Rectifying Public Morals in Interwar Japan

Public health in interwar England and Wales: did it fail?

British historians initially saw the interwar period as a "golden age" for public health in local government, with unprecedented preventive and curative powers wielded by Medical Officers of Health (MOsH). In the 1980s Lewis and Webster challenged this reading, arguing that MOsH were overstretched, neglectful of their "watchdog" role and incapable of formulating a new philosophy of preventive m...

Morals, suicide, and psychiatry: a view from Japan.

In this paper, I argue that within the Japanese social context, the act of suicide is a positive moral act because the values underpinning it are directly related to a socially pervasive moral belief that any act of self-sacrifice is a worthy pursuit. The philosophical basis for this view of the self and its relation to society goes back to the writings of Confucius who advocated a life of prop...

Free Trade and the Protection of Public Morals: An Analysis of the Newly Emerging Public Morals Clause Doctrine

Public Health Insurance in Japan

Japanese universal public health insurance which is largely based on a fee-for-services payment system has functioned well so far. There are several key factors for the success of this program such as social solidarity and infrastructure for the utilization review. However, people's demand on health services has increased over the years and as a result, reform in under way to provide more diver...

Economic Developments and Monetary Policy Responses in Interwar Japan: Evaluation Based on the Taylor Rule

This paper is a revised English-language version of the author’s report at a workshop, “Asset-Price Fluctuations and Policy Responses: Experiences of Interwar Japan,” held by the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies (IMES), Bank of Japan (December 20, 2001). The author has received many valuable comments from participants of the workshop, including Professor Masanao Ito of University of ...