Toshi Arimura

• Ph.D. in Economics
• Professor at Waseda University

As the manufacturing industry is one of the largest contributors to global emissions, decarbonization of the production line is a key aspect in the fight against climate change. In this study, we examine the level of substitutability between fossil fuel and electricity. Using data on Japanese plants from 2004 to 2020, we estimate the elasticity of...

This paper offers insights on the factors that determine household choices related to energy use, based on data from the third OECD Survey on Environmental Policies and Individual Behaviour Change (EPIC). The analysis profiles households according to patterns in reported energy use and investment in energy related technologies, assesses the factors...

This chapter presents an economic perspective on environmental problems. Pollution, climate change, and all other environmental problems are considered by economists as negative externalities and market failures. To solve environmental problems, economic activity, which is intrinsically linked with nature and natural resources, needs to be controll...

This chapter provides an overview of international initiatives on climate change, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, with an emphasis on the Japanese perspective. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and how it led to the emergence of the Joint Crediting Mechanisms (JCM) will also be explained. Then the chapter considers the rol...

The economist R. Coase observed that environmental problems can be resolved through bargaining between the affected parties as long as property rights, or rights to own or use the environment, were established. He also recognized that in many cases, transaction costs make bargaining difficult. This chapter first explains the Coase Theorem, property...

This chapter explores air pollution issues in Japan and the world. It reviews pollution problems caused by air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and suspended particulate matter (SPM). The chapter also discusses Japanese air pollution policy measures, including sulfur charges and vehicle type regulations, from an economic perspective. The dis...

Asian countries have been facing various environmental problems, ranging from air and water pollution to climate change. At the same time, many people seek higher income and further economic development, which requires more government revenue. This paper introduces carbon pricing, environmental tax, and emissions trading schemes, all schemes that c...

Partial energy taxation, such as fuel or electricity taxes, is gaining momentum in recent years, but such taxes may result in additional demand for non-taxed, substitute energy goods. In this research, we analyze the effect of the Japanese renewable levy, a prime example of implicit carbon pricing, introduced in 2012. Using data on Japanese plants...

Vehicular emissions are a major global health concern. The aim of this study is to examine the short-term relationship between road traffic flows and air pollution concentrations in Japan. Our approach involves matching hourly data from the 2015 Road Traffic Census to data from nearby air pollution monitoring and meteorological stations and estimat...

To promote renewable energy deployment, Japan introduced a feed-in tariff policy in 2012, financed through a surcharge on electricity prices for consumers. The Japanese government also offered a discount system for electricity-intensive industrial plants, exempting them from paying full surcharges. Using monthly plant-level data from 2005 to 2018,...

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C urged the world to move toward carbon neutrality (CN). Following the announcement by European countries of their CN target by 2050, Japan, South Korea, and the USA announced their CN targets by 2050. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine...

This paper analyzes the effects and limitations of green purchasing policy (GPP) developed by municipalities, using data from a survey conducted by the Ministry of the Environment. A cross tabulation of GPP and barriers to green purchasing suggests that the GPP mitigates problems caused by lack of staffing and manuals. In addition, the regression a...

RIETI Discussion Paper Series 23-E-058: To address concerns over carbon leakage, the European Union (EU) has announced the introduction of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This study applies a structural gravity model to simulate the impact of CBAM on welfare, production, exports and emissions with a focus on four sectors: chemicals, i...

This article examines the establishment and publication of green plans and green public procurement (GPP) policies in Japanese municipalities. The purpose of the study was to investigate these green policymaking initiatives from a contingency theory perspective. The first research question examined contextual factors for green policymaking. The sec...

[TCER Working Paper E-181] To foster domestic electricity production, Japan introduced a Feed-in-Tariff policy in 2012, financed by a renewable levy. This paper examines the impact of this tax on industrial, energy intensive (EI) sectors using plant data from 2005 to 2018. We explore whether the introduction of the levy encouraged plants to substit...

