Böcker i New Frontiers in Regional Scie-serien

This book focuses solely on the issues of agriculture and forest productivity analysis with advanced modeling approaches to bring solutions to food-insecure regions of South and Southeast Asia. Advanced modeling tools and their use in regional planning provide an outstanding opportunity to contribute toward food production and environments. In this book, leading-edge research methodologies related to remote sensing and geospatial variability of soil, water, and regional agricultural production indicators and their applications are introduced together-a unique feature of the book is the domain of regional policy perspectives and allied fields. In regional policy planning, agriculture and forestry have a key role in food security and environmental conservation that depends on the geo-spatial variability of these factors.  Over the years, nature and climate have determined the variability of soil type, soil quality, geographical deviation for habitat, water quality, water sources, urban influences, population growth, carbon stock levels, and water resources with rain-fed or irrigated land use practices.  In addition, human nutritional values and dietary habits have brought cultural adaptation of either mono- or multi-cropping patterns in the region.To encompass all these above mentioned factors and classify regional variability for policy planning, satellite remote sensing and geographical information systems have the immense potential to increase agricultural and forest productivity to ensure the resilience of its sustainability. Therefore, the 13 chapters presented in this book introduce modeling techniques using the signatures of vegetation and water indices, land use and land change dynamics, climatic, and socioeconomic criteria through spatial, temporal, and statistical analysis. As well, remote sensing and in-depth GIS analysis are integrated with machine and deep learning algorithms to address natural uncertainties such as flash floods, droughts, and cyclones in agricultural production management.

This book presents research in the field of housing and urban analysis in Japan. It features carefully selected English translations of peer-reviewed articles published in journals in Japan, especially by authors involved in the laboratory supervised by Professor Yasushi Asami.The topics covered include economic analysis of the housing market, analyses of residential environment and human behaviour/psychology, analyses related to urban policies such as intermunicipal cooperation, teleworking and solar photovoltaics installation, spatial analyses of urban entities and effective visualization.Housing and urban analysis has developed using theory and methods in the fields of economics, regional science, geography, statistics, spatial psychology and urban sociology. Even though the methods of analysis differ from chapter to chapter, the ultimate goal of the research is the same. Namely, the target of the research is a better understanding of urban phenomena and effective improvement of urban space and society. The academic contributions in this collection of work are helpful for academics, practitioners and policy makers not only in Japan but also in other Asian countries.

This book deals with regional sustainability, which is one of the biggest issues in Japan today, and presents suggested methods and cases to show how regional management should be carried out. Today, regions in Japan are facing long-term global challenges such as changes in climate and in international relations, as well as regional financial difficulties due to depopulation and aging. Additional causes are the decline of traditional culture and community sustainability, the crisis of public services, inner- and inter-regional disparities, disaster response, and other local and region-specific issues that are intricately related. To meet the challenge of those issues, local actors must deal with the regional issues themselves and solve them in cooperation with various other stakeholders. From this perspective, the book exhibits regional management frameworks, focusing especially on evaluation, decision making, and aid in multi-dimensional approaches, and examines case studies for making regions sustainable by allowing diverse actors to realize diverse values and standards in cooperation. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines, including urban science, economics, geography, landscape, real estate, and public finance, which makes it possible to shed light on a particular region.This book comprises a collection of essays celebrating the life and work of Kiyoko Hagihara, honorary professor of the Graduate School of Urban Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan. Essay contributors include her former students as well as regional scientists with similar interests.

