David A. Wise

Toshiaki Tachibanaki

Seiritsu Ogura

The population base in both the United States and Japan is growing older and, as those populations age, they provoke heretofore unexamined economic consequences. This cutting-edge, comparative volume, the third in the joint series offered by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Japan Center for Economic Research, explores those consequences, drawing specific attention to four key areas: incentives for early retirement; savings, wealth, and asset allocation over the life cycle; health care and health care reform; and population projections. Given the undeniable global importance of the Japanese and U.S. economies, these innovative essays shed welcome new light on the complex correlations between aging and economic behavior. This insightful work not only deepens our understanding of the Japanese and American economic landscapes but, through careful examination of the comparative social and economic data, clarifies the complex relation between aging societies, public policies, and economic outcomes.

Aging Issues in the United States and Japan

This edited volume makes a contribution to the literature on happiness research by compiling studies based on cross-national research and from diverse academic disciplines. The book is distinctive in that it contains both theoretical and empirical analyses, investigating relationship between causes of happiness and economic behavior relating to employment, consumption, and saving. Most notably, it is one of the first studies in this subject area that analyzes micro data collected in Europe, US and Japan with information on respondents’ attributes and their economic behavior, as well as in measuring inter-temporal happiness by principal factor analysis. Research findings in this volume shed new light on public policies for a number of areas such as employment, family, social welfare, urban and regional planning, and culture. The book draws on a collaborative research project between five institutions of higher education in France, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Japan that lasted for two years.

Toshiaki Tachibanaki

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