The initially high performance of a socioeconomic organization is quite often subject to gradual erosion over time. We present a simple model which captures such a phenomenon. We assume that players are partly motivated by certain psychological factors, norms and morale, and they are willing to exert extra effort if others do so. This results in a "continuum" of equilibrium effort levels, whose minimum corresponds to the Nash equilibrium with respect to the material incentives. We show that repeated random shocks induce the erosion of equilibrium e ort levels, but they do not completely decay; in the long run a certain range of efforts are sustainable. Our model shows that different organizations typically enjoy diverse norms and morale, which persist for a long time, in the vicinity of the equilibrium determined by material incentives.
{"title":"The Erosion and Sustainability of Norms and Morale","authors":"Michihiro Kandori","doi":"10.1111/1468-5876.00244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5876.00244","url":null,"abstract":"The initially high performance of a socioeconomic organization is quite often subject to gradual erosion over time. We present a simple model which captures such a phenomenon. We assume that players are partly motivated by certain psychological factors, norms and morale, and they are willing to exert extra effort if others do so. This results in a \"continuum\" of equilibrium effort levels, whose minimum corresponds to the Nash equilibrium with respect to the material incentives. We show that repeated random shocks induce the erosion of equilibrium e ort levels, but they do not completely decay; in the long run a certain range of efforts are sustainable. Our model shows that different organizations typically enjoy diverse norms and morale, which persist for a long time, in the vicinity of the equilibrium determined by material incentives.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133078075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Mangled Miracle and the Alchemy of Finance","authors":"H. Khan","doi":"10.1057/9780230000797_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230000797_1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125916054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2002-11-01DOI: 10.4324/9780203966969-10
Shin-ichi Fukuda
More than five years after the onset of the Asian crisis, the characteristics of the exchange rate regimes of East Asian economies remain a topic of considerable discussion. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what affected the values of three ASEAN currencies, the Malaysia ringgit, the Singapore dollar, and the Thai baht after the crisis. The particular interest in our analysis is to explore why the East Asian currencies, which temporarily reduced correlations with the U.S. dollar after the crisis, had a tendency to revert back to de facto pegs against the U.S. dollar in the late 1990s. Based on high-frequency day-to-day observations, we examine how and when these three ASEAN currencies changed their correlations with the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen in the post-crisis period. Before September 1st 1998, these currencies increased correlations with the Japanese yen in the post-crisis period. In particular, the increased correlations were larger than theoretical correlations based on the trade weights. The increase in correlations with the Japanese yen was, however, temporary. After Malaysia adopted the fixed exchange rate, both the Singapore dollar and the Thai baht increased correlations with the U.S. dollar drastically and began reverting back to de facto pegs against the U.S. dollar. A part of the change was attributable to asymmetric responses to the yen-dollar exchange rate. The change was, however, explained quite well by the strong linkage among the ASEAN countries. This implies that a regime switch in Malaysia had an enormously large impact on the exchange rates of the other ASEAN countries in the post-crisis period.
{"title":"Post-crisis Exchange Rate Regimes in East Asia","authors":"Shin-ichi Fukuda","doi":"10.4324/9780203966969-10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203966969-10","url":null,"abstract":"More than five years after the onset of the Asian crisis, the characteristics of the exchange rate regimes of East Asian economies remain a topic of considerable discussion. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what affected the values of three ASEAN currencies, the Malaysia ringgit, the Singapore dollar, and the Thai baht after the crisis. The particular interest in our analysis is to explore why the East Asian currencies, which temporarily reduced correlations with the U.S. dollar after the crisis, had a tendency to revert back to de facto pegs against the U.S. dollar in the late 1990s. Based on high-frequency day-to-day observations, we examine how and when these three ASEAN currencies changed their correlations with the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen in the post-crisis period. Before September 1st 1998, these currencies increased correlations with the Japanese yen in the post-crisis period. In particular, the increased correlations were larger than theoretical correlations based on the trade weights. The increase in correlations with the Japanese yen was, however, temporary. After Malaysia adopted the fixed exchange rate, both the Singapore dollar and the Thai baht increased correlations with the U.S. dollar drastically and began reverting back to de facto pegs against the U.S. dollar. A part of the change was attributable to asymmetric responses to the yen-dollar exchange rate. The change was, however, explained quite well by the strong linkage among the ASEAN countries. This implies that a regime switch in Malaysia had an enormously large impact on the exchange rates of the other ASEAN countries in the post-crisis period.