject a strong form of Bergstrom’s model of polygyny in which all wives receive an equal allocation. In our case, senior wives often receive more from their husbands, no matter what their contribution. Thus the return to contributions is higher for senior wives compared to their junior counterparts. When they control the allocation, polygynous men receive a higher payoff than their monogamous counterparts. We speculate on the implications of this pattern of investment and reward for the sustainability of polygynous institutions. Keywords: Polygyny, Polygamy, Experiment, Household, Nigeria Report No. : 10-27 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=476KB
Learning about one’s own type in two-sided search Akiko Maruyama Abstract This paper is an analysis of a two-sided search model in which agents are vertically heterogeneous and some agents do not know their own types. Agents who do not know their own types update their beliefs about their own types through the offers or rejections that they receive from others. In the belief-updating process, an agent who is unsure of his or her own type frequently behaves as an over- or underconfident agent. In this paper, we show that this apparent over- or underconfidence influences both on the individual’s and other agents’ matching behaviors. We show, especially, that the apparent overconfidence of some agents prevents the lowest-type agents from matching in an equilibrium. Report No. : 10-26 Date : 2010.12.26 Revised No. : PDF=601KB
The Maize Farm-Market Price Spread in Kenya and Uganda Takashi Yamano and Ayumi Arai Abstract In this chapter, we analyze the farm-market price spreads of maize in Kenya and Uganda to examine how agricultural sectors are integrated with local markets. The farm-market price spread is calculated by subtracting the farm-gate price from the market price at the nearest maize market. We find that the farm-market price spread of maize is about 15 and 33 percent of the market price in Kenya and Uganda, respectively. In both countries, the price spread increases by 2 percentage points for each additional driving hour away from the nearest maize market. While the former finding suggests that the overall marketing costs are lower in Kenya than in Uganda, the latter finding indicates that reductions in transportation costs will increase the farmer prices of maize in both countries. Keywords: Price Spread, Market, Maize, Kenya, Uganda Report No. : 10-25 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=342KB
Fertilizer Policies, Price, and Application in East Africa Takashi Yamano and Ayumi Arai Abstract In this chapter, we investigate the determinants of inorganic fertilizer use on major cereal crops in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda. By using panel data in the three countries, we estimate the determinants of the fertilizer price and application at the household level and evaluate the fertilizer policies in each country. The determinants of the DAP price and application in Kenya can be mostly explained by market forces and agro-ecological factors, suggesting that market-based policies would be effective. In Ethiopia, on the other hand, the estimation results indicate that policy related factors determine the fertilizer price and application. Although the subsidy program in Ethiopia may contribute to poverty alleviation, technical returns from such programs could be low. Uganda should learn from the experience from these two neighboring countries. Keywords: Fertilizer Price, Fertilizer Policy, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia Report No. : 10-24 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=254KB
The Impacts of Fertilizer Credit on Crop Production and Income in Ethiopia Tomoya Matsumoto and Takashi Yamano Abstract In this chapter, we evaluate the impact of fertilizer credit on crop choice, crop yield, and income using two-year panel data of 420 households in rural Ethiopia. The fertilizer credit is found to increase input application for crop production. As a consequence, it has a substantial impact on the yield of teff. We also find that the impact on net crop income per cultivated area and also on per capita income is marginal because of the low profitability due to the low output price and high input cost of agricultural production. Key words: Input Credit, Fertilizer Policy, Agricultural Technology, Crop Production, Ethiopia Report No. : 10-23 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=233KB
Market Access, Soil Fertility, and Income in East Africa Takashi Yamano and Yoko Kijima Abstract We identify the major factors affecting farm and nonfarm income by using panel data in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. We supplement the panel data with household-level soil fertility data and road distance data to the nearest urban center. The proportion of the loose surface roads, instead of tarmac roads, has a clear negative association with crop income, livestock income, and per capita income in both Kenya and Uganda. We also find that soil fertility has a clear positive association with crop and livestock incomes in Kenya, but not in Uganda and Ethiopia. In Kenya, farmers produce not only cereal crops but also high value crops and engage in dairy and other livestock production if the fertility of the soil is good. Key words: Soil Fertility, Market Access, Poverty, Road Infrastructure, East Africa Report No. : 10-22 Date : 2010.12 Revised No. : PDF=236KB
How iPhone Widens the US Trade Deficits with PRC Yuqing Xing and Neal Detert Abstract In this paper, we use the iPhone as a case to show that even high-tech products invented by American companies will not increase the US exports, but to the contrary exacerbate the US trade deficits. The iPhone contributed US$1.9 billion about 0.8% of the US trade deficit with PRC in 2009. Unprecedented globalization, well organized global production networks, repaid development of cross-country production fragmentation, and low transportation costs all contribute to rational firms such as Apple making business decisions that contributed directly to the US trade deficit. Global production networks and highly specialized production processes apparently reverse conventional trade patterns so that developing countries, such as PRC, export high-tech goods—like the iPhone while industrialized countries, such as the US, import high-tech goods they themselves invented. In addition, conventional trade statistics greatly inflate bilateral trade deficits between a country used as export-platform by multinational firms and its destination countries. Based on the value-added approach, the iphone trade would generate US$48 million trade surplus for the US. Report No. : 10-21 Date : 2010.11 Revised No. : PDF=225KB
Haki Yetu (It’s Our Right): Determinants of Post-Election Violence in Kenya Takashi Yamano, Yuki Tanaka and Raphael Gitau Abstract During the violence following the 2007 presidential election in Kenya, it has been reported that around 1,000 people were killed and over 500,000 people were displaced. In this paper, we investigate the root causes of the violence by using a panel survey of 295 rural households living Rift Valley and Nyanza Provinces, where the violence took place. Among our sample households, 11 percent of male members and 9 percent of female members were victims of the violence, 11 percent of households were displaced, and 23 percent of households hosted at least one internally displaced person. The results show that certain ethnic groups had higher probabilities of being victims of the violence. In addition, we find that members of households without land titles were victimized more than those with land titles, but they were less likely to leave their homes. They could be victimized because the mobs wanted to chase them away, but they hesitated to leave their homes, knowing that it would be difficult for them to retain their land without land titles. The land issue was clearly one of the root causes of the violence, and the issue should be solved or at least addressed to prevent similar conflicts in the future. Keywords: Violence, Election, Internal Displacement, Kenya, Africa Report No. : 10-20 Date : 2010.09 Revised No. : PDF=479KB
Economic Analysis on Business Cycles and Suicide Rate - An Approach from Corporate Behavior - Susumu Kuwahara Abstract Japan has seen a sharp rise in the suicide rate since 1998, which has since been a major social problem. In addition, the number of those suffering mental disorders has been increasing in recent years. The paper argues that there exists economic rationality for corporations to motivate or force workers to resign and to raise the stress level at the workplace, when the consensus on the labor standards is altered drastically in response to the changing economic environment. The author believes that the increase in the number of workers exposed to largeer stresses after the two-stage layoffs is a major factor for the increase of suicides following the currency/financial crisis. Report No. : 10-19 Date : 2010.10.21 Revised No. : 08-16PDF=499KB