The adoption of energy-efficient appliances has been studied in many developed countries in recent years. However, it is unclear how these findings translate to developing countries. We conduct a discrete choice experiment with a broad sample of potential air conditioner (AC) purchasers in Metropolitan Manila, where the percentage of AC owners has...

As the manufacturing industry is one of the largest contributors to global emissions, decarbonization of the production line is a key aspect in the fight against climate change. In this study, we examine the level of substitutability between fossil fuel and electricity. Using data on Japanese plants from 2004 to 2020, we estimate the elasticity of...

We investigate the accuracy of the perceptions of health risks in India. The context of our study is the risk of developing physical symptoms related to household air pollution caused by cooking. Using field data collected from 588 respondents in 17 villages in West Bengal, we regress the probability of symptoms on fuel choices to predict responden...

The Tokyo emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the first regional ETS in Japan, where a national ETS has not been introduced. In this study, we estimate the policy impacts of the Tokyo ETS on energy usage and economic activities during the scheme’s first phase (2010–2014) and the first four years of its second phase (2015–2018) using business establis...

An energy audit is a popular policy instrument for improving energy efficiency in facilities. However, it is unclear whether they serve to improve energy efficiency, because even under energy audits, several barriers to energy efficiency exist. Additional practices such as information provision, target setting, or reward by governments can make ene...

To accomplish the goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Japanese Business Federation (JBF) has implemented the voluntary action plan (VAP), which includes the unique feature of not penalizing industrial organizations for failing to meet the CO2 emissions or energy consumption reduction targets. This study evaluates the role of the VA...

Environment, social, and governance (ESG) reporting guidelines are institutional rules that can enhance the credibility of firms' publicly disclosed information related to ESG. Reporting is often voluntary and global ESG reporting guidelines typically rely on process‐focused third party verification. However, in developing its reporting guidelines,...

ESG reporting guidelines are institutional rules that can enhance the credibility of firms’ publicly disclosed information related to environment, social, and governance (ESG). Reporting is often voluntary and global ESG reporting guidelines typically rely on process-focused third party verification. However, in developing its reporting guidelines,...

To reduce their environmental impacts, a growing number of organizations worldwide have implemented environmental management systems (EMSs). In these organizations, energy conservation activities become usual behaviors for employees; thus, we hypothesize that employees continue such energy saving behaviors at home. This hypothesis is supported by d...

We use facility-level panel data on CO2 emissions to investigate within-firm carbon leakage associated with Japanese regional emission trading systems (ETSs) at large-scale facilities in Tokyo and Saitama prefectures. A difference-in-difference analysis reveals that, relative to entities with no facility under ETSs, entities with regulated faciliti...

Many studies have empirically examined to what extent energy efficiency improvement causes rebound effects for various products. Energy efficiency improvement potentially induces behavioral changes resulting in a rebound effect. However, a limited number of studies have addressed what kind of behavioral changes the energy efficiency improvement of...

An increasing number of empirical studies have investigated the determinants of cooking fuel choice in developing countries, where health risks from household air pollution are one of the most important issues. We contribute to this stream of literature by examining individuals’ subjective probabilistic expectations about health risks when using di...

In this study, we analyzed the external effects of wind turbines, which are often considered detrimental to the promotion of wind power generation. Understanding these externalities is essential to reaching a consensus with residents who live near the site of a planned wind turbine. Our research objective was to determine the relationship between w...

This study empirically examines individual sustainable investment behavior of households’ decision-makers in Japan from three perspectives. Based on data from a representative online survey among financial decision makers in Japanese households, we analyze (i) the individual awareness of sustainable investments, (ii) the current share of sustainabl...

The Japanese government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, it is not yet clear which policy measures the government will adopt to achieve this goal. In this regard, environmental tax reform, which is the combination of carbon regulation and the reduction of existing distortionary taxes, has attracted much attention. T...

Carbon pricing is difficult to introduce in many countries because it is not easy to obtain public support for carbon pricing due to the burden associated with it. One way to overcome this difficulty is to rely on the double dividend of a carbon tax. If a government uses revenue from a carbon tax to reduce existing distorting taxes, such as corpora...

