Endogenous Market Structure and Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model with Public Capital

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with public capital and imperfect competition. In the model, we take into account monopolistic competition of intermidiate sector and endogenous determination of the number of firms in the sector by considering the fixed cost to keep production going. We show that the number of firms in intermidiate sector is affected by fiscal policy. Furthermore, it is demonstrated in the paper that market structure plays a key role in reducing the growth-maximizing tax rate.Economic growth

Who gains from capital market integration: Tax competition between unionized and non-unionized countries

The welfare effects of capital market integration are examined under a model of tax competition with two asymmetric countries. The asymmetry is expressed through the labor market: one country has a perfect labor market whereas the other country is unionized. Our results show that the welfare effects of capital market integration are different depending on whether governments play an active role in attracting capital: in the absence of active governments, the capital market integration benefits the country with a competitive labor market and harms the unionized country. If the governments are active and compete for mobile capital using tax/subsidy, the market integration benefits both countries. The governmentfs incentive to participate in a tax/subsidy game is also examined in the integrated capital market. We find that the unionized country always prefers to participate in the tax/subsidy game, but the non-unionized country avoids the game if it is a capital importer.Capital Market Integration, Capital Mobility, Tax Competition, Trade Unions, Welfare.

Functional impairment of Tax-specific but not cytomegalovirus-specific CD8+ T lymphocytes in a minor population of asymptomatic human T-cell leukemia virus type 1-carriers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) causes adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) in a small percentage of infected individuals. ATL is often associated with general immune suppression and an impaired HTLV-1-specific T-cell response, an important host defense system. We previously found that a small fraction of asymptomatic HTLV-1-carriers (AC) already showed impaired T-cell responses against the major target antigen, Tax. However, it is unclear whether the impaired HTLV-1 Tax-specific T-cell response in these individuals is an HTLV-1-specific phenomenon, or merely reflects general immune suppression. In this study, in order to characterize the impaired HTLV-1-specific T-cell response, we investigated the function of Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells in various clinical status of HTLV-1 infection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By using tetramers consisting of HLA-A*0201, -A*2402, or -A*1101, and corresponding Tax epitope peptides, we detected Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells in the peripheral blood from 87.0% of ACs (n = 20/23) and 100% of HAM/TSP patients (n = 18/18) tested. We also detected Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells in 38.1% of chronic type ATL (cATL) patients (n = 8/21), although its frequencies in peripheral blood CD8⁺T cells were significantly lower than those of ACs or HAM/TSP patients. Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells detected in HAM/TSP patients proliferated well in culture and produced IFN-γ when stimulated with Tax peptides. However, such functions were severely impaired in the Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells detected in cATL patients. In ACs, the responses of Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells were retained in most cases. However, we found one AC sample whose Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells hardly produced IFN-γ, and failed to proliferate and express activation (CD69) and degranulation (CD107a) markers in response to Tax peptide. Importantly, the same AC sample contained cytomegalovirus (CMV) pp65-specific CD8⁺T-cells that possessed functions upon CMV pp65 peptide stimulation. We further examined additional samples of two smoldering type ATL patients and found that they also showed dysfunctions of Tax-specific but not CMV-specific CD8⁺T-cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These findings indicated that Tax-specific CD8⁺T-cells were scarce and dysfunctional not only in ATL patients but also in a limited AC population, and that the dysfunction was selective for HTLV-1-specifc CD8⁺T-cells in early stages.</p

Nonscale Model of Economic Growth with Public Input

[Abstract] This paper presents development of a nonscale model of economic growth with public input. For this paper, it is assumed that the production function has no restriction of scale in the three inputs of labor, capital, and public input. The balanced growth rate is determined by the production elasticities and population growth rate. Therefore, government policy is effective during the short term. Results show that a quantity-oriented government is not only successful in attaining its purpose: it also attains the second best equilibrium, although a growth-oriented government fails to attain its purpose. [概要] 本論文は,生産投入要素としての公共財を考慮した経済成長モデルを用いて, 持続的な経済成長の条件及び公共投資の最適条件について理論的検証を行っている。主要な結果は以下のとおりである。第一に, 持続的な経済成長のための必要十分条件は, 生産関数が規模に関して収穫逓増であることであり, また, 持続的経済成長経路において必ずしも動学的効率性が達成されないことが示された。第二に, 公共投資は短期的な経済成長促進効果を持つが, 長期的にみれば経済成長への貢献は, 生産要素としての役割に限定され, 最適な公共投資の対GDP比率は生産に対する公共財の弾力性に等しいことが示された