A Historical Evaluation of Financial Accelerator Effects in Japan's Economy

In this paper, we carry out a historical evaluation of the financial accelerator effects, which were mainly generated by the changes in asset prices, operating on Japan's economy since the 1980s. For this purpose, we estimate a Japanese financial accelerator model, which is a modified version of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist [1999]'s model, and identify the historical exogenous shocks affecting the evolution of firms' net worth. As a result, we confirm that the estimated parameter on the corporate balance sheet channel is statistically significant. We also find that the identified net worth shocks, which change the amount of firms' debt holdings relative to their total values, produced a large and persistent impact on Japan's output and prices. This result strongly suggests that the negative financial accelerator effects were indispensable to explain the mechanism behind Japan's long stagnation during the 1990s and early 2000s, as well as indicating that the deflation of general prices since the late 1990s has been at least partly attributed to the same cause.

Reconfigurable Cushion Design for E-Commerce Packaging using Kirigami Concept

In packaging, cushion barriers are needed to provide content protection in a disposable form. However, conventional cushioning materials and designs typically require a large volume, which decreases shipping and storage efficiency and increases environmental impact. Especially in e-commerce, where “shipping and handling” occur at an exceedingly rapid pace in large-scale operations, many packages suffer from being over or under packed through the fulfilment process. To solve this issue, this paper presents deployable kirigami-based cushion designs that can be collapsed or deployed depending on the distribution situation. Kirigami is a variation of origami that involves both cutting and folding of paper. The advantage of this design is that the kirigami cushion can be applied on the outside of a shipping container, instead of inside. Therefore, the shipping container itself can be more compact and the cushioning can be accessed and deployed when it is needed. The deployable kirigami cushion design was evaluated using compression and vertical impact tests, and the testing results are presented

The Origin of Non-discrimination in Tax Conventions (Japanese)

We found that the non-discrimination principle in tax conventions has its origin in the discussion of the Economic Committee of the League of Nations. Until recently, there has been very little research on the origin of the principle. Some commentators argue that the principle might conflict with the national treatment and the most-favored nation treatment. Especially the researchers of international economic law have a tendency to look down on the non-discrimination principle in tax conventions. According to them, its protection of taxpayers is not sufficient when compared with the protection NT and MFN in investment treaties affords investors. However, the non-discrimination principle itself is originally based on national treatment. The discussion by the Economic Committee had a substantial influence on the introduction of the "no business income taxation without PE" principle. The non-discrimination principle, especially that of PE, is a corollary of the principle.

アトラス検出器におけるボトムクォーク対及びタウレプトン対に崩壊するヒッグス粒子対生成の探索

この博士論文は内容の要約のみの公開（または一部非公開）になっています筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201