Bücher der Reihe Kobe University Monograph Series in Social Science Research

This book is novel in that it reveals significant issues of economics, management and business fields currently observed in network industries such as public utilities and transportation, and provides empirical evidence of their mechanisms and policy implications from various perspectives. This is a holistic collection of literature on public utilities economics and management, since the industries discussed include a wide range such as electricity, water supply, sewerage, transport, and postal service, which compound social infrastructure as public benefit service, and the issues examined contain not only economics topics such as cost, efficiency, and productivity, but also management topics such as governance, strategy and organizational restructuring. The book also investigates general private companies to derive future implications for policy and governance of public utilities, and covers multiple countries such as Japan, the US, and Vietnam. It demonstrates various empirical approaches and methodologies for public utility analysis through 17 chapters by experts in each field, which contributes to further cultivation of empirical studies in public utilities.

This book presents the results of a joint survey conducted as of the tenth anniversary of the 2011 East Japan Earthquake, by an international research collaboration consisting of researchers representing the major universities affected by recent mega-disasters in Asia, namely, the research group at Kobe University, Japan which has folllowed up ten year recovery process from the 2011 tsunami disaster in East Japan, the research group at the Graduate Program in Disaster Science, Syiah Kuala University in Aceh, Indonesia on the long-term recovery of 17 years after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the research group at the Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction of Sichuan University, China focusing on the recovery status of 13 years after the 2008 Sichuan (Wenchuan) Earthquake; and the research group at the National College of Public Administration and Governance of University of the Philippines, on the rcovery from the 2013 Typhoon Yolanda that hit the Philippines. The purpose of the survey was to evaluate the status of human life recovery of disaster-affected populations and communities in Asia in the long term, for the ultimate purpose of reviewing and comparing the outcomes of different prioritizations among the plural goals of disaster recovery. Through such a review, the authors intend to induce policy implications to guide a better recovery process with lesser impact on the human life recovery in the future disasters that we humans are destined to meet. The target areas are 16 districts in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures in Japan, all typical areas seriously affected by the 2011 tsunami and subsequently came under the governmental construction works for the safety, as well as three villages in Banda Aceh and its outskirts in Aceh Special Province, Indonesia,; two districts in Mianyang city in Sichuan, China which were targetted by intensive reconstructon works conducted by the coupling assistance; and two village communities in Tacloban, the capital city of Leyte island hit by the 2013 Typhoon Yolanda. To realize the concurrent attainment of both safety and livelihood in the recovery planning, this joint survey has identified common issues for a successful cooperation between the local government and communities through the inclusive participation of various institutions representing the variety of interests in each community.

This edited book was produced through a transnational and transdisciplinary UNESCO Chair Project on Gender and Vulnerability in Disaster Risk Reduction Support. Contributors come from five disaster-prone Asian countries, and the chapters reflect their rich knowledge and practical experience in disaster management and humanitarian assistance. The chapters, all with a focus on gender and vulnerability, illustrate that gender can make people, especially women, vulnerable. The chapters address the experiences of state and non-state actors responding to disaster and promoting recovery at the local level. However, while women and vulnerable people may be victims of disasters, they also serve as agents for recovery and voices for better disaster preparedness. In sharing both successes and failures, as well as suggestions for the future, this book speaks to the need for transdisciplinary knowledge and multilevel coordination, as well as full equality for all genders and respect for human rights, in order to cope with increasingly more frequent, intense, and complex emergencies. This book is of interest as a text to students in a variety of disciplines who are focusing on disaster and health emergencies, as well as to practitioners and others promoting disaster risk reduction and resilience.

This book is a timely and much-needed comprehensive compilation that reflects the development of research on consumption and communication in the conflation of the real and digital worlds, bringing together the current state of thinking about the phygital reality market and the cutting-edge challenges that are involved. In this book, the term ¿phygital reality market¿ is used, implying that the physical, digital, and virtual realms are fused into one to recognize and understand the market with multiple or mixed realities. The concept of the phygital reality market captures the new realities that consumers are shopping, consuming, and living, and companies are competing within the physical, digital, and virtual marketplaces. The book covers the research on consumption, service, and communication in the phygital reality market and compiles the current state of thinking, challenges, and cases having to do with the acceptance and diffusion of new technologies of phygital reality. The interest in the phygital reality market, such as omnichannel retailing integrating physical stores and online services, has grown hugely over the last two decades, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic. COVID triggered severe social and economic disruption around the world but has accelerated the acceptance and diffusion of new technologies in the phygital reality market, where the physical, digital, and virtual worlds are conflated. Versatile problem solving and new challenges are reflected in the value realization process of innovation ¿ in other words, widespread acceptance and diffusion of devices or services that embody new technologies. The excitement and hype associated with the metaverse have highlighted the need to understand the creation and adoption of new technologies in consumption and marketing, recognition of the foundational role of new technologies in driving consumer behavior, and marketing theory and practice in value realization as a vital part of the process of digital transformation.