This book critically discusses the historical backgrounds and new developments of the theories of games, decisions, and markets, with many possible applications to social and economic problems. Consisting of three connected parts, the book sheds new light on the role of merchants in the market economy under conditions of risk and uncertainty. Part I begins with the question of why and how John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern did joint work in game theory, namely, the theoretical study of strategic interactions among several decision makers. The duel between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty in Conan Doyle's famous detective story is recalled as a great inducement to Neumann and Morgenstern to invent zero-sum, two-person games. More general non-zero-sum games and associated Nash solutions are then discussed in relation to the generation-gap problem between a young couple and an elderly couple. Part II explores a set of very fundamental problems of individual decision making. Thetwo famous axioms of revealed preference ¿ Samuelson's weak axiom and Houthakker's axiom ¿ are skillfully connected and empirically reevaluated by the introduction of certain regularity conditions. The revealed preference approach is then extended from the original commodity space to the dual price space. Such dual treatment in microeconomics is further applied to the theory of cost and production, with the decomposition of the total factor price effect into the substitution and scale effects. Part III turns the reader¿s attention to the interdependence of several markets. The almost forgotten Hicks¿Morishima approach is newly revived with graphical illustrations of traded goods. The well-known Jones¿Kemp approach to international trade is boldly expanded into the world of risk and uncertainty. Some striking results in comparative static analysis are derived, with favorable implications for the real world.

This book first provides a comprehensive guideline for future disaster-resistant city planning in large cities in disaster-prone countries such as Japan. It is a compilation of knowledge and know-how obtained through the author's work in the national government for one and half years in the Earthquake Reconstruction Headquarters, right after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on 17 January 1995. The author has carefully examined the various ad hoc measures taken just after the earthquake, which were criticized because they did not work as well as expected. Additionally, he has examined the later revisions in disaster and risk management systems made at the levels of local and national governments through experience in the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, to which the author had long been committed. The author argues that the rescue activities, rehabilitation, and reconstruction plans for disaster countermeasures implemented once a disaster has occurred and the city planning established in ordinary times should be extremely tightly connected with each other. City planning that subsumes rescue activities, rehabilitation, and reconstruction plans against what ought to have happened would critically improve the capability of crisis management and, consequently, protect life and property once a disaster has occurred. Such city planning eventually creates disaster-resistant cities. This book assumes readers to be graduate students who study city planning. It is also beneficial for practitioners and policy makers who are in charge of the construction of disaster-resistant cities at the national and local levels of governments, especially in disaster-prone countries. 

This book addresses three main issues in regional income inequality and development: meaning of regional inequality, measurement of regional inequality and the relationship between national economic development and regional income inequality. It provides analytical methods useful in exploring the determinants of regional inequality in income and productivity.  Some software commands in Stata (statistical software package) available for the measurement and analysis of income inequality are also introduced. Some researchers have argued that spatial concentration of population in and around major cities and the concurrent increase in regional inequality do not hinder national economic development, and may stimulate it. Nevertheless, many national governments seek to promote balanced regional economic development and reduce regional income inequality, because unbalanced development and higher levels of regional inequality may cause political or ethnic conflicts between different regions of the country. As the applications of the analytical methods introduced in the first part of the book, the second part presents four independent empirical studies on regional inequality and development in Indonesia. They offer very interesting case studies for the formulation of policies and programs to reduce regional inequalities, because as the world's largest archipelagic country with more than 13 thousand islands and 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia is spatially diverse in terms of its ecology, natural resource endowments, economy, ethnicity and culture.This book can be used as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in national economic development and regional income inequality. It is also beneficial for practitioners and policy makers who are in charge of the formulation, implementation and evaluation of development policies and programs.

This pioneering work focuses on the crucial role that the cooperation of Japan, a major stakeholder in production networks in North America, is playing in supporting Mexico's domestic suppliers of the automotive industry. The importance of Japanese cooperation is analyzed with an examination of the transfer of knowledge and technology crucial for reshaping the automotive industry. Additionally, particular interest is given to the challenges posed to Mexico's automotive industry by the United States¿MexicöCanada Agreement (USMCA), the Covid-19 disruptions, and the transition to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. The book demonstrates the importance of cooperation in economic partnership agreements such as the one between Japan and Mexico to strengthen the role of investment in complex regional integration networks and to face new challenges. Academics and policymakers will find a framework to guide research and decision-making regarding the transformation of automotivemanufacturing and production networks in Mexico's automotive industry. Specifically, the new conditions facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the important part that Japanese cooperation will play in the industry's evolution.