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"98 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127672215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recently, many people criticize the traditionally accepted principles of realization, matching, and allocation. In addition, the reporting performance project in the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is willing to substitute the extant concept of net income for the unexperienced concept of comprehensive income with prohibition of recycling of other comprehensive income. On the other hand, the usefulness or relevance of net income has been repeatedly ascertained in empirical studies. It seems that accountants do not necessarily understand the common knowledge in academic circles correctly. This awareness is one of the motives of this paper to review the empirical evidence on relevance of net income. This paper investigates again to confirm the concept of net income by comparing it with similar concepts, which is closely related to net income. This investigation consists of two parts. The first part in Section 2 compares cash flows with net income by focusing on accounting allocation. This comparison emphasizes the rationale for income measurement with allocation of cash flows. The second part in Section 3 compares comprehensive income with net income. By focusing on the difference between the two (i.e. other comprehensive income ), this paper examines, though indirectly, the essential meaning of net income excluding other comprehensive income. The review in this paper deduces the following conclusion. First, although accruals are criticized for being affected by managerial discretion, they are in fact valuable sources of information for investors . This is a commonly accepted academic theory that has been confirmed repeatedly through comparison of the value relevance between earnings and cash flows. Second, we cannot find the evidence that other comprehensive income is value-relevant, though it is expected to respond to the information needs of accountants and analysts. In sum, net income characterized by realization, matching, and allocation is most useful in comparison with cash flows and comprehensive income.
{"title":"Concept and Relevance of Income","authors":"T. Obinata","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.339060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.339060","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, many people criticize the traditionally accepted principles of realization, matching, and allocation. In addition, the reporting performance project in the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is willing to substitute the extant concept of net income for the unexperienced concept of comprehensive income with prohibition of recycling of other comprehensive income. On the other hand, the usefulness or relevance of net income has been repeatedly ascertained in empirical studies. It seems that accountants do not necessarily understand the common knowledge in academic circles correctly. This awareness is one of the motives of this paper to review the empirical evidence on relevance of net income. This paper investigates again to confirm the concept of net income by comparing it with similar concepts, which is closely related to net income. This investigation consists of two parts. The first part in Section 2 compares cash flows with net income by focusing on accounting allocation. This comparison emphasizes the rationale for income measurement with allocation of cash flows. The second part in Section 3 compares comprehensive income with net income. By focusing on the difference between the two (i.e. other comprehensive income ), this paper examines, though indirectly, the essential meaning of net income excluding other comprehensive income. The review in this paper deduces the following conclusion. First, although accruals are criticized for being affected by managerial discretion, they are in fact valuable sources of information for investors . This is a commonly accepted academic theory that has been confirmed repeatedly through comparison of the value relevance between earnings and cash flows. Second, we cannot find the evidence that other comprehensive income is value-relevant, though it is expected to respond to the information needs of accountants and analysts. In sum, net income characterized by realization, matching, and allocation is most useful in comparison with cash flows and comprehensive income.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2002-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123411429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For nearly a decade now, the specter of financial malaise has haunted East Asia. It overwhelms the weaker economies. It imperils North America. Persistently, it refuses to retreat. Yet even as the specter teases entrepreneurs with insolvency, some observers suggest that responsibility might lie with the entrepreneurs themselves. Might not the source of the malaise lie in the very governance structures they created and maintain, particularly in the shareholding and board composition patterns they support? Might not its solution lie in legal reforms that would force them to remake those structures? To examine these questions, we consider the governance arrangements at the heart of the malaise: in corporate Japan. Theoretically, we find nothing to suggest that the source of the recession lies in issues of corporate governance, and nothing to suggest that the solution lies in corporate law reform. We then assemble data from the banking industry -- one of the sectors most badly struck by the financial crisis. Empirically, we find nothing to suggest that the contested governance structures explain the poor performance of the banks involved.