This book reviews the periodic changes in the legal policies of the late-developing ASEAN countries, often known as the CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam), in their continuous path toward globalization after the collapse of the socialist bloc. The book also identifies the characteristics of the legal reforms in their present stage guided by the common framework under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) moving toward 2025.The first stage is illustrated by the ASEAN-style utilization of foreign investments as reflected in all investment laws and policies of CLMV countries in the 1990s, which featured entry control (as ¿sticks¿) and investment incentives (as ¿carrots¿). Those controls and incentives were the means to induce investors to assume various performance requirements to contribute to industrial policies. The second stage witnessed a shift toward enhanced liberalization as an endeavor toward the WTO accession during the 2000s, as seen in the integrated investment laws that appealed for the national treatment of foreign investors. At the same time, those investment laws emphasized the substantive provisions (e.g., fair and equitable treatment and indirect expropriation) and procedural protections (e.g., provision of Investor¿State Dispute Resolution mechanisms) as an appeal for stabilization of the investment climate. The third stage of legal policy, as evidenced by the recent amendments to the investment laws, is newly focused on environmental and social considerations, which seems to be an indispensable response to the increasing social protests against the negative impacts of investment promotion. Simultaneously, the means of administrative controls over investors, established in the first stage, are uniquely utilized for the realization of new goals.

This is the first book published that focuses on competition law and policy in the Japanese pharmaceutical sector. It consists of chapters written and edited by academics who research the industry from various perspectives, including economics, competition law, pharmaceutical regulations, and intellectual property law. Competition policies involving pharmaceutical products attract attention from academics and policymakers worldwide. The pharmaceutical industry is regulated by drug laws that vary from country to country and are affected by differing practices and industrial structures. The book begins by examining drug regulations and trade practices in the industry that are peculiar to Japan and its healthcare system. It then presents the Japanese Antimonopoly Act and cases involving it, and discussions of current competition law issues in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. The book also discusses innovation and intellectual property and economic analyses of pharmaceutical regulations and drug discovery. The chapters include comparative studies on Japanese regulations vs. those in the European Union and the United States.Japan is one of the biggest pharmaceutical markets in the world. With this in mind, the book provides "one-stop shopping" for anyone interested in pharmaceutical regulations in the country. Covering the basics but extending to in-depth explorations of complex problems, this book appeals not only to students and academics, pharmaceutical companies and regulators, but also to those dealing with real-world policy issues that encompass competition policy, intellectual property, and pharmaceutical regulation.Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com

This book treats the mechanisms of growth and cycles in capitalist economies in a unified manner, incorporating a highly original macro-dynamic theory based on Marxian micro-foundations and historical perspectives. That theory was developed about 50 years ago by Nobuo Okishio (1927¿2003) and included the ideas of Keynes and Harrod. In mainstream economics, it used to be standard to analyse long-term economic growth and business cycles in different frameworks. That approach has been changing recently, but it still tends to be common to discuss them separately. At the outbreak of the global financial crisis of 2007¿2008 and the prolonged stagnation that followed, there was strong criticism among policymakers and businesspeople that mainstream macroeconomics failed to provide convincing explanations and effective policy recommendations. This book offers an alternative perspective that responds to those criticisms. All these macroeconomic difficulties call for new wisdom beyondthe limited neoclassical framework. The sharp, wise thoughts of Okishio will add new tools for young researchers worldwide to meet the challenges of the current resource misallocation, the Great Recession and the Lost Decades problems.Okishio proposes a historical perspective for the capitalist system, first. He argues that production relations are conditioned by productive force. The former should evolve as the latter improves, and the latter should evolve in order for human society to survive. While reproduction is indispensable for the economy to continue in any production relations, it takes a specific form in capitalist economy. He next shows that the existence of profit requires the exploitation of the labourer. This is called the Fundamental Marxian Theorem. He also shows a trade-off relationship between the real wage rate and the profit rate. In his theory, the real wage rate is determined to clear commodity markets in the short run as in the Keynesian theory, while Marx believed that the real wage rate is given at subsistence level or is influenced by the labour market. Okishio attributes the origin of the business cycle to labourers¿ under-consumption and private capitalists¿ dispersive decision of accumulation. The former is caused by exploitation, and the latter is based on the capitalist class¿s private ownership of the means of production. Both are derived from the nature of the capitalist economy. He argues lastly that, in the long term, the development of productive force through the business cycle will transform the production relation into a new economic system.

