Work in progress
"Undemocratic Elections under Democracy" ( with Toshihiro Tsuchihashi)(poster)
"Effects of Couples' Educational Background and Gender Role Attitudes on Household Time Allocation After Childbirth" (with Shiho Yukawa and Hiroyuki Kojima)
Working Papers
A Theory of the Middle-Income Trap, with Y. Sugimoto.
This research attempts to theoretically explain the emergence of the middle-income trap. It develops an endogenous growth model where children's abilities become evident between childbirth and investment in their education. Fertility decisions, once made, are irreversible regardless of observed abilities, leading to a distortion in resource allocation between the quantity and quality of children. In the course of economic development, an increase in education savings often coincides with under-investment in quantity, easing the financial burden of child rearing and allowing for over-investment in quality. This unbalanced allocation slows down the accumulation of aggregate human capital, potentially stalling the economy at an intermediate development stage. A within-generation redistribution can help overcome the middle-income trap by addressing these inefficiencies.
Deregulation: Why We Should Sometimes Welcome Even Low-Quality Firms.
The quality of newly invented goods or services can only be assessed after they have been in use for a significant period. This applies to both high-quality and low-quality products---typically, the former survive, whereas the latter become obsolete in the market, resulting in resource wastage. We investigate this situation by developing a general equilibrium model. In a competitive market equilibrium, when the entry cost is relatively high compared to the research and development costs, only high-quality firms enter the market, ensuring efficiency. However, when the entry cost is low, low-quality firms enter the market, resulting in inefficiency. In this case, although entry regulations may exclude low-quality firms, they also reduce market competition and increase labor cost, leading to the decrease in economic welfare.
Publications
"Make Us a King": An Interpretation in a Dynamic Context, with Y. Sugimoto, Kansai University review of economics Volume 24, March 2025, Pages 17--36
Under- and over-investment in education: the role of locked-in fertility, with M. Nakagawa and Y. Sugimoto, Journal of Population Economics Volume 35, April 2022, Pages 755–784
Lethal Effects of Pollution and Economic Growth: Efficiency of Abatement Technology, with Y. Moridera and K. Futagami, The Japanese Economic Review Volume 69, June 2018, Pages 189–206
Notes on Economic Growth with Scale Effects: Is Depopulation Compatible with Growth? , with M. Nakagawa and Y. Sugimoto, Theoretical Economics Letters Volume 5, No.2 2015, Pages169-178
Neutrality of an increase in the price of natural resources to the level of technology, with T. Morita, Economic Modelling Volume 32, May 2013, Pages347-350