Morphologic observations of human T and B lymphocytes by scanning electron microscopy

T cell concerned with cell mediated immunity and B cell concerned with humoral antibody are classified by scanning electron microscopy of the surface structure of lymphocytes using E binding lymphocytes and EAC (sensitized sheep erythrocytes treated with complement) binding lymphocytes. For the purpose to elucidate morphological differences between T cell and B cell the scanning electron microscope observations were carried out with the blast forming lymphocytes incubated in the presence of PHA. As a result it has been demonstrated that T cells have short microvilli on the cell surface, but the reason for the difference in the number of the microvilli is unclarified. Even T cells have sometimes long microvilli in the younger stage, they are longer and more slender than those of untreated peripheral B cells.</p

Why Are Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid, but Less So in Japan? An Explanation Based on Behavioral Economics and Labor Market/Macroeconomic Differences

In this paper, we survey the theoretical and empirical literature to investigate why nominal wages can be downwardly rigid. Looking back from the 19th century until recently, we first examine the existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) for several countries. We find that (1) nominal wages were flexible in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, but (2) nominal wages were downwardly rigid in almost all the industrialized countries in the second half of the 20th century, although (3) the extent of DNWR varied from country to country. Next, we use a behavioral economics framework to explain the reasons for DNWR. We also explain why the existence and extent of DNWR varied between time periods and/or from country to country, focusing on differences in the labor market characteristics (such as labor mobility and employment protection legislation) and in the macroeconomic environment (such as economic growth and inflation), which can alter employeesf and firmsf perceptions toward nominal wage cuts.Downward nominal wage rigidity; Behavioral economics; Labor mobility; Employment protection legislation; Inflation rate; Indexation

Estimating Frisch Labor Supply Elasticity in Japan

Using Japanese data from the 1990s aggregated by prefecture, age group, and sex, we estimate Frisch labor supply elasticity, which has been seldom estimated in Japan. The change in labor supply can be decomposed into two labor-supply behaviors: extensive margin, indicating workersf entry and exit from the labor market; and intensive margin, indicating changes in hours of work in response to a wage change. Our estimates of the Frisch elasticity on the extensive and intensive margins combined are in the range of 0.2 to 0.7 for males, 1.3 to 1.5 for females, and 0.7 to 1.0 for both sexes. Our estimates of the Frisch elasticity on only the intensive margin are in the range of 0.1 to 0.2 for all three categories. These results suggest that extensive margin explains the bulk of labor-supply changes in Japan. As for the changes in the estimates of the Frisch elasticity in Japan from the 1990s, it has been either unchanged or in a declining trend on the extensive and intensive margins combined, either unchanged or in a slight rising trend on only the intensive margin, and in a declining trend on only the extensive margin.Labor supply, Frisch elasticity, Extensive margin, Intensive margin

What determines work hours?: who you work with or where you work?

By using a unique dataset on managerial-level employees who were transferred from Japan to European branches of the same global firms, we examine what would happen to work hours when a worker moves from a long-hour-working country to relatively shorter-hour countries. Even after controlling for business cycles, unobserved individual heterogeneity, job characteristics, and work hour regulations, we find a significant decline in Japanese work hours after their transfer to Europe, resulting from working-behavior influences of locally hired staff. We also find that the reduction in hours worked highly depends on the extent of the workers’ interactions with local peers.

Are Japanese Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid? (Part II): Examinations Using a Friction Model

This paper confirms the existence of downward nominal wage rigidity in Japan as presented in Kuroda and Yamamoto (2003) and quantifies the extent of this downward nominal wage rigidity by applying econometric methods to Japanese longitudinal data. Using 1993-98 data, we find that downward nominal wage rigidity does exist in Japan even after controlling the individual characteristics and the measurement errors in reported nominal wages. In addition, we find that the extent of the downward nominal wage rigidity is sensitive to the choice of wage measures. While the hourly wages of part-time female employees exhibit almost complete downward rigidity, the extents of the downward rigidity are limited for the regular monthly salaries and annual earnings of full- time employees. For example, our estimates show that the regular monthly salaries of full-time male and female employees will not be cut as long as the notional wages do not decline by more than about 7.7 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively. However, when the notional wage change rates exceed these threshold values, nominal wage cuts do occur.