This chapter estimated the impact of the Tokyo emissions trading scheme (ETS) and Saitama ETS on energy consumption in the manufacturing sector using a facility-level panel data set compiled from the Current Survey of Energy Consumption , a nationwide survey on energy consumption conducted by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy in Japan. To...

Given the limited literature on sustainable investment behavior in the East Asian region, this study empirically examines individual sustainable investment behavior in Japan from three perspectives. Based on data from a representative web-based survey among financial decision makers in Japanese households, we analyze i) the individual awareness of...

Climate change has heterogeneous effects on poor and wealthy households due to differences in vulnerabilities and exposure. However, few papers provide estimates on the magnitude of climate impacts across the income distribution. In this paper, we combine 21 rounds of household expenditure and income surveys from Iran for the period from 1998 to 20...

Many countries have promoted the replacement of conventional lamps with next-generation lamps to reduce electricity usage for lighting. In Japan, the majority of the lamps sold at home appliance mass merchant shops have been changed from incandescent lamps to energy-saving lamps. All conventional lamps are planned to be replaced with light-emitting...

The previous literature has studied barriers to energy efficiency in firms. While there are several studies with some focus on the manufacturing sector in Europe, the corresponding literature in Asia is still nascent. Using a unique dataset that contains a large number of firms belonging to the service and manufacturing sectors in Japan, this study...

The aim of this paper is to identify (1) the categories in which it is easier or more difficult for local municipalities to implement green purchasing and (2) the role and extent of green purchasing policy (GPP) in promoting green purchasing. To characterize the green purchasing potential of different categories, we examine the green purchasing rat...

This open access book evaluates, from an economic perspective, various measures introduced in Japan to prevent climate change. Although various countries have implemented such policies in response to the pressing issue of climate change, the effectiveness of those programs has not been sufficiently compared. In particular, policy evaluations in the...

In Japan, the government has set a target for a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26% from 2013 levels by 2030. The commercial sector has the highest reduction target—39.8%—among all Japanese sectors. This chapter first presents the current GHG situation in Japan and Japanese climate policy in the commercial sector. Second, we introduc...

The Tokyo Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is the first cap -and-trade program of CO2 emissionsCO2 emissions in Asia, and it is unique in regulating commercial and service sectors. We examine the impacts of the Tokyo ETSTokyo ETS on CO2 emissions and energy consumption by universities in the first phase. Focusing on universities allows us to estimate...

Economic growth in Asia has increased in the past three decades and has heightened energy demand, resulting in rising greenhouse gas emissions and severe air pollution. To tackle these issues, fuel switching and the deployment of renewables are essential. In the present paper, we discuss the environmental regulations, mainly carbon pricing, impleme...

The Japanese housing market has experienced a rapid increase in the number of vacant housing units due to regulatory obstacles and a decreasing population. Abandoned vacant houses can cause negative externalities in the surrounding neighborhood, due to illegal dumping of garbage, increased risks of arson, and building collapse. Few empirical studie...

The Japanese government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, it is not yet clear which policy measures the government will adopt to achieve this goal. In this regard, environmental tax reform, which is the combination of carbon regulation and the reduction of existing distortionary taxes, has attracted much attention. T...

Governments in developed countries have implemented various regulations to manage air pollutants from automobiles, such as emission standards and subsidies for low emission vehicles. Japan is a unique example of a country that has overcome the severe air pollution of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) through the mandatory regulation...

Tokyo ETS is the first emissions trading scheme to control GHG emissions from office buildings. Although the Tokyo government claimed that Tokyo ETS had been successful, some argued that the emission reduction under Tokyo ETS was actually the result of electricity price increases triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Using a facilit...

Using a multi-region, multi-sector computable general equilibrium model, this paper analyzes the effects of international emissions trading (IET) with a focus on labor market distortions. We construct four separate models with several different labor market specifications: (1) a model without labor market distortions; (2) a model with taxinteractio...

An increasing number of empirical studies have investigated the determinants of cooking fuel choice in developing countries, where health risk from indoor air pollution is one of the most important issues. We contribute to this stream of literature by examining individuals' subjective probabilistic expectations about health risks when using differe...

