Inequality and education decisions in developing countries

In this paper we analyze the effect of inequality on school enrollment, preferred tax rate and expenditure per student in developing countries; when parents can choose between child labor, public schooling or private schooling. We present a model in which parents make schooling decisions for their children, weighing the utility benefit of having a child with formal public or private education versus the forgone income from child labor or household work. Parents vote over the preferred tax rate to finance freely provided public education. The utility benefit of an educated child is proportional to expenditure per student, so that there is congestion in public school. We find that when parents can send their children to work or to private school, high inequality leads to exit from public education at both ends of the income distribution. Thus high inequality reduces the support for public education, leading to a low tax rate and expenditure per student. Exit from public education results in both high child labor and a large fraction of students attending private school. In fact there is a threshold level of inequality above which there is no longer support for public education. In addition we explore the implications for the design of foreign aid. The results suggest that foreign aid policies should focus on promoting school attendance rather than increasing school resources, as the later policy might be offset by a reduction in the recipient country’s fiscal effort, with little impact on outcomes.      

Contingent valuation method can increase procedural justice

We hypothesized that the contingent valuation method (CVM) can enhance the procedural justice of policy formation as perceived by people generally, which in turn increases public acceptance of policy. In Study 1, a survey (n=484) asked whether respondents would accept a one-off tax, the purpose of which would be to protect the natural environment of Yakushima Island, Japan. In one condition, the respondents were told that the amount of the one-off tax was determined using the CVM. In a second condition, no such instruction was given. In Study 2, 55 subjects were asked to indicate their acceptance, or otherwise, of a one-off tax for the protection of the natural environment of Yakushima Island when the tax was determined using the CVM, and when the tax was determined using cost–benefit analysis. The data from the survey and the experiment confirmed the hypothesis that the CVM enhanced the perceived procedural justice and acceptance of the tax.     

Biogeographical history of northeastern Asiatic soricine shrews (insectivora, mammalia)

A hypothetical biogeographical history of northeastern Asiatic soricine shrews in the late Quaternary was developed by integrating their present distributions, fossil records, a hypothetical phylogeny, and geological investigations. First, a biological area cladogram of the northeastern Asiatic region was constructed by applying the vicariance hypothesis to the phylogeny of thecaecutiens/shinto group, a monophyletic group proposed by Ohdachi et al. (1997). Comparing the biological area cladogram with a geological hypothesis by Ohshima (1990,1991,1992), we hypothesized a geographical history of northeastern Asia. Species were then located on the dendrogram of the geographical history, referring to the present distributions, fossil records, and phylogeny of shrews. According to our hypothesis, higher species diversity of the northern region of northeastern Asia (Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Eastern Siberia) was achieved by several series of colonizations and habitat expansion. On the other hand, the shrew communities of the southern region (Honshu, Sado, Shikoku, and Kyushu) were created by extinction and isolation followed by speciation.     

Seven-Eleven is revolutionising grocery distribution in Japan

Seven-Eleven Japan, which is a subsidiary of Ito-Yokado, is the largest and most profitable convencience store chain in Japan, with around 6700 convenience stores, all operating on a franchise basis. Ito-Yokado and Seven-Eleven Japan now owns the Southland Corporation, the US company which originated the Seven-Eleven concept.

This article explores the reasons for the extraordinary success of Seven-Eleven Japan which include:

• • locating stores in clusters of 30 shops to achieve local market domination;

• • combined food deliveries in temperature-controlled vans;

• • total merchandising, i.e. organising the whole value chain including manufacturers and wholesalers to develop and deliver products of high quality and low cost;

• • weekly briefings of 900 franchise advisers by the CEO;

• • a point-of-sale system which can be accessed by the stores and provides the basis for electronic ordering and same-day delivery and for real-time market analysis and forecasting.