Currency Invoicing Decision: New Evidence from a Questionnaire Survey of Japanese Export Firms

There have been only a few studies that empirically examine the firm's decision on price setting or currency invoicing in international trade. This paper is the first study that conducts the questionnaire survey with all manufacturing firms listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange concerning the choice of invoicing currency at a firm level. Questionnaires were sent out to 920 Japanese firms in September 2009 and 227 firms responded. We present the new firm-level evidence on the choice of invoicing currency by destination and by type of trading partner, and also the share of invoicing currency of Japanese production subsidiaries in Asia. By conducting cross-section analysis, we found the following evidences: (1) highly differentiated goods and/or strong competitiveness of the products promote Japanese yen invoicing in exports to all countries, (2) larger share of intra-firm trade in exports promotes importer's currency invoicing in exports to advanced countries, and (3) the production-sales networks of Japanese firms whose Asian production subsidiaries export their final products to other countries/region promote US dollar invoicing in exports to Asian countries

Exchange Rate Exposure and Risk Management: The Case of Japanese Exporting Firms

This paper investigates the relationship between Japanese firms’ exposure to the exchange rate risk and risk management, such as choice of invoicing currency, and financial and operational hedges. The firm’s exposure to the exchange rate risk is estimated by co-movements of the stock prices and exchange rates, following Dominguez (1998) and others. Data on risk management measures—financial and operational hedging, the choice of invoice currency and the price revision strategy (pass-through)—were collected from a questionnaire survey covering all Tokyo Stock Exchange listed firms in 2009. Results show the following: First, firms with greater dependency on sales in foreign markets have greater foreign exchange exposure. Second, the higher the US dollar invoicing share, the greater is the foreign exchange exposure – however, risk is reduced by both financial and operational hedging. Third, yen invoicing reduces foreign exchange exposure. These findings indicate that Japanese firms use a combination of risk management tools to mitigate the degree of exchange rate risk

Relationship Between Empathic Distress and Prosocial Behavior in Preschool Children

The present study examined the relation between empathic distress and prosociality in preschool children. Thirty-four 5-year-old children evaluated their sympathy and personal distress on the empathic distress. They evaluated one's prosociality and their classmate's prosociality in their classroom. For the data analysis, the children were divided according to their scores on sympathy and personal distress into 3 types of empathic distress :type of high-high, type of sympathetic, and type of low-low. The children who were high on both measures, that is, who felt more sympathy and more personal distress, evaluated themselves prosociality than did other children. The classmates judged the children who were high on the other measure, that is, who felt more sympathy and less personal distress, as less prosociality than did type of high-high. These results suggests that it is a important concept in prosociality in preschool children

ヒト血清リポタンパク質とシクロデキストリンのアガロースゲル内における相互作用

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are cyclic oligosaccharides with low molecular weight. They have been known to bind to some serum lipoproteins and to form complexes. To elucidate whether each serum lipoprotein subclass could be separated by electrophoresis using CDs, we performed preliminary experiment, in which lipoprotein-CDs interaction was examined on electrophoresis with agarose gel. When the supporting agarose gel containing both α-CD and β-CD was prepared and was applied to isoelectric focusing for fractionating serum lipoproteins, apoB lipoproteins were found to be clearly separated into several fractions on this electrophoresis. This finding suggested that apoB lipoprotein may be detected as isolated form by arranging amounts of added CDs.シクロデキストリンは低分子量の環状オリゴ糖で, リポタンパク質と複合体を形成する｡シクロデキストリンを使用した電気泳動による血清リポタンパク質サブクラスの分離の可能性を明らかにするために, リポタンパク質とシクロデキストリンとの泳動用ゲル内での相互作用について検討をおこなった｡その結果,α-CDとβ-CDの2種類のCDをアガロースゲルに添加し,このゲルを泳動用支持体として等電点電気泳動をおこなったところ,apoB含有リポタンパク質が数分画分離された｡したがって,ゲル内へのシクロデキストリンの適正な添加条件が設定できるならば,apoB含有リポタンパク質サブクラスの分離が可能となることが示唆された

Kattobase: The linguistic structure of Japanese baseball chants

Japanese baseball chants, an obligatory and quasi-ritual part of virtually every baseball game, are delivered by fans each time their team is at bat. They are accompanied by a variety of musical instruments (drums, trumpets, etc.). They consist of two measures of four beats, each composed of three notes plus one pause. At issue is the form of the rhythmic adaptation, which is tightly regulated and grounded, as we show, in the rhythmic structure of the language itself. An OT analysis, with ranked and violable constraints, succeededs in folding what otherwise appears to be a set of separate rules depending on the length of the input into a single unified constraint system with a single ranking, where the length of the input exerts its influence by resulting in different violation profiles in outputs, and does not require separate rules for inputs of different length

Inter-brain synchronization in the client-therapist relationship during sandplay therapy: an exploratory study

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Effect of COVID-19 vaccination on viral clearance and antibody production in older patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection

Whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination promotes viral clearance in older patients has not been reported. We performed a retrospective review of patients hospitalized with COVID-19. This study included 24 patients with COVID-19 admitted to Hiroshima City Funairi Citizens Hospital between June 1 and July 10, 2021. Nine patients who were vaccinated (median age: 72 years) were compared with 15 patients who were not vaccinated (median age: 70 years). Viral clearance was confirmed by SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Antibody titers were measured to assess vaccination efficacy. The vaccinated group had a higher negative conversion rate than that in the non-vaccinated group on RT-PCR testing before discharge (83% vs. 36%, P = 0.064). Antibody titers on admission and 10 ± 2 days after onset were significantly higher in the vaccinated group than those in the non-vaccinated group (35 vs. 0 binding antibody units (BAU)/mL, P = 0.012; and 114 vs. 7 BAU/mL, P = 0.032, respectively). Stimulating antibody production by vaccination may promote faster viral clearance in older patients who develop COVID-19.This research was funded by “Advanced study aim to contribute creating new evidence in COVID-19 based on the local government-academia collaboration research system in Hiroshima”: AMED Research Program on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases, Grant Number JP20fk0108453