The Tokyo ETS is the first emission trading scheme to control GHG emissions from office buildings. Although the Tokyo government claimed that Tokyo ETS had been successful, some argued that the emission reduction under Tokyo ETS was actually the result of electric power price increases triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Using a f...

In this paper, we attempt to identify the reasons behind the differences in environmental policy between Japan and other developed countries, particularly the US. Japan’s environmental policy is unique in that voluntary approaches have been taken to reduce total emissions. This strategy is quite different from the traditional approach of heavy-hand...

The outcome of household choice depends on the private information available to an agent, particularly in terms of costs and benefits. This study examines the role of information in the adoption of clean cooking fuel in Bhutan. We use a rural subsample of nationally representative data from the 2012 Bhutan Living Standard Survey (BLSS) conducted in...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207623.].

To attain cleaner air, it is important that authorities make informed decisions when selecting a strategy. Concentrations of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than or equal to 2.5 μm (PM 2.5) are high in the Tokyo metropolitan area, even though concentrations of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than or e...

List of fuel types. We cannot identify fuel types used in the electricity generation sector. Therefore, we treat all of them as one virtual fuel type. (PDF)

Reduction rates and emissions reductions by prefecture under the CES and URS scenarios. S3 Table presents the results under the CES and URS scenarios with the assumption of external concentration reductions of 5.0 μg/m3 instead of 3.0 μg/m3. This assumption enables every prefecture to easily meet the air quality standards. In the URS scenario, the...

List of industries. (PDF)

Total abatement cost by prefecture under the CES and URS scenarios. All units are 1 million yen, different from the units in Table 4. S3 Table presents the results under the CES and URS scenarios with the assumption of external concentration reductions of 5.0 μg/m3 instead of 3.0 μg/m3. This assumption enables every prefecture to easily meet the ai...

To reduce their environmental impacts, a growing number of organizations worldwide have implemented environmental management systems (EMSs). In these organizations, energy conservation activities become usual behaviors for employees; thus, we hypothesize that employees continue such energy conservation behaviors at home. This hypothesis is supporte...

The outcome of household choice depends on the private information available to an agent, particularly in terms of costs and benefits. This study examines the role of information in the adoption of clean cooking fuel in Bhutan. We use a rural subsample of nationally representative data from the 2012 Bhutan Living Standard Survey (BLSS) conducted in...

The Japanese Ministry of Environment is promoting green purchasing policies across all levels of Japanese government. A primary reason is that green purchasing policies have the potential to significantly reduce carbon impacts across the globe and can help Japan achieve its carbon emissions goals. However, at the local level, many municipal governm...

Chapter 10 examines the relationship between the diffusion of the quality management standard, ISO 9001, and the adoption of the environmental management standard, ISO 14001, in Vietnam and Malaysia. It shows that businesses in both countries that received requests from customers about their usage of chemical substances were also more likely to hav...

Indoor air pollution from the combustion of traditional cooking fuels causes millions of annual premature deaths in the developing world. This study examines the socio-economic and demographic factors that affect household choices of cooking fuels used in India. Survey data collected from 68 households in the rural areas of West Bengal were analyze...

The reduction of emissions from developing countries is essential in tackling climate change. The Clean Development Mechanism is effective in reducing greenhouse emissions but criticized by various parties. In response, the Japanese government has proposed the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM). Using the 2010 Japanese domestic and the 2005 Asian inte...

A growing number of survey-based studies have examined individual environmental behavior and support the idea that social norms are an important determinant of the behavior. We depart from the literature by estimating a structural model of the social interactions in an individual’s decision to engage in energy-saving practices and account for the m...

This research empirically estimates abatement costs under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in India, using project-level data for 830 projects that had been registered as of April 2014. Emphasis lies on assessing the impact of international technology transfer on abatement costs and on testing whether CDM projects in India have experienced a “...

