CIRJE特別セミナー/CIRJE Special Seminar 2011

2012年1月23日（月 Monday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Michael Fabinger (Department of Economics, Harvard University)
Trade and Interdependence in a Spatially Complex World [PDF1] [PDF2]

This paper presents an analytic solution framework applicable to a wide variety of general equilibrium international trade models, including those of Krugman (1980), Eaton and Kortum (2002), Anderson and van Wincoop (2003), and Melitz (2003), in multi-location cases. For asymptotically power-law trade costs and in the large-space limit, it is shown that there are parameter thresholds where the qualitative behavior of the model economy changes. In the case of the Krugman (1980) model, the relevant parameter is closely related to the elasticity of substitution between different varieties of goods. The geographic reach of economic shocks changes fundamentally when the elasticity crosses a critical threshold: below this point shocks are felt even at long distances, while above it they remain local. The value of the threshold depends on the approximate dimensionality of the spatial configuration. This paper bridges the gap between empirical work on international and intranational trade, which frequently uses data sets involving large numbers of locations, and the theoretical literature, which has analytically examined solutions to the relevant models with realistic trade costs only for the case of very few locations.

2011年7月25日（月 Monday）　15:00-16:30

* Special Lecture funded by Global 30　と共催

Itzhak Gilboa (Tel-Aviv University)
(1) Questions in Decision Theory [slides]　[paper]

(2) Empirical Similarity and Objective Probabilities [slides]

2011年9月26日（月 Monday）　14:00-16:00

Lee Pui-Tak (University of Hon Kong/Short term visitor, CIRJE)

"Fishing in troubled waters: The speculation of silver in Shanghai and the Yokohama Specie Bank, 1931-1935"

2012年2月10日（金 Friday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Drew Griffen (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)
Evaluating the Eects of Child Care Policies on Children's Cognitive Development and Maternal Labor Supply [PDF]

To explore the role of child care policies in the development of early cognitive skills, I embed a value-added cognitive achievement production function into a dynamic, discrete choice model of maternal labor supply and child care decisions. I use the model to explore how two types of child care policies, Head Start and child care price subsidies, aect child care use and quality decisions and how those decisions in turn aect cognitive achievement. To estimate the model, I use rich panel data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey - Birth cohort (ECLS-B). There are three key ndings: (1) Expanding Head Start to children who are currently not eligible has benecial eects on cognitive achievement, because even children from relatively high quality home environments spend signicant amounts of time in low quality child care. An expansion of Head Start to be a universal program increases average cognitive achievement scores by 0.15 standard deviations at kindergarten entry. (2) I nd that for the typical subsidy-eligible population, child care subsidies have small positive eects on cognitive skills by inducing families to move children from low quality home environments to relatively higher quality child care environments. Six months of exposure to a subsidy program increases cognitive achievement scores by .036 standard deviations on average. (3) Without Head Start the black-white achievement gap at kindergarten entry increases by 9 percent and child care subsidies decrease the black-white achievement gap at kindergarten entry by 3 percent.

2012年1月27日（金 Friday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Luke Ian Miner (Department of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science)
The Unintended Consequences of Internet Diffusion: Evidence from Malaysia [PDF]

Can the introduction of the internet undermine incumbent power in a semiauthoritarian regime? I examine this question using evidence from Malaysia, where the incumbent coalition lost its 40-year monopoly on power in 2008. I match IP addresses with physical locations to construct a measure of internet growth in Malaysia from 2004 to 2008. Using an instrumental variable approach to account for endogenous internet placement, I find that areas with higher internet penetration experience higher turnout and higher turnover, with the internet accounting for one-third of the 11% swing against the incumbent party in 2008. In fact, the results suggest that, in the absence of the internet, the opposition would not have achieved its historic upset in the 2008 elections.

2012年1月31日（火 Tuesday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Luke E. Chicoine (Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame)
Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Policy Change in Kenya [PDF]

This paper investigates the relationship between a woman's education and fertility by exploiting a 1985 policy change in Kenya that lengthened primary school by one year. An instrumental variables approach exploits exogenous variation in the extent of treatment across birth cohorts, which allows for an examination of the reform's effect on outcomes such as the age at first intercourse, marriage, and birth, as well as total fertility. The reform led to an increase in education, a delay in marriage, and lower levels of fertility beginning at the age of 20. The effect becomes increasingly negative through age 25, casting doubt on whether the "incarceration" hypothesis explains the results. While other potential mechanisms can be ruled out, the findings suggest that a postponement of marriage and increased use of modern contraceptives may be contributing to the reduction in fertility. Furthermore, the evidence is consistent with women gaining bargaining power over their household fertility decision.

2012年2月2日（木 Thursday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Yoichi Kimura (Department of Economics, Boston University)
Property Rights Improvement and Credit Reallocation: Theory and Evidence from Urban India [PDF]

This paper studies the effect of land deregulation on credit access by Indian firms. I model the deregulation of holdings and transfers of land in the late-1990's India as a change in the transaction costs of land collateral in a contracting model of loans subject to moral hazard. The model predicts that the deregulation allows for an expansion of land collateralization and a larger leverage of land collateral; and that the net effects on firm borrowings are heterogeneous in firm size and landholdings. I test these predictions empirically using a large panel dataset of Indian firms. I find that the land deregulation led to greater land transactions overall; and that the deregulation reallocated credit from the landless, landed-small, and large firms, to the landed-medium firms.

2012年2月6日（月 Monday）12:00-13:15

東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階 セミナー室
in Seminar Room on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex (Kojima Hall) [Map]

Shuang Zhang (Department of Economics, Cornell University)
Mother's Education and Infant Health: Evidence from Closure of High Schools in China [PDF]

This paper examines the effect of maternal education on infant health by exploiting exogenous variation in women's exposure to the wholesale closure of rural high schools immediately after the Cultural Revolution, from 1977 to 1984, in China. Using the 1992 Chinese Children Survey microdata combined with unique data on the year the school closures started by county, this study focuses on narrow comparisons in educational attainment and infant health among rural women born quarters apart yet having distinct exposures to the closures of high schools within county. Results show a sharp decline of 22.5 percent in high school completion for women at age 17 years and 9 months by the first quarter in the first year of the school closures. Using the discontinuous change in high school completion induced by the closures, I find that one more year of maternal high school education has no effect on prematurity, low birthweight, neonatal mortality and infant mortality.

2012年2月23日（月 Monday）12:00-13:15

* Seminar Cancelled *