This book portrays India as a representative of post-colonial democratic republic states with a parliamentary form of federal-structured government and analyzes the critical challenges faced by such states in generating broadly shared economic well-being and quality of life. The reader is shown how creating and utilizing physical, human, financial, and social assets under the aegis of public policies help achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to provide a global framework to move toward a more equitable, peaceful, resilient, and prosperous society by 2030. It not only addresses how the state¿s capacity has long been linked to the available economic resources, but also unfolds how the political system thus evolves to crucially determine the capacity of the state to implement its programs. The chapters of this book are particularly focused on judging the state¿s capacity amid the neo-liberal ascendancy that has been triggered by the opening up of both the domestic and external economy, significantly initiated since 1991 and popularly known as the economic reforms in India.Examined here is the potency of the public policies of the country in fulfilling the sustainable development agendas, the specificity of which places the state at the heart of its execution, unlike many other versions of development that would be executed in parallel with or without states¿ action. This work book has three principal foci facets within the broad swath of discussions covered by different chapters: (1) It critically examines how successful remains the public policies in mobilizing the population is mobilized to the next orbit of income, employment, education, and health consequent to amid the existing considerable magnitude of social and economic inequalities while achieving ¿equity¿ has always been the declared agenda in the post-reform public policy frameworks; (2) It traces the rationality of the transformation of the public policies and welfare strategies duringthe post-reform period in terms of motives, goals, and coverage to achieve the SDGs; and, (3) It reviews specific post-reform policies in terms of their potency to stimulate the system in addressing sustainable development. and upholding the state¿s dominant and structuring intervention to resolve the existing inequalities and ensure that society develops amidst a harmonious world reconciled with nature.

This book covers many aspects of innovation theory, evolutionary economics, economic geography, and simulation models. It is one of the first books to comprehensively and systematically focus on the evolution of regional innovation based on provincial experience in emerging economics, including stylized facts, theoretical explanation, and simulation. The book is devoted to a pioneering process-based regional innovation matrix used for classifying a regional innovation model, which is illustrated by real-world cases and data analyses. The topics addressed here include path dependency, lock-in, routines, variations, selectivity, regional gap, innovation progress, agglomeration, and innovation efficiency. The simulation methods describing the dynamics of regional innovation evaluation on economics are developed as well. The primary objective of this work is to provide a tractable and useful regional governance tool for researchers and policy makers in regional science, human geography, and related disciplines. The book is highly recommended to readers who seek more insight into the continuous development of China or regional development gaps.

This book is especially valuable for its policy evaluation studies using both a theoretical model for policies carried out at national and regional levels and for gathering policy evaluation studies in diverse disciplines by empirical study.Policy analysis shown here employs theoretical models such as an international trade model, an optimal tariff, and spatial reorganization. At the same time, factors in well-being are taken into consideration with land development, changes in migration and local economies by natural disasters, validation of efficiency for emission control methods, the relationship between cyberspace and physical space in urban networks, and NPOs' investment activities.The empirical research reported in this volume analyzes Japan, China, and Asian-Pacific cities. In the case of Japan, studies focus on the finances of local governments, the real estate industry, the role of consumer cooperatives in a food system, and agriculture and its productivity in hilly and mountainous areas. As well, the effects of industrial clusters in megacities and investment in high-speed railways and prediction of human behavior during an earthquake are studied. In China's case, studies focus on food policy and the effect of ecology and environment on migration policy. For Asia-Pacific cities, studies show performance rankings of "e;super cities"e; in the region.The book defines the frontier of policy evaluation following a middle path between theoretical study and empirical study with regard to evaluation. In addition, the book contributes to an understanding of the relationship between the goals and targets of sustainable development. This book is highly recommended for graduate students, policymakers, and researchers concerned with policy evaluation.

