Japan prepares spending increase

A spending spree as Chrétien prepares to leave? Don't count on it.

Did Japan's shopping coupon program increase spending?

a r t i c l e i n f o In March 1999, 31 million " shopping coupons " worth 20,000 yen each were distributed to Japanese families with children and to the elderly. The coupons expired after six months and could only be used within the recipient's local community. We use variation in the number of children across families and in the number of recipients across prefectures to measure the effect of...

Government Spending Multipliers under Zero Lower Bound: Evidence from Japan∗

Using a rich data set on government spending forecasts, we estimate the effects of unexpected government spending both when the nominal interest rate is near zero lower bound (ZLB) and outside of ZLB period in Japan. The output multiplier is 1.5 on impact in the ZLB period while it is 0.7 outside of the ZLB period. We argue that this result is not driven by the amount of slack in the economy. W...

Artificial Intelligence Prepares for 2001

Artificial Intelligence, as a maturing scientific/engineering discipline, is beginning to find its niche among the variety of subjects that are relevant to intelligent, perceptive behavior. A view of AI is presented that is based on a declarative representation of knowledge with semantic attachments to problem-specific procedures and data structures. Several important challenges to this view ar...

Program Spending to Increase Adherence: South African Cervical Cancer Screening

BACKGROUND Adherence is crucial for public health program effectiveness, though the benefits of increasing adherence must ultimately be weighed against the associated costs. We sought to determine the relationship between investment in community health worker (CHW) home visits and increased attendance at cervical cancer screening appointments in Cape Town, South Africa. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL ...