A micro simulation model of demographic development and households' economic behavior in Italy

The relationship between the demographic structure and the saving rate of a society is the reflection of the aggregation of the behaviour of heterogeneous households, differing from one another in the type of living arrangements and in the characteristics of their members. In order to contribute to the understanding of this relationship, we construct a dynamic micro model capable of simulating the demographic development of a population, including the creation, destruction, dimension and various other important characteristics of households and their members. The demographic model is then combined with a specification of the processes generating income, social security wealth, retirement and consumption behaviour of households, and applied to a data set derived from survey data on the Italian household sector. Simulations of the model are used to study the evolution of aggregate income, saving and asset accumulation over the period 1994-2100. If fertility and mortality assumptions of recent official projections are adopted and marriage and divorce rates maintained at current levels, the dramatic ageing of the population and the marked decline in the share of population living in traditional households would lead, other things being equal, to a substantial decline in the aggregate saving rate. However, the reduction in the number of children per household and, above all, the decline in the ratio of social security wealth of households to disposable income as the effects of the recently introduced reforms begin to be felt act as offsetting factors. As a result, the aggregate saving rate increases over the initial 30 years of the simulation and moderately decreases thereafter, stabilizing slightly above the original level. Implications of changes in a number of key assumptions regarding the demographic evolution, productivity growth and individual behavioural responses are also analyzed.demographic developments, family structure, consumption, saving, social security, micro simulation model

The Corporate Cost of Capital in Japan and the U.S.: A Comparison

This paper presents evidence about the coats of corporate capital in Japan and the US, for a sample of large companies, and evaluates a variety of hypotheses about why the cost might be lower in Japan.We find that the before-tax return to capital in Japan appears slightly lower than in the U.S. when corrected book measures of earnings are used, but that this result would be reversed if market returns to Japanese equity were used in place of corrected earningsto measure the cost of equity.To what ever extent the cost of capital may actually be lower in Japan, we show that this is unlikely to be due either to a lower overall corporate tax burden or the particular tax advantages of corporate borrowing.

Younger Households Saving: Evidence From Japan and Italy

Both young and old consumers appear to dissave too little for their behaviour to be consistent with a strict life cycle model. We concentrate on young households and document their behaviour drawing from Italian and Japanese data. We also provide a theoretical set-up which can account for the observed fact without relying on assumptions about the working of credit markets or the degree of foresight of consumers.

Demographic Dynamics, Labor Force Participation and Household Asset Accumulation: Case of Japan

A dynamic model of the demographic structure of Japan is summarized. It is capable of tracing the dynamic development of the Japanese population, including the distribution of families by age, sex, and marital status of the head, as well as by the number and age of children and other dependents. This model is combined with a specification of the processes generating family income and consumption, and then used to generate the pattern of aggregate income, saving and asset accumulation for the period 1985-2090 under alternative fertility assumptions. The results suggest that the saving-income ratio for Japan will increase slightly in the immediate future as the number of children per family declines sharply, and then fall moderately as the proportion of older persons in the population increases. Quantitative results depend critically on the labor force participation rate of older persons and on the probability of older persons merging into younger households. However, unless some major changes in Japanese saving behavior take place, our analysis suggests that Japan will have an unusually high net worth-income ratio as its population stabilizes or begins to decline.

The Cost of Capital in Japan: Recent Evidence and Further Results

We extend our recent work measuring the cost of capital in Japan and the United States by considering several questions that such results raised. Among our findings are: (1) The small firm - large firm distinction appears to be more significant in Japan, not in the United States; (2) Correcting Japanese accounting statements for cross-holding raises the estimated Japanese cost-of-capital by about 1 percentage point; (3) Correcting Japanese accounting statements for unmeasured returns to land has a significantly more important effect: the most conservative correction we attempt raises the implied Japanese return to capital to parity with the United States during the mid-1980's.

On the Japanese Economy and Japanese National Accounts

A review of the Japanese National Accounts reveals that the Japanese household sector has apparently suffered a capital loss of some 400 trillion-yen in 1990 consumption prices since 1970. This loss is large enough to explain most of the Japanese recession of the 1990's. We can trace some three-fourths of this capital loss to the loss in the market value of Japanese corporations relative to their accounting value (at reproduction cost). While some plausible explanations for this loss can be offered, they are subject to serious doubts because of difficulties encountered in working with the Japanese National Accounts data. Similarly, we find total government expenditures reported in Japanese fiscal statistics difficult to interpret, and the difference between this total and total expenditures for the general government sector in the National Accounts hard to identify and understand. Until the relationship between the budget totals and the corresponding figures in the National Accounts is fully clarified, we are unable to say what the actual history of Japanese fiscal policy has been. We conclude the paper with a set of suggestions for improving the Japanese government's fiscal statistics and its National Income Accounts. We also hope that our discussion will serve as a guide for users of these statistics as to where they must be cautious.

Prices, Wages, and Employment in the U.S. Economy: A Traditional Model and Tests of Some Alternatives

In this paper, we outline the cost minimizing behavior of oligopoly firms and the price adjustment process in the labor market which underlie the traditional formulation of aggregate wage-price behavior in the U.S., and show that resulting equations applied to U.S. data remain stable before and after the significant change in the monetary policy rule that had taken place in 1979. This result contradicts the prediction of the Lucas critique applied to this context that, in response to a major change of the monetary policy rule, the Phillips curve and the price setting equation of firms would have undergone significant changes. We test several competing hypotheses for the price level determination, including the possibility that more direct effect of the money supply should be relevant, and show that our formulation dominates alternatives in non- nested tests. Finally, we present evidence that the nature of capital is putty-clay rather than fully malleable, together with a demand function for labor based on this recognition. In the process of these inquiries, we contrast our formulation with that proposed by Layard and Nickell in England.