Evaluating the Impacts of Food Safety Policies on Japan’s Rice Imports Based on the Simultaneous Buy and Sell System

This study evaluated the impacts of food safety policies on Japan’s Simultaneous Buy and Sell rice imports through measuring tariff equivalents of food safety policies. In order to construct an estimated model, a Japanese consumer’s utility function is introduced and developed with consumer’s preference parameters and elasticity of substitution. In the empirical study part, Japan’s positive list system and rice traceability were analyzed and assessed as critical food safety policies. Results showed that after the implementation of the positive list system, consumers’ preference for foreign rice and the substitution elasticity diminished. This decreasing tendency was quite similar to the results after the enforcement of rice traceability. The tariff equivalents of food safety policies on imported rice fluctuated around ¥50 yen/kg from fiscal year 2000 to 2005 and decreased because of the global grain price hike after 2006. The tariff equivalents soared in 2010, which was induced by the traceability regulation, and then dulled during Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Subsequently, after the recovery from natural disasters, the tariff equivalents of food safety policies became higher. Therefore, food safety policies had made imported rice less attractive, weakened the competitive power of rice exporting countries, and had statistically significant impacts on Japan’s rice importation.

Armington elasticity estimation with or without instruments

This paper discusses measurement of the elasticity of substitution between goods from different countries. To remedy potential endogeneity problems in regression estimations, we use the instrumental variables (IV) approach, and the Feenstra method that does not require the use of instruments. The commodities that we study here and for which we were able to find relevant instruments are bovine, swine, and poultry meat imports by Japan. We find that the two approaches yield very similar results for these commodities. Further, upon extracting the implicit IVs of the Feenstra method, we find them as useful as the external IVs for measuring the aggregate of foreign commodities with a fixed effects regression and for estimating the foreign-domestic substitution elasticity possibly for each commodity.

FINANCIAL DISCRIMINATION AND WAGE INEQUALITY IN CHINA

This paper investigates how financial discrimination influences skilled-unskilled wage inequality in China. In the basic model, we find that a reduction of financial discrimination will reduce skilled-unskilled wage inequality. In the extended model, we find that skilled-unskilled wage inequality will be narrowed down if and only if the substitution elasticity of unskilled labor and the intermediate product in the private sector is larger than that of the skilled labor and capital in the public sector. When considering the reality of China, we predict that a reduction of financial discrimination leads to the decline of wage inequality.

FACTOR MISALLOCATION, INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE AND LABOR INCOME SHARE IN CHINA

By presenting a two-sector DGE model, this paper investigates the relative misallocation coefficients for capital and labor within three industries in China from 1993 to 2018, then discusses the effect of factor misallocation and factor substitution elasticity on the labor income share. The following three conclusions were reached. (1) The overall labor income share reduced due to the industrialization before 2007, but after 2007 it increased by promoting the proportion of services. (2) Compared with the situation without barriers, the cross-industry factor misallocation reduced the proportion of labor in manufacturing by 44% during industrialization and in services by 5.05% during de-industrialization, respectively. (3) Eliminating the factor misallocation could raise the labor income share by 4.6% in industrialization, but it shows a weak effect during de-industrialization.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Wage Inequality

This paper analyzes how corporate social responsibility (CSR) generates an impact on wage inequality. We find that wage inequality decreases (resp. increases) with the degree of CSR when the substitution elasticity between unskilled labor and capital in the production of the urban sector is sufficiently small (resp. large).

An Analysis of Input Substitution Elasticity in Natural Resource-Based Industry in Indonesia. The Application of CES Function

The proportion of resource-based industry groups in the industrial structure in Indonesia is 42.01%, yet its productivity is low because of its labor-intensive nature and limited capital, despite the direct contribution of the use of capital and labor to the creation of output. To optimize production, an input can be substituted by another input. However, it depends on the elasticity of substitution of the two inputs. The main objective of this research is to analyze the level of substitutability of inputs used in the natural resource-based industry group in Indonesia. Using the function of Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES), the results of the study show that the substitutability level of capital and labor is inelastic, meaning that input substitution is relatively difficult. The results of this study imply that to increase its productivity, this industry group needs to strengthen the support from (government) policies to improve its workforce quality.

Price Elasticity of Production Factors in Beijing’s Picking Gardens

Picking agriculture is a form of leisure agriculture based on the concept of traditional garden. Due to their unique layout and construction style, picking gardens have different attractive elements, including sightseeing, leisure, entertainment, crop production, and crop picking. However, despite its increasing importance, there is no systematic research on price elasticity or price substitution elasticity of production factors in picking gardens. To fill this gap, we surveyed 308 farmers in five districts of Beijing and employed a translog cost function to compare the impact of operation patterns on peach and cherry production cost by estimating elasticities of substitution between and among inputs. We found that own-price elasticity of all input factors was negative, while substitution relationships existed between labor and land, labor and fertilizer, fertilizer and manure, and manure and pesticide. This indicates that Beijing’s agricultural sector is labor intensive, while fertilizer and pesticide are scarcely used.