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The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis of the existence of a single economic market for the international coal industry, separated for coking and steam coal, and lo investigate market integration over time. This has been conducted by applying cointegration and error-correction models on quarterly price series data in Europe and Japan over the time period 1980-2000. Both the coking and the steam coal markets show evidence of global market integration, as demonstrated by the stable long-run cointegrating relationship between the respective price series in different world regions. This supports the hypothesis of a globally integrated market. However, when analyzing market integration over time it is not possible to confirm cointegration in the 1990s for steam coal. Thus, compared to the coking coal market, the steam coal market looks somewhat less global in scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the factors behind the historical changes in CO2 emissions of the Japanese manufacturing industry as a whole and by sector at the prefectural level. We decomposed the changes of CO2 emissions in 47 prefectures from 1990 to 2013 into four factors (carbon intensity, energy intensity, structure, and activity effects) using the logarithmic mean Divisia index method. We found that energy intensity, structure, and activity effects were more influential in the changes of emissions than the carbon intensity effect, although the most influential factor varied by prefecture. Among the eight considered industrial sectors of Japan's manufacturing industry, the changes in the chemistry and metal sectors were particularly complex. Thus, improvements of the energy intensity and production in these two sectors should be prioritized. We also conducted detailed analysis of the decomposed factors in three selected prefectures based on cluster analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relative performance of electricity distribution systems in the UK and Japan between 1985 and 1998 using cost-based benchmarking with data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. The results suggest that the productivity gain in the UK electricity distribution has been larger than in the Japanese sector. In particular, productivity growth accelerated during the last years when the UK utilities were operating under tightened revenue caps. It also suggests that efficiency scores are higher for UK utilities. The findings also highlight the advantages of using multiple techniques in comparative analysis and in incentive regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the effects of information on residential demand for electricity, using data from a Japanese experiment. In the experiment, households had a continuous-display, electricity use monitoring device installed at their residence. The monitor was designed so that each consumer could easily look at graphs and tables associated, with the consumer's own usage of electricity at any time during the experiment. The panel data were used to estimate a random effects model of electricity and count data models of monitor usage. The results indicate that monitor usage contributed to energy conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes interfuel substitution according to Japanese manufacturing sectors. Impact of environmental regulations and technical changes on fuel choice; Effect of price on fuel substitution; Use of pooled data on fuel consumption and purchase price for 58 regions in 1980-1988.

Presents a quantitative study of the trade off between generation-cost minimization and carbon dioxide emission minimization in Japan's electric power industry. What can contribute to long-range global environmental damage; Cost of carbon dioxide emissions.

The Japanese government initiated a series of regulatory reforms in the mid-1990s. The Japanese urban gas industry consists of various sized private and non-private firms. Numerous previous studies find that deregulation leads to productivity improvements. We extend the literature by analyzing deregulation, privatization, and other aspects of a regulated industry using unique firm level data. This study measures productivity to evaluate the effect of the deregulation reform. Using data from 205 firms from 1993 to 2004, we find that the deregulation effect differs depending on firm size. Competitive pressure contributes to advanced productivity. The deregulation of gas sales to commercial customers is the most important factor for advancing productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study, using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model, the relationship between oil price shocks and the Japanese stock market. We find that oil price shocks that arise from changes in aggregate global demand are positively correlated to returns on the Japanese stock market. Thus, in contrast to the conventional wisdom, a rise in oil price is not always bad news for the Japanese stock market. On the other hand, the Japanese stock market reacts negatively to oil price increases related to oil-market specific demand shocks. Finally, different from prior research using U.S. stock market data, we find that supply and demand shocks in the global crude oil market affect returns to the Japanese stock market index through changes to expected real cash flows rather than to changes to expected returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building sector is the highest growing sector in energy demand in Japan at present. There is a strong need to reduce this sectoral energy demand to achieve the national carbon emission target. This study focuses on Japanese commercial sector and shows model analysis results of energy efficiency policy impacts on the sectoral carbon emission trajectory, using CRIEPI's bottom-up energy model. The policy cases we analyzed are consistent with those of other EMF25 model teams. The results indicate that, the introduction of low carbon tax has little impact on the sectoral final energy demand and carbon emission trajectory and, on the other hand, enhanced energy efficiency standard and reduced equipment cost of products are very effective on reducing the sectoral energy demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a structural time series (STS) analysis of transport oil demand in Great Britain and Japan in 2003. Estimation of the income and price elasticities of demand for transportation oil demand in the two countries; Advantage of using STS models in estimating energy demand models; Factors which determine energy demand in a country.

Analyzes the effects of the pervasive structural changes in the Japanese economy on its energy intensity in the decade 1975-85. Advancing of the energy input-output (I-O) structural decomposition analysis; Introduction of a double denominator method; Identification of the effect of energy imports.

Presents quantitative and comparative analyses of the expected macro-economic impacts of various carbon dioxide emission control policies. Approaches used in the analysis; Goto's Dynamic Macro-Energy Equilibrium Model (GDMEEM); Methodology for simulating an equilibrium solution and how to interpret it; Methods of analysis and evaluation; Results of simulations.