Air pollution, especially ozone, in East and Southeast Asia is considered to be more serious than in Europe and North America. An increase in ozone concentration may lead to adverse effects on forest trees in East and Southeast Asia where we have high species richness. Although some information on the effects of ozone on plantation tree species in East Asia is available, the situation of most countries in Southeast Asia is not clarified. In Japan, advanced methodologies such as the stomatal flux-based approach, use of a free-air ozone fumigation system and stand level studies have started recently. To maintain ecosystem services of forests such as carbon sink and conservation of biodiversity, there is a need to develop our understanding of the effect of ozone on vegetation in East and Southeast Asia. To this end, international cooperative research is important.

This paper develops a new framework for studying multiproduct intermediaries when consumers demand multiple products and face search frictions. We show that a multiproduct intermediary is profitable even when it does not improve consumer search efficiency. In its optimal product selection, it stocks high-value products exclusively to attract consumers to visit, then profits by selling non-exclusive products which are relatively cheap to buy from upstream suppliers. However, relative to the social optimum, the intermediary tends to be too big and stock too many products exclusively. As applications we use the framework to study the optimal design of a shopping mall, and the impact of direct-to-consumer sales by upstream suppliers on the retail market.

This paper studies the role of a lender of last resort (LLR) in a monetary model where a shortage of a bank's monetary reserves (a liquidity crisis) occurs endogenously. We show that discount window lending by the LLR is welfare-improving but reduces banks' ex-ante incentive to hold monetary reserves, which increases the probability of a liquidity crisis, and can cause moral hazard in capital investment. We also analyze the combined effects of monetary and extensive LLR policies, such as a nominal interest rate, a lending rate, and a haircut.

This article develops a model in which an intermediary uses a supply chain finance (SCF) program to fund suppliers. The SCF program pools liquidity from suppliers and meanwhile provides immediate payment to suppliers with pressing liquidity needs. We show that the intermediary optimally selects not only suppliers with positive profitability but also suppliers with negative profitability who, however, contribute to the liquidity pool. Inserting the model to an otherwise standard monetary framework, we show that with higher nominal interest rates, the SCF program emphasizes the liquidity contribution more and the profitability contribution less. Deviating from the Friedman rule, where only suppliers with positive profitability are selected, may lead to welfare gains.

This paper presents a simple and tractable equilibrium model of repos, where collateralized credit emerges under limited commitment. We show that even if there is no time variation in fundamentals, repo markets can fluctuate endogenously over time. In our theory, repo market fragilities are associated with endogenous fluctuations in trade probabilities, collateral values, and debt limits. We show that the collateral premium of a durable asset will become the lowest right before a recession and the highest right after the recession, and that secured credit is acyclical.