Using the Internet survey data from 6500 individuals, this study examines the determinants for supporting the restart of nuclear power plants operation in Japan. The variable of interest is the level of support that is measured as a categorical and ordered variable, for which ordered logit or probit is commonly estimated. This study departs from th...

Using internet survey data from 6,500 individuals, this study examines the determinants for supporting the restart of nuclear power plants operation in Japan. As in previous studies, the variable of interest is a categorical and ordered variable that measures the level of support, for which ordered logit or ordered probit is commonly estimated. Thi...

From 1997 to 2012, 114 Japanese industry associations implemented voluntary action plans, which are not enforced by laws or regulations, to reduce carbon emissions. This paper investigates whether the establishment of these voluntary action plans by industry associations contributed to the adoption of a carbon emissions target at the firm level wit...

Using a household survey conducted in a suburb of Tokyo, we examine whether individuals properly perceive the benefits of energy-saving actions. A bivariate regression shows that, on average, individuals overestimate the benefits. The tendency to overestimate is robust to controlling for individual and home characteristics. Our results are contrary...

▶ The first book to offer quantitative policy evaluations of Japanese environmental regulations ▶ Covers air pollution, energy efficiency and climate change policies, taking an economic approach using a variety of evaluation methods ▶ Benefits students, researchers, policy makers and government officials, especially in developing countries

The Automobile NOx-PM Act was introduced to mitigate air pollution problem in the Japanese metropolitan areas in 2001. Many old fume-spewing vehicles might flow outside the areas because the regulation prohibited their usage in the regulated areas only. To compare secondary vehicle market prices before and after the implementation, this chapter exa...

The carbon tax is a market-based countermeasure for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that has received considerable attention around the world because a carbon tax is theoretically able to reduce GHG emissions at minimum cost. However, there are objections to the tax because the burdens of cost for specific energy-intensive industries, suc...

In this chapter, we conduct an ex ante quantitative policy evaluation of the vehicle type regulation that aims to control vehicle emissions. Imposed under the Automobile Nitrogen Oxides–Particulate Matter Act, the regulation promotes the earlier replacement of old, high-emissions vehicles by prohibiting the use and registration of old vehicles in m...

This chapter presents an economic welfare analysis of the 1,000-Yen Expressway Discount program (100 yen ≒ 1 US dollar) that was put into effect in March 2009 using data from the Tomei Expressway collected during the long holidays in spring of the same year. The new discount system was criticized because it might result in increased CO2 emissions a...

In this chapter, we will introduce key economic concepts and discuss methods for evaluating environmental policies. We will then briefly review policy evaluations in Japan. Finally, we will provide an overview of our quantitative policy evaluations presented in the rest of this book.

How much greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions should be reduced to mitigate their adverse effects on climate change is a global issue. As the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012) reached its end, a heated discussion continued over the post-Kyoto Protocol treaty, which urged the Japanese government to set Japan’s medium-term target fo...

This chapter presents an empirical analysis of the “Comprehensive Management under the Act on the Rational Use of Energy” (Energy Conservation Act) as a measure to combat climate change. We focus on the hotel industry. Our study, which employs individual facility-level data for the hotel industry from fiscal 2002 to 2004, demonstrates that the effe...

This research empirically estimates abatement costs under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in India, using project-level data for 830 projects that had been registered as of April 2014. Emphasis lies on assessing the impact of international technology transfer on abatement costs and on testing whether CDM projects in India have experienced a “...

To address the climate change issue, developed nations have considered introducing carbon pricing mechanisms in the form of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme (ETS). Despite the small number of programmes actually in operation, these mechanisms remain under active discussion in a number of countries, including Japan. Using an input-output...

Technological innovation has recently become more essential than ever. To examine the factors that might induce environmental technological innovation, we focus on ISO 14001, a voluntary approach to environmental management, and scrutinise how the proficiency or maturity level of ISO 14001 in facilities influences environment-related research and d...

To address the climate change issue, developed nations have considered introducing carbon pricing mechanisms in the form of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme (ETS). Despite the small number of programs actually in operation, these mechanisms remain under active discussion in a number of countries, including Japan. Using an input–output mo...