Comprehensive Evaluation of Human Value and Efficiency : The Co-op Kobe Case, Japan(Special Issue Dedicated to Professor Hiromi ANDO)

The basic values of cooperative society consist of the various values such as democracy, cooperation, solidarity, and contribution to community, which relates to the values of the human nature. Coop Kobe has been researching the method of the measurement of the basic values and its applying to the management evaluation of cooperatives. The evaluation method developed in Co-op Kobe was named a Comprehensive Evaluation of Consumer cooperative(CECC). In section 1, a development of the idea is described. In section 2, various elements of the method of the CECC are explained. In section 3, a possibility of the improvement of the method is shown. The contribution of the CECC method is that it has originally measured the basic values of cooperatives statistically and systematically, and become possible to apply to the evaluation of the business of Co-op Kobe from the viewpoint of efficiency and basic values

Mark-up Rate Fluctuations in the Business Cycle : A Kaleckian View(2)(Special Issue Dedicated to Professor Hiromi ANDO)

This is an empirical research followed on my methodological paper(1999), in which we tried to explain actual mark-up rate fluctuations theoretically. Our model supported procyclical fluctuations of the mark-up rate. Here we calculated five kinds of mark-up rate for Japan and the United States for 1970-98, and the United Kingdom for 1970-96, respectively. Then we made a regression analysis on the mark-up rates. It turned out that actual mark-up rates showed more or less procyclical fluctuations and our regression results confirmed the procyclical movements. This analysis has the limitations of the macro-economic analysis and the three advanced countries for the period from 1970 to 1998. But this may give some hint to clear up the long-pending question (since Kalecki and Harrod) whether the degree of monopoly (the mark-up rate in our context) fluctuates procyclically or countercyclically. We also found a surprisingly strong similarity in the mark-up rate level, which remained a topic for future research, as well as formulating a mark up rate function

A Brief History of Japanese Official Policies of Ainu Segregation and Assimilation, with a Focus on Language Policy

Centuries of ethnocentric policies by successive Japanese central and local governrnents have caused the Ainu people much suffering, including deprivatin of their language. This paper presents a brief historical overview of the educational and social assimilation policies leading to this situation

JAPANESE AND U. S. APPROACHES TO AID, PUBLIC LENDING, DIRECT INVESTMENT, AND TRADE: COMMERCIAL COMPETITION EFFECT AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS (Collaborative Research)

In the existing international political economy, developed nations have intensified competition by integrating developing nations into lower tiers of the hierarchy of global divisions of labor. Concurrently, developed nations share a common interest to cooperate in satisfying political and economic preconditions necessary for their economic activities, such as maintenance of political stability and construction of socio-economic infrastructure in developing nations. As a result, the behavior of developed nations presents a complex and complicated mixture of competition and cooperation. This statistical study aims at comprehending current behavioral patterns of Japan and the United States as two economic superpowers, with focus on the impact of their aid, public lending, direct investment, and trade on their own competitiveness. The article is intended to offer an important vantage point from which to analyze a global dimension of U. S. -Japan relations

On Canonical Functions and Conformal Mappings (In Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Founding of Momoyama Gakuin)

Another formulation of the existence theorem of canonical (meromorphic) functions on open Riemann surfaces is shown. Geometrically it implies that for given integer n≧max(2g, 1) and a point p of Riemann surface R of genus g(0≦g<∞ there exist a pair of conformal mappings (normalized at pole p) of R to an n-sheeted covering surface with vertical or horizontal slits respectively. Besides, a certain integral formula for locally canonical functions is obtained