"Are People Insured Against Natural Disasters? Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in 1995"

We investigate whether people were insured against unexpected losses caused by the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995. The unique household data employed led to several empirical findings under a natural-experimental situation. The complete consumption insurance hypothesis is rejected overwhelmingly, suggesting the ineffectiveness of the formal and/or informal insurance mechanisms against the earthquake. We also investigate possible factors that inhibit full risk-sharing. Transfers may be particularly ineffective as insurance against losses for co-resident households. Households borrow extensively against housing damages, whereas dissavings are utilized for smaller asset damages, implying a hierarchy of risk-coping measures, from dissaving to borrowing.

Are People Insured Against Natural Disasters? Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in 1995

We investigate whether people were insured against unexpected losses caused by the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995. The unique household data employed led to several empirical findings under a natural-experimental situation. The complete consumption insurance hypothesis is rejected overwhelmingly, suggesting the ineffectiveness of the formal and/or informal insurance mechanisms against the earthquake. We also investigate possible factors that inhibit full risk-sharing. Transfers may be particularly ineffective as insurance against losses for co-resident households. Households borrow extensively against housing damages, whereas dissavings are utilized for smaller asset damages, implying a hierarchy of risk-coping measures, from dissaving to borrowing.

"Consumption Insurance and Risk-Coping Strategies under Non-Separable Utility: Evidence from the Kobe Earthquake"

Using a unique household-level dataset on the situation after the Kobe earthquake in 1995, we test the full consumption risk sharing hypothesis, relaxing the separability assumption, and examine households' simultaneous choice of risk coping measures. Using multivariate probit estimations, we find that the full consumption insurance hypothesis is strongly rejected and our results indicate that households' utility across different expenditure items is not separable. As for households' choice of risk-coping measures, households borrowed extensively against housing damage, but relied on dissaving to cope with smaller asset damage, implying a hierarchy of risk-coping measures from dissaving to borrowing.

Consumption Insurance and Risk-Coping Strategies under Non-Separable Utility: Evidence from the Kobe Earthquake

Using a unique household-level dataset on the situation after the Kobe earthquake in 1995, we test the full consumption risk sharing hypothesis, relaxing the separability assumption, and examine households' simultaneous choice of risk coping measures. Using multivariate probit estimations, we find that the full consumption insurance hypothesis is strongly rejected and our results indicate that households' utility across different expenditure items is not separable. As for households' choice of risk-coping measures, households borrowed extensively against housing damage, but relied on dissaving to cope with smaller asset damage, implying a hierarchy of risk-coping measures from dissaving to borrowing.

"Coping with Damages caused by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake"(in Japanese)

Applying the ordered probit model to household data, we investigate people's behavior against unexpected losses caused by the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995. We found that credit market played an important role in providing an effective risk-coping measure. In the process of preparing well-designed social safety nets against future natural disasters, there exist two policy implications based on our analyses: first, in its attempt to provide ex post public support in the event of a natural disaster, the government may create a moral hazard problem by encouraging people to expose themselves to greater risks than required. Our empirical results suggest that providing subsidized loans to victims can be a good example of facilitating risk-coping behavior; such interventions are less likely to create serious moral hazard problems. Second, it would be imperative to design ex ante risk-management policies against the earthquake. For example, development of markets for earthquake insurance would lead to the efficient pricing of insurance premium and efficient land market prices reflective of the amount of risk involved with lands. This development would generate proper incentives to invest in mitigations such as investments in earthquake-proof constructions against future earthquakes. These ex ante measures would significantly reduce the overall social loss caused by the earthquake.

Chiral meta-interface: Polarity reversal of ellipticity through double layers consisting of transparent chiral and absorptive achiral media

We have studied circular dichroism (CD) in the visible region of composite and double-layer films consisting of a transparent chiral molecule, glucose, and an absorptive achiral dye, rhodamine. Composite and double-layer films show an absorption-induced CD response caused by chirality of glucose at 540 nm, where the rhodamine exhibits absorption. More importantly, in double layers, the polarity of the ellipticity in CD signals is found to be reversed when the incident direction is reversed. We discuss the origin of the polarity reversal, which is very similar to the magneto-optical effect, at the chiral meta-interface without magnetic field

Direct Observation of Magnetochiral Effects through a Single Metamolecule in Microwave Regions

We report direct observation of magnetochiral (MCh) effects for the X-band microwaves through a single metamolecule consisting of a copper chiral structure and ferrite rod. A fictitious interaction between chirality and magnetism is realized in the metamolecule without intrinsic electronic interactions. The MCh effects are induced at the resonant optical activities by applying a weak dc magnetic field of 1 mT, and are increased with the magnetic field. The nonreciprocal differences in refractive indices are evaluated to be 10?3 at 200 mT

Metamaterials with magnetism and chirality

This review introduces and overviews electromagnetism in structured metamaterials which undergo simultaneous time-reversal and space-inversion symmetry breaking due to magnetism and chirality. Direct experimental observation of optical magnetochiral effects in a single metamolecule with magnetism and chirality is demonstrated at microwave frequencies. Numerical simulations based on a finite element method reproduce the experimental results well, and predict the emergence of giant magnetochiral effects, by combining resonances in the metamolecule. Toward the realization of magnetochiral effects at higher frequencies than microwaves, a metamolecule is miniaturized in the presence of ferromagnetic resonance in a cavity and coplanar waveguide. This work opens the door to the realization of a one-way mirror and synthetic gauge fields for electromagnetic waves

Observation of asymmetric electromagnetic field profiles in chiral metamaterials

We experimentally observe asymmetric electromagnetic field profiles along two-dimensional chiral metamaterials. The asymmetric field profiles depending on the chirality and the operation frequency have been reproduced well by the numerical simulation. Around a chiral meta-atom, distribution of a Poynting vector is found to be shifted asymmetrically. These results are explained in terms of an analogy with the side-jump mechanism in the electronic anomalous Hall systems