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The Japanese labour market has worked quite well over recent decades, whereas the European economies have produced more and more unemployment. A popular hypothesis is that this difference can be attributed to unions. Which, in Europe, unions are strong and centralized and do not care about the individual firm, the Japanese unions are enterprise unions which deal directly with and understand the local management. Employers in Japan in tum consult unions and employees on all relevant management decisions. This corporatism finally ensures that workers are more motivated and have a higher productivity. It is the central conjecture of this paper that the presence of unions increases the 'voice' of the employees significantly. By using innovative new firm data, it is shown that this is actually the case. Hence, Japanese enterprise unions are not harmful, but foster information sharing, and contribute to the performance of the enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Radiobiology Archives (ERA), supported by the European Commission and the European Late Effect Project Group (EULEP), together with the US National Radiobiology Archives (NRA) and the Japanese Radiobiology Archives (JRA) have collected all information still available on long-term animal experiments, including some selected human studies. The archives consist of a database in Microsoft Access, a website, databases of references and information on the use of the database. At present, the archives contain a description of the exposure conditions, animal strains, etc. from ~350,000 individuals; data on survival and pathology are available from ~200,000 individuals. Care has been taken to render pathological diagnoses compatible among different studies and to allow the lumping of pathological diagnoses into more general classes. 'Forms' in Access with an underlying computer code facilitate the use of the database. This paper describes the structure and content of the archives and illustrates an example for a possible analysis of such data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North–South competition quality Analyzing a new database that makes it possible to disaggregate trade flows across many countries according to unit values, we show that international specialization in terms of quality within industries and product categories plays an important role in the dynamics of North–South competition. The different specialization of countries at different levels of development within products and across varieties is mirrored in the recent shifts in world market shares, which are very different across quality segments: the South is not gaining market share in high-value portions of trade pattern. In this respect Europe's specialization pattern appears to be different from that of the US and Japan, and may allow it to better resist the competitive pressure of the South. — Lionel Fontagné, Guillaume Gaulier and Soledad Zignago [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries do less research than Japan and the United States. But their lower level of research effort has more to do with the smaller markets facing European inventors than with lower research productivity. Europe has substantial research potential, in that increasing research effort in most European countries generates bigger income benefits there than increasing research effort in the United States and Japan by equivalent amounts. Research subsidies, enhanced patent protection, support for public research, higher educational achievement and increased integration are alternative routes towards exploiting this potential. These policies increase productivity not only in Europe, but also elsewhere. One problem with implementing such policies at the national level is the potential for free riding. A second possible problem with policies to promote research concerns their distributional consequences. While all countries within the European Union would benefit from increased research output, the countries that are already best at doing research, which tend to be the richer members, do best. The benefits of policies that facilitate the adoption of innovations are more evenly spread among richer and poorer countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of σ-convergence, absolute β-convergence and conditional β-convergence are discussed in this paper. The concepts are applied to a variety of data sets that include a large cross-section of 110 countries, the sub-sample of OECD countries, the states within the United States, the prefectures of Japan, and regions within several European countries. Except for the large cross-section of countries, all data sets display strong evidence of σ-convergence and absolute β-convergence. The cross-section of countries exhibits σ-divergence and conditional β-convergence. The speed of conditional convergence, which is very similar across data sets, is close to 2% per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK and Japan, there is concern regarding rising rates of annual new HIV infections among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM).Whilst in the UK and Europe, gay businesses are increasingly recognized as being important settings through which to deliver HIV prevention and health promotion interventions to target vulnerable populations; in Japan such settings-based approaches are relatively underdeveloped. This article draws on qualitative data from a recently completed study conducted to explore whether it is feasible, acceptable and desirable to build on the recent European Everywhere project for adaptation and implementation in Japan. A series of expert workshops were conducted in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka with intersectoral representatives from Japanese and UK non-governmental organizations (NGOs), gay businesses, universities and gay communities (n = 46). Further discussion groups and meetings were held with NGO members and researchers from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Research Group on HIV Prevention Policy, Programme Implementation and Evaluation among MSM (n = 34). The results showed that it is desirable, feasible and acceptable to adapt and implement a Japanese version of Everywhere. Such a practical, policy-relevant, settings-based HIV prevention framework for gay businesses may help to facilitate the necessary scale up of prevention responses among MSM in Japan. Given the high degree of sexual mobility between countries in Asia, there is considerable potential for the Everywhere Project (or its Japanese variant) to be expanded and adapted to other countries within the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the explanation of cross-country variation in graduate overeducation using a multilevel analysis. We use data from representative surveys among graduates in 13 European countries and Japan, focusing on the first job and the present job 5 years after graduation. We find that cross-country differences in overeducation are explained by the quality and orientation (general versus specific) of the educational system/programme, the business cycle and the relative oversupply of highly skilled labour. Employment protection legislation has no impact on the incidence and persistence of overeducation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a study on forecasting future mortality and life expectancy in the event of a structural change due to the decline in the overall rate of mortality. It discusses details of the application of the Lee-Carter model as applied to post-1950 time series data on mortality for 18 developed countries from western Europe and Japan. It explores the importance of including structural changes in forecasting model.

A comparison of unemployment across fourteen European countries, Japan and the US shows a great diversity of persistence: high in most of Europe outside the Scandinavian countries, Austria and Switzerland, low in Japan and the US. Three reasons for unemployment persistence are examined. First, employed workers may not care about the unemployed, and only wish to protect their own jobs. The authors find little support for this view, except perhaps in the US. Second, workers may be reluctant to revise downward their wage aspirations. This seems to be the case in Europe, as opposed to the US and Japan. Third, firms may be slow in adjusting employment to its optimum level. This is the case in Europe and Japan, not in the US. Labour market reforms might help, but have their own costs. The authors conclude that the best course of action is a demand expansion combined with incomes policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]