Second Keio/Kyoto International Conference on Market Quality Economics
March 14-15, 2009
The Second “Keio/Kyoto International Conference on Market Quality Economics” was held March 14-15, 2009 at the Sheraton Miyako Hotel Tokyo, with invited speaker Professor Ronald W. Jones of the University of Rochester. With such themes as market quality theory and technological innovation, international trade theory, and issues in the division of labor, the conference aimed at deepening understanding of dynamism and policies to realize improved market quality through research reports concerning the static and dynamic decision-making of economic bodies and the types of market changes that can be realized. The participants included young research scholars from throughout Japan, who engaged in lively discussions.
The speakers presented research reports covering the relation between financial market integration timing and economic gaps among nations, the impact of changes in the operating costs at overseas operations on the economic disparities between North and South, empirical analysis on whether the rate of return on assets is a determining factor in capital flows, reasons for offshore production when there are differences in work quality under the North-South divide, the roles of financial institutions and the distribution of wealth under an environment with productivity differentials among industries, middlemen in competitive markets with indivisible commodities, the influence of product quality and production process innovations on production cycles, consumption externalities and neoclassical model analysis incorporating impatience in a small open economy, a monopolistic competition model considering vertical specialization and wage inequality, and how the distribution of the factors of production among industries affects product prices.
