This book gives readers advanced insights into macroeconomics with historical perspectives and proposes policies to resolve the problems the Japanese economy faces. In the past decade, Japan has experienced a rapidly aging population with an ever-decreasing number of children. This causes significant problems related to macroeconomics covered by this book: a decreasing population, an increasing public debt, an increasing social security expenditure, and deteriorating labor productivity. Thus, the government must change the course it has followed until now. These problems can be categorized into two types: (1) human capital and (2) political institutions. The book therefore consists of two parts. The first, using a macroeconomic model, is mainly a discussion of health and education problems related to human capital. The second part deals with policy problems related to political institutions, that is, the intergenerational imbalance, preventive medicine, local public utilities, and other political issues. Through the arguments presented here, readers gain knowledge that will help to achieve the necessary economic policies in Japan.

Includes recent advanced macroeconomic theory Discusses human capital and political institutions in Japan Includes not only a macroeconomic model but also historical perspective

Autorentext

Shuetsu Takahashi is Professor Emeritus at Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan. His areas of interest are very wide, which include macroeconomics, microeconomics, regional science and Japanese modern economic history. He has published a history book with macroeconomic perspectives, Gold Coin Outflow and Yokohama Foreign Exchange Market in the early 1860s (in Japanese) and also a biography book on the second governor of the Bank of Japan, Tetsunosuke Tomita: Student Studying in America in the late 1860s (in Japanese). He served as President of the Japan Section of the Reginal Science Association International for two years from January 2019. (97words)

Mitsuyoshi Yanagihara is a Professor of Economics at Nagoya University, Japan. He obtained a Ph.D. in Economics in 1998 from Osaka University. He worked at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, and at Nagoya University. He was also a Visiting Scholar at Brown University and has been a ResearchMember of Financial System Research Group of the Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration at Kobe University and a Research Fellow of Institute of Economics at Chukyo University. He is a Director of the Japan Section of the Regional Science Association and a member of Steering Committee of Chubu Branch of the Japan Society of Household Economics. His research interests are macroeconomics, public finance, economics of education, and international economics. Recent publications include "Population Growth and the Transfer Paradox in an Overlapping Generations Model" (Review of Development Economics, 2019, Co-authored with Kojun Hamada, and Tsuyoshi Shinozaki). Kei Hosoya is currently Professor of Economics at Kokugakuin University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics in 2003 from Hitotsubashi University, and then became a Research Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). After serving as Lecturer and Associate Professor at Tohoku Gakuin University, he became Associate Professor at Kokugakuin University. During this period, he has been engaged in research activities at the Institute of Statistical Research of Japan, the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), and the Research Institute for Economics and Management, Gakushuin University. His main research interests are dynamic macroeconomics, including economic growth theory, and public economics. More recently, he has also engaged in health economic analysis, including the COVID-19 research. Recent publications include "Endogenous Time Preference and Infrastructure-led Growth with an Unexpected Numerical Example" (Portuguese Economic Journal, 2022, forthcoming).

Tsuyoshi Shinozaki is a Professor of Economics at Tohku Gakuin University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in Economics in 2007 from Nagoya University. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Catania. He is a member of the International Institute of Public Finance, Association for Cultural Economics International, the Japan Association of Local Public Finance, and the Japan Section of the Regional Science Association. His main research interests are economic growth theory, public economics, and international economics. Recent publications include "International Trade and Capital Accumulation in an Overlapping Generations Model with a Public Intermediate Good" (Review of International Economics, 2019, Co-authored with Makoto Tawada, and Mitsuyoshi Yanagihara).

Inhalt

1. Declining Population Growth and the Serendipity Theorem.- 2. Consumption of Leisure Goods, Leisure Time, and Inheritance of Tastes for Leisure in an Overlapping Generations Model.- 3. Overlapping Generations Model with Relative Preference for Children's Human Capital.- 4. The Impact of Life Insurance on Human Capital Investment during the Steady Growth Period in Japan: Simulation Analysis in an Overlapping Generations Model with Endogenous Growth.- 5. The Effects of Patience in a Growth Model with Infrastructure and a Related Externality.- 6. Intergenerational Inequalities and Policy Options for Achieving Generational Balance in Japan.- 7. Social Security Finance in JapanTrends, Issues, and Some Measures for Stabilization.- 8. The Effect of Political Uncertainty and Political Lobbying.- 9. A Consideration of the Municipal Electric Power Utility and Local City of Modern Age in Japan.- 10. Concentration and Agglomeration in Spatial Monopoly, SpatialDuopoly, and Spatial Competition.