This book focuses on the Frobenius theorem regarding a nonlinear simultaneous system. The Frobenius theorem is well known as a condition for a linear simultaneous system¿s having a nonnegative solution. Generally, however, the condition of a simultaneous system, including a non-linear system¿s having a nonnegative solution, is hardly discussed at all. This book, therefore, extends the conventional Frobenius theorem for nonlinear simultaneous systems for economic analysis. Almost all static optimization problems in economics involve nonlinear programing. Theoretical models in economics are described in the form of a simultaneous system resulting from the rational optimization behavior of households and enterprises. On the other hand, rational optimization behavior of households and enterprises is, mathematically speaking, expressed as nonlinear programing. For this reason it is important to understand the meaning of nonlinear programing. Because this book includes explanations of the relations among various restrictions in a nonlinear programing systematically and clearly, this book is suitable for students in graduate school programs in economics.

This collection of essays presents insight and methodology that are highly relevant for readers today as they consider the future of the world they live in. Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, people have realized how fragile the current economy is and the necessity for reconstructing the socio-economic system. That system, which was considered the default for so long, was succeeded by the analytical framework of economics and regional science. The contents of this book are diversified, as are the achievements of Prof. Yasuhiro Sakai, to whom this volume is dedicated, and cover a wide area from mathematical and experimental economics to conventional and emerging fields of regional science. Some are timeless topics that have had new life breathed into them. Part I deals with, among other areas, risk management with uncertain events; the effectiveness and impacts of regulation and friction related to trading; the stability of strategic behavior and market equilibrium; and sustainable regional development and urban planning from the long-term perspective. Part II also presents a diversity of subjects, including input¿output analysis and computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling for internal as well as external structure and network linkage, such as a value chain; openness and creativity as related to competition among cities and regions; dispersion versus concentration; and inequality versus equality.

The purpose of this book is to discuss the relationship between information and distribution, with special reference to the role of the merchant in a market economy under conditions of risk and uncertainty. By working with simple models of the market economy and conducting a sequence of comparative analyses, the authors shed new light on an important yet rather neglected area in economics. In a historical perspective, the merchants of Ohmi, the former name of Shiga Prefecture in western Japan, are known to have put great faith in the principles of Sampo Yoshi or the all-around advantages of trading. It is hoped that the results presented in this book will provide some solid ground for such an old principle that can be seen in a new light. Applications to regional and many related problems are also discussed here. A distribution system is broadly defined as the systematic mechanisms and structures that regulate business operations, and its function is to maximize corporate value. Some of the following functions have previously been identified as distinguishing features of the Japanese distribution system compared with distribution systems in Europe and the United States: not only transactions, transportation, and storage, but also information, risk-bearing functions, and other characteristics. This book provides an overview of the distribution system in Japan, including changes that its practice have undergone and its current state; identifies current problems; and considers how these problems should be addressed.

This volume spotlights some of the most important economic issues confronting today's emerging developing countries. The topics studied in the book include the importance of productivity to economic growth, international trade and its relationship to productivity; immigration and brain drain; pollution havens, climate change, and the carbon tax; the effectiveness of foreign aid, the efficiency of education, and governance. Written by some of the most respected scholars in their respective fields, the individual chapters apply both economic theory and the most current empirical tools in rigorous but accessible exposition. Researchers can find value in the modeling and empirical techniques that can be applied to other countries and datasets. Policy makers can benefit from the intellectual foundation on which decisions on important issues can be based; and students of international trade, economic development, and environmental economics can gain knowledge of different country settings that give context to their fields of study.

This book analyzes the mechanism of transnational private regulations (TPRs) in the global property investment market and the conditions of their effectiveness for sustainable urban development. In the present economy, with control over national legislation alone, state policymakers have been challenged to regulate transnational investors, markets, and issues such as global warming, financial crises, food safety risks, deforestation, and cross-border business transactions. Transgovernmental networks of regulators have assembled representatives and technical experts from national regulatory agencies, nongovernmental organizations, private firms, and business organizations. As private corporations become increasingly globalized, many forms of TPRs have emerged since the 1990s for legislation, standard-setting, monitoring of compliance, and implementation of transnational rules, to respond to challenges posed by the transformation of domestic and international regulatory environments. TPRs are self-regulated, non-state, market-driven regulations. Since the emergence of TPRs, the global rule-making landscape has become dynamic. Urban development and property investment have been viewed historically as local phenomena: The regulations and standards in this field have been established and enforced by governments, local associations, and national professional bodies. However, as urban development and property investment increasingly have been globalized, the services, transactions, and investments by private firms have transcended national boundaries. For this reason, it has become difficult for states to regulate global activities through existing national legislation or international regulatory systems. As the management of new transnational issues through collaborations between various actors is unpredictable, it is necessary to examine the mechanism of TPRs in global property investment and their effectiveness for sustainable urban development.