Are Japanese Nominal Wages Downwardly Rigid? (Part I): Examinations of Nominal Wage Change Distributions

This paper examines downward nominal wage rigidity in Japan at the individual level using Japanese longitudinal data. By observing the nominal wage change distributions and applying several statistical tests for asymmetry to them, we obtain the following findings. First, using 1993-98 data, the nominal wage change distributions are statistically skewed to the right with large spikes near the zero points, which indicates that downward nominal wage rigidity does exist in Japan. Second, the extent of the downward nominal wage rigidity is sensitive to the choice of nominal wage measures. While the extent of the downward rigidity for the hourly wages of part-time female employees is substantial, those for the regular monthly salaries and annual earnings of full-time male and female employees are limited in the sense that approximately one-fourth of the full-time employee samples experience nominal cuts. Third, for the regular monthly salaries of male employees only, the observed right-skewness of the nominal wage distributions tends to decrease as the inflation rate rises, although the analysis is limited to a period with an extremely low inflation rate.

The Impact of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity on the Unemployment Rate: Quantitative Evidence from Japan

To what extent does downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) raise the unemployment rate during periods of low inflation or deflation? To answer this question, we simulate the impact on the male unemployment rate in Japan, by incorporating the DNWR of full-time male employees as estimated by Kuroda and Yamamoto into the general equilibrium model of Akerlof et al. The simulation results show the following. First, the DNWR estimated by Kuroda and Yamamoto with Japanese longitudinal data from 1993-98 has a minor impact on the unemployment rate compared with the case of perfect DNWR. Nevertheless, this impact is not trivial in the sense that it raises the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percentage points under the baseline parameters adopted in this paper. Second regarding the relationship with the rate of inflation, DNWR does not cause unemployment as long as the inflation rate is approximately 2.4 percent or higher whereas its effects tend to increase gradually as the inflation rate falls below 2.4 percent. When inflation is below approximately 1 percent, however, the marginal increase in unemployment attributable to DNWR is small since DNWR is moderated by the adjustments to bonuses and extensive wage cuts observed in our Japanese data sets. Instead, under these conditions, it is the additional unemployment brought by labor market distortions that becomes the issue.

Hybrid Assessment Scheme Based on the Stern-Judging Rule for Maintaining Cooperation under Indirect Reciprocity

Intensive studies on indirect reciprocity have explored rational assessment rules for maintaining cooperation and several have demonstrated the effects of the stern-judging rule. Uchida and Sasaki demonstrated that the stern-judging rule is not suitable for maintaining cooperative regimes in private assessment conditions while a public assessment system has been assumed in most studies. Although both assessment systems are oversimplified and society is most accurately represented by a mixture of these systems, little analysis has been reported on their mixture. Here, we investigated how much weight on the use of information originating from a public source is needed to maintain cooperative regimes for players adopting the stern-judging rule when players get information from both public and private sources. We did this by considering a hybrid-assessment scheme in which players use both assessment systems and by using evolutionary game theory. We calculated replicator equations using the expected payoffs of three strategies: unconditional cooperation, unconditional defection, and stern-judging rule adoption. Our analysis shows that the use of the rule helps to maintain cooperation if reputation information from a unique public notice board is used with more than a threshold probability. This hybrid-assessment scheme can be applied to other rules, including the simple-standing rule and the staying rule

Firm's demand for work hours: Evidence from multi-country and matched firm-worker data

Using information on Japanese, UK, and German workers' work hour and matched firms' characteristics, this paper investigates whether the number of hours worked is determined by demand-side factors, and tries to introduce one possibility to explain why Japanese tend to work longer hours than workers in other countries. Based on an empirical framework that each firm sets a minimum boundary of work hours, and workers hired by the firm are not able to work less than the minimum requirement, we found that the minimum requirement depends on the fixed costs of labor that the firm bears. Specifically, firms that tend to conduct labor hoarding during recessions, presumably because of higher fixed costs, require incumbent workers to work longer hours. We also found that the greater the workers' firm-specific skills, the more firms placed demands on these workers to work longer hours, given other things are equal. Since Japanese firms have long been considered to bear large fixed costs to train workers, we interpret the long work hour requirement as a rational strategy for Japanese firms to protect those workers that have accumulated high skills from dismissal. In other words, the long work hours of Japanese workers reflect the practice of long-term employment, a typical feature of the Japanese labor market.