{"title":"Financial Malaise and the Myth of the Misgoverned Firm","authors":"J. Ramseyer, Y. Miwa","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.290795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.290795","url":null,"abstract":"For nearly a decade now, the specter of financial malaise has haunted East Asia. It overwhelms the weaker economies. It imperils North America. Persistently, it refuses to retreat. Yet even as the specter teases entrepreneurs with insolvency, some observers suggest that responsibility might lie with the entrepreneurs themselves. Might not the source of the malaise lie in the very governance structures they created and maintain, particularly in the shareholding and board composition patterns they support? Might not its solution lie in legal reforms that would force them to remake those structures? To examine these questions, we consider the governance arrangements at the heart of the malaise: in corporate Japan. Theoretically, we find nothing to suggest that the source of the recession lies in issues of corporate governance, and nothing to suggest that the solution lies in corporate law reform. We then assemble data from the banking industry -- one of the sectors most badly struck by the financial crisis. Empirically, we find nothing to suggest that the contested governance structures explain the poor performance of the banks involved.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"127 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127073876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-10-01DOI: 10.1108/EUM0000000005540
T. Iwami
Economic development in Southeast Asia has been associated with environmental degradation. Its cause is mainly attributed to rapid industrialization, coupled with urbanization and export growth, whereas the vicious circle of the poverty and the contamination is a minor case. The environmental damage in those countries will be partly reduced along with the rising income level, as the hypothesis of the "Environmental Kuznets Curves" argues. However, some of the major problems, CO2 emissions for example, would not be solved automatically on the basis of the market mechanism. The governments have indeed tried to prevent contamination, drawing lessons from experiences in the industrialized countries, but their continued efforts are indispensable for the well-being of the people.
{"title":"Economic Development and Environment in Southeast Asia: An Introductory Note","authors":"T. Iwami","doi":"10.1108/EUM0000000005540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005540","url":null,"abstract":"Economic development in Southeast Asia has been associated with environmental degradation. Its cause is mainly attributed to rapid industrialization, coupled with urbanization and export growth, whereas the vicious circle of the poverty and the contamination is a minor case. The environmental damage in those countries will be partly reduced along with the rising income level, as the hypothesis of the \"Environmental Kuznets Curves\" argues. However, some of the major problems, CO2 emissions for example, would not be solved automatically on the basis of the market mechanism. The governments have indeed tried to prevent contamination, drawing lessons from experiences in the industrialized countries, but their continued efforts are indispensable for the well-being of the people.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126468396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2001-09-01DOI: 10.1108/03068290510580751
T. Iwami
Between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s, air pollution in Japan, in particular that caused by sulfur dioxide (SO2), was reduced to a remarkable degree. This reduction resulted from responses to mounting civil protest: governmental regulation policy on the one hand, and innovation of abatement technology and energy efficiency on the other. In large East Asian cities, despite rapid economic growth, air pollution is less severe than it was in Japan in the early 1970s. This is because both government and industry in East Asia took early initiatives to prevent environmental degradation, learning from the experiences of developed countries.
{"title":"\"The \"Advantage of Latecomer\"in Abating Air-Pollution: The East Asian Experience\" Revised in February 2004","authors":"T. Iwami","doi":"10.1108/03068290510580751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290510580751","url":null,"abstract":"Between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s, air pollution in Japan, in particular that caused by sulfur dioxide (SO2), was reduced to a remarkable degree. This reduction resulted from responses to mounting civil protest: governmental regulation policy on the one hand, and innovation of abatement technology and energy efficiency on the other. In large East Asian cities, despite rapid economic growth, air pollution is less severe than it was in Japan in the early 1970s. This is because both government and industry in East Asia took early initiatives to prevent environmental degradation, learning from the experiences of developed countries.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134600852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Observers routinely claim that the Japanese government during the high-growth 1960s and 70s rationed and ultimately directed credit. It banned investments by foreigners, barred domestic competitors to banks, and capped loan interest rates. Through the resulting credit shortage, it manipulated credit to promote its industrial policy. In fact, the government did nothing of the sort. It did not bar foreign capital, did not block domestic rivals, and did not set maximum interest rates that bound. Using evidence on loans to all 1000-odd firms listed on Section 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 1968 to 1982, we show that the observed interest rates reflected borrower risk and mortgageable assets, and that banks did not use low-interest deposits to circumvent any interest caps. Instead, the loan market probably cleared at the nominal rates. We follow our empirical inquiry with a case study of one of the industies where the government tried hardest to direct credit: ocean shipping. We find no evidence of credit rationing. Rather, we show that non-conformist firms funded their projects readily outside authorized avenues -- so readily that the non-conformists grew with spectacular speed and earned their investors enormous returns.