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.

This book adopts the multidimensional nature of innovation as its point of focus and offers a comprehensive analysis of contemporary governance issues in Bangladesh. Each chapter views those issues from its own disciplinary perspective, but all share a common focus on the current process in the governance of innovation. The authors show how the processes of innovation and public service delivery are influenced while there is simultaneously a striving for a digital Bangladesh. The book presents innovation as a complex phenomenon with multidisciplinary viewpoints affecting its governance. As well, new practices, developments, and empirical research are shown here. The aim is to point out the most persistent difficulties in public administration and public service delivery, with an emphasis on how to deliver public service in Bangladesh in a sustainable manner. Although significant transformations have been made recently for a better organized public sphere, public services still must be more closely in line with what citizens need rather than what service providers are prepared to deliver. This published work speaks strongly to a wide-ranging audience, from scholars of governance and innovation management to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students interested in public service delivery innovations in Bangladesh and South Asia. Indeed, the book serves as a text and valuable resource for postgraduate courses in politics, business administration, economics, political science, development, and governance in South Asia.

This book is the first coherent presentation of the latest research and practices concerned with how recent advances in mobile information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are utilized to enhance the value of the city and change the way that city planning and management are carried out. Its salient feature is the pursuit of the individual-oriented evaluative point of view regarding the city. This view considers the value of the city to be the total of visit-values individuals feel and appreciate when they visit the city. The visit-value is conceptualized as the intangible asset value of the attractiveness of the city that visitors form in their minds based on their experiences and activities in the city, transactions with city space, and communications with other people. Visitors to the city may well be quite heterogeneous individuals with different motives and preferences. Thus, to enhance the value of the city, quite different visit values of heterogeneous individuals should be enhanced simultaneously, which necessitates the use of ICT and IoT in living spaces. Based on this view, the city utilizing ICT and IoT to enhance the value of the city is called the social city. Whereas many other books deal with the impacts of the advances in mobile ICT on the city, they only discuss how these advances change the infrastructure of the city but do not discuss how these technological advances can be utilized to enhance the city¿s value. This book first develops the concept of the social city based on an individual micro-behavioral approach. Then, it presents the latest studies on technological components of the social city, such as the human-sensing technology for estimating individual behavior, decision making, and mood; the visualizing technology of the thermal 3-dimensional environment of the city; and the social-sensing technology using social networking service (SNS) for measuring and creating an atmosphere of city space. Finally,it envisages the future of the social city.

This book focuses on geospatial information in living spaces, providing many examples of its collection and use as well as discussing the problems of how it is used and its future prospects.Geospatial information science is in the process of evolving and being systematized, with the technical and usage aspects of the real world stimulating each other. This book systematizes the technical aspects of positioning; of geography, which manages and represents what is measured in units of earth coordinates; and of data science, which aims to efficiently express and process geographic information, all by introducing contemporary examples that are systematized with regard to their use in our living spaces. Examples of geospatial information used in almost all aspects of our lives, including urban areas, transportation, disaster prevention, health and medical care, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, culture, ecology, and topography, are presented, along with examples of their use in each area. One of the major features of this book is that it describes the use of data from earthquake disasters that is unique to Japan, as well as the use of open data and personal data in Japan, which is a trend that is gaining attention in many countries. In this way the book systematically describes events and circumstances in living spaces that are revealed by the expression and analysis of geospatial data, with case studies and discusses their use in the IoT era.