This book introduces empirical methods for analyzing energy markets. Even beginners in econometrics and mathematical finance must be able to learn how to utilize these methodologies and how to interpret the analysis results. This book provides some example analyses of the North American, European, and Asian energy markets. The reader will experience some theories and practices of energy trading and risk management. This book reveals the characteristics of energy markets using quantitative analyses. Examples include unit root, cointegration, long-term equilibrium, stochastic arbitrage simulation, multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models, exponential GARCH (EGARCH) models, optimal hedge ratio, copula, value-at-risk (VaR), expected shortfall, vector autoregressive (VAR) models, vector moving average (VMA) models, connectedness, and frequency decomposition. This book is suitable for people interested in the empirical study of energy markets and energy trade.

This book covers many aspects of excessive expansion of cross-border capital flows underlying the global financial crises that occurred in succession in the form of the subprime mortgage crisis, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the European debt crisis. Obtaining a broader picture of financial flows at the global level from various perspectives is essential to comprehensively understand the fundamental causes for a series of global-scale financial crises and to formulate effective policy responses in the future. The topics addressed here include a basic concept and overview of global liquidity in a broad sense, domestic and international credit activities of financial institutions in both advanced and emerging countries, and global demand for US dollars. Offshore bond issuance in BRICs countries, including its implications for the Chinese shadow banking sector, uncovered interest rate parity puzzle, and related policies such as capital controls are covered as well. This book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the dynamics of today's globalized financial markets.

This book proposes emergent responsible management as a new tool to address the infinite nature of managerial responsibility and discusses how to bring out activities based on infinite responsibility in organizations. Whereas the concept of responsibility of corporations has been brought to the forefront with increasing recognition of the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR), its essence has not been fully perceived, which has inevitably resulted in the restrictive feeling associated with organizational CSR activities. This book not only involves theoretical discussion by shedding light on the notions of 'responsibility' and 'emergence' underpinning the theory of emergent responsible management; it also provides practical insights with several case studies to examine how activities reflecting these fundamental elements have been practiced. In this way, the authors propose corresponding organizational design and process to encourage its continued practice. In addition, the effects of emergent responsible management and how it can be applied to new issues such as fulfilling sustainable development goals (SDGs) are also examined. The book is highly recommended for business practitioners as well as consultants who deal with CSR in everyday practice.

Given the nonexistence of any research-oriented in-depth analyses of competitive trade models with time-zone differences, this book is a valuable addition to the resources available to researchers and policymakers interested in deciphering recent developments in global trade patterns and the subsequent welfare effect.

The main focus of this book is innovation for developing countries: what is the innovation for, what are the current conditions of the innovation, and how to effectively innovate in developing economies.

The focus is on historical aspects (Part I), implementation of the UNCLOS (Part II), navigation (Part III), mid-ocean archipelagos (Part IV), the marine environment (Part V), and dispute settlement (Part VI).

How should we proceed with advanced research of humanities and social sciences in collaboration? This book, originated with a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Topic-Setting Program, addresses these challenging questions in four parts for innovating twenty-first-century humanities and social sciences.

How should we proceed with advanced research of humanities and social sciences in collaboration? This book, originated with a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Topic-Setting Program, addresses these challenging questions in four parts for innovating twenty-first-century humanities and social sciences.

There are a number of studies on the reform of Japan's electricity market, but there are few studies on city gas business. This book describes the state of Japan's public city gas utilities and the necessity of their privatization.

International society led by the United Nations has been working to improve and standardize every country's post-disaster recovery policy. In this book, the BBB is considered an essential common criterion for evaluating recovery status, but BBB variations in each individual country's context are pursued.

This monograph compares two trade agreements among three important economic regions, namely, the Korea-EU free trade agree (FTA) and the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

There are a number of studies on the reform of Japan's electricity market, but there are few studies on city gas business. This book describes the state of Japan's public city gas utilities and the necessity of their privatization.

This book examines the concept of 'development' from alternative perspectives and analyzes how different approaches influence law.

This book focuses on the legal systems of the late-developing countries of ASEAN (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, often referred to as the CLMV countries). These nations are apt to be placed in an economically disadvantageous situation within the opportunity of communalization of legal systems being advanced by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) launched in 2015, and the book clarifies the dynamics of the changes within these legal systems. Concurrently, there is an intention to analyze the ¿legal system development support¿ that has continued to be provided to these countries since the mid-1990s via international development support from international organizations and developed countries including Japan. In particular, the emphasis has been on the area of civil law, where the main subject of Japan¿s support has been centered on the civil code and civil procedure code. The legal system of the recipient country is complicated by the crisscrossing ofthe remnants of previous eras, from the inherent laws that have existed since before colonization, the laws of the colonial powers that were introduced during the colonial era (French law in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam; English law in Myanmar), the influence of socialist law after independence from colonization, and the path of modern industrialization and development, such that one country's legal system is the combination of all of these influences.For the reader to understand the dynamics of these changing laws, each chapter of the book combines two methodological perspectives. The first is to ascertain the spatial range as to how far the civil law extends across social phenomena. The second is a historical perspective in which the trends in legal changes will be understood on a time axis.

This book examines the concept of 'development' from alternative perspectives and analyzes how different approaches influence law.