{"title":"Directed Credit? Capital Market Competition in High-Growth Japan","authors":"Y. Miwa, J. M. Ramseyer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.286858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.286858","url":null,"abstract":"Observers routinely claim that the Japanese government during the high-growth 1960s and 70s rationed and ultimately directed credit. It banned investments by foreigners, barred domestic competitors to banks, and capped loan interest rates. Through the resulting credit shortage, it manipulated credit to promote its industrial policy. In fact, the government did nothing of the sort. It did not bar foreign capital, did not block domestic rivals, and did not set maximum interest rates that bound. Using evidence on loans to all 1000-odd firms listed on Section 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 1968 to 1982, we show that the observed interest rates reflected borrower risk and mortgageable assets, and that banks did not use low-interest deposits to circumvent any interest caps. Instead, the loan market probably cleared at the nominal rates. We follow our empirical inquiry with a case study of one of the industies where the government tried hardest to direct credit: ocean shipping. We find no evidence of credit rationing. Rather, we show that non-conformist firms funded their projects readily outside authorized avenues -- so readily that the non-conformists grew with spectacular speed and earned their investors enormous returns.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132066661","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This is one chapter from the book, Judicial Independence: Economic Theory and Japanese Empirics, that Mark Ramseyer and Eric Rasmusen are writing. In preceding chapters we explain the institutions of modern Japan's judiciary and use regression analysis to test whether judges who rule in ways the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP) disliked were penalized in their careers. We find that they were for some kinds of cases-involving such things as the constitutionality of the military, injunctions against the national (but not local) government, reapportionment, and electioneering laws. They were not penalized for other kinds of cases-tax and criminal cases. Those results are drawn from our earlier published papers, reorganized and synthesized for the present book. This chapter does not draw on our published work. It asks why the degree and type of independence of judges in modern Japan is different from that of other civil servants. In particular, we compare judges in modern Japan, pre-war Japan, and the United States; and we compare judges with other kinds of public employees, asking why they are not elected and why they are not directly under the control of politicians.
{"title":"When are Judges and Bureaucrats Left Independent? Theory and History from Imperial Japan, Postwar Japan, and the United States","authors":"E. Rasmusen, J. Ramseyer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.305900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.305900","url":null,"abstract":"This is one chapter from the book, Judicial Independence: Economic Theory and Japanese Empirics, that Mark Ramseyer and Eric Rasmusen are writing. In preceding chapters we explain the institutions of modern Japan's judiciary and use regression analysis to test whether judges who rule in ways the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP) disliked were penalized in their careers. We find that they were for some kinds of cases-involving such things as the constitutionality of the military, injunctions against the national (but not local) government, reapportionment, and electioneering laws. They were not penalized for other kinds of cases-tax and criminal cases. Those results are drawn from our earlier published papers, reorganized and synthesized for the present book. This chapter does not draw on our published work. It asks why the degree and type of independence of judges in modern Japan is different from that of other civil servants. In particular, we compare judges in modern Japan, pre-war Japan, and the United States; and we compare judges with other kinds of public employees, asking why they are not elected and why they are not directly under the control of politicians.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"379 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123446462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prepared as an introductory chapter to a forthcoming book on the distribution sector in Japan, this essay introduces the basic structure of the industry. We note the way competition drives consumers, sellers, and manufacturers to select distributional arrangements that minimize total costs, and the way that this distributional equilibrium will depend both on patterns of consumer demand and on production technology. To illustrate the way that cross-national distributional practices vary less than often thought, we compare automobile distribution in Japan and the U.S.
{"title":"Japanese Distribution: Background, Issues, Examples","authors":"Y. Miwa, J. Ramseyer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.265238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.265238","url":null,"abstract":"Prepared as an introductory chapter to a forthcoming book on the distribution sector in Japan, this essay introduces the basic structure of the industry. We note the way competition drives consumers, sellers, and manufacturers to select distributional arrangements that minimize total costs, and the way that this distributional equilibrium will depend both on patterns of consumer demand and on production technology. To illustrate the way that cross-national distributional practices vary less than often thought, we compare automobile distribution in Japan and the U.S.","PeriodicalId":345004,"journal":{"name":"CIRJE F-Series","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117354756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}