Urban and spatial economics considering multiple externalities

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We have developed methods for theoretical and quantitative analysis of policy effects in a spatial economy with multiple distortions related to scale economies, externalities, taxations, and regulations.In a spatial economy, the office and the housing rents reflect the effects of agglomeration economies and regulations. We have estimated costs and benefits generated by the deregulation of building floor to area ratio in the Otemachi-Marunouchi area and obtained the result that the benefit exceeds the cost. We also have developed a theoretical model with the location choices of firms and workers and shown that heterogeneities of firms and workers are important for more concrete analysis.In investing and managing airports and ports, the interactions among scale economies, regulation, and agglomeration economies are important. We have discussed the policy direction to improve the efficiency in the airports and ports in Tokyo and Osaka. In addition, we have proposed a compatible way of the reform of local airports to encourage the proposals on Tokyo and Osaka.Taking into account of the interaction of distortions generated by taxations in the commodity markets, we can calculate the optimal tax rates. However, the uniform tax has an advantage of ease for practice. We have estimated the demand functions using Japanese consumption data and shown that uniform tax attains the welfare level very close to that is attained by the optimum commodity tax.By developing a partial equilibrium model of the coastal freight service sector, we evaluated the regulatory scheme called "transitional business," which was installed as a succeeding regulatory scheme of the voluntary capacity regulation for this sector. The result implies the welfare losses by the current regulation and the possible magnitude of the modal shifts to from other transport modes.