【国際経済学セミナーと共催】
要旨：International trade and investment flows obey gravity relationships, posing a continuing puzzle. New data on cross-border commercial real-estate investment flows show that they obey gravity, but this relationship is rendered insignificant by controlling for the presence of counterparties from origin countries in destination countries. We attribute this to a strong, robust tendency for preferential matching with same-country counterparties. We set up an equilibrium matching model with a contracting/trust friction affecting different-nationality transactions. The model explains the persistent success of gravity using the friction and the fact that the spatial distribution of same-nationality counterparties is well-explained by historical links between countries.

【国際経済学セミナーと共催】
要旨：We propose and apply a new theory-consistent algorithm, which uses disaggregated inter-city trade data to identify a pyramidic city system with central places and associated hinterlands. Because central places possess more industries than the cities in their hinterlands, and because industries, which are exclusive to central places, are more likely to export to the small, peripheral cities in the central place’s hinterland, we find that aggregate exports from central places to their hinterlands are two to five times larger than predicted by gravity forces. Using a simple decomposition approach, we show that this upward bias results from aggregation along the extensive industry margin, which is why the bias is much smaller and only marginally significant if estimation is conducted in a theory-consistent way at the disaggregated industry level.

EBPMセミナーと共催

要旨：This paper investigates a two-location local public goods economy in which agents choose their residential location and consumption bundles, faced with location-specific disaster risks. The amount of local public goods provision financed by local wealth tax is determined by majority voting of residents to reduce the disaster probability. We show that every equilibrium is wealth stratified if utility functions are constant relative risk aversion with basic consumption in housing. Moreover, when disaster risks in a location increase, population and housing rent decrease and the tax rate increases in that location, while the opposite takes place in the other one. Using this framework, we also evaluate two different policies numerically, namely foreign aid and inter-jurisdiction transfer as a local public good or a lump-sum subsidy. If foreign aid provides local public goods for the riskier location, wealthier agents may move into that location and force poorer agents to move out, making the wealthier agents direct beneficiaries of this foreign subsidy. Furthermore, we find that the inter-jurisdiction transfer from the less risky location to the riskier one may harm the poorer by rising housing rents. Finally, the poorer agents may benefit more from a lump-sum subsidy.

要旨：This paper investigates the impact of high-speed rail on innovative activities of establishments along the rail. Using the case of the opening of Nagano-Hokuriku Shinkansen in Japan, and applying difference-indifferences approach, we estimate the impact of the high-speed rail on the innovative activities along the line. We find that after the opening the high-speed rail, innovative activities by the establishments along the line are significantly increased. Furthermore, collaborative patents across establishments along the line and citations of patents published by the establishments in Tokyo are increased. These imply that the innovative activities along the line is increased through knowledge diffusions from the nearby establishments and those in Tokyo.