This book is a study on the Japanese city gas industry, which has been rapidly liberalized in recent years. Especially, it focuses on the background, reasons, methods, and effects of the privatization of publicly owned city gas utilities in Japan. In Japan, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the liberalization of the electric power and gas business has progressed rapidly. There are a number of studies on the reform of Japan's electricity market, but there are few studies on city gas business. This book describes the state of Japan's public city gas utilities and the necessity of their privatization. And it explains the role of concession as a method of privatization. Then it verifies that the effects of past privatization cases are insufficient. The book also covers deregulation of public utilities in Europe, which triggered Japan's liberalization of its energy and other public utility sectors, and privatization of electricity and gas businesses in India, a developing country in Asia. Finally, this book explores future regulation and business of city gas industry. Pipeline network should be regulated to comply with future unbundling starting from 2022, and gas business altogether with electricity and water businesses need more digitization.

This book is the first attempt to establish a collaborative and interdisciplinary field of economics and legal studies. It is designed to help readers - advanced undergraduate and graduate students, but also fellow scholars who are interested in interdisciplinarity - to think through the dual lenses of economics and law. "Econo-Legal Studies," as we call it, is an economics that pays greater attention to the perspective and heritage of legal studies, and at the same time legal studies that fully utilize the views and methods of economics - while "law and economics" is just a one-way economic approach to law focusing on the effects of the latter on efficiency. The aim of this book is to encourage readers to think like economists and, at the same time, legal scholars as they analyze complex real-world issues. It presents stimulating discussions on the intersection of law and economics, the differences and unexpected similarities between the two perspectives, and the new insights to be gained when approaching a problem from both angles. For this purpose, the extensive corpus of knowledge produced within the framework of the Econo-Legal Studies interdisciplinary program at Kobe University can be capitalized on. Basic knowledge of both economics and law is also included in this volume, making it an engaging read for beginners in both fields as well.

How should we proceed with advanced research of humanities and social sciences in collaboration? What are the pressing issues of this new trend in a cataclysmic time for civilization? This book, originated with a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Topic-Setting Program, addresses these challenging questions in four parts for innovating twenty-first-century humanities and social sciences. It broadens the horizon for reviewing multi-disciplinary landscapes of risks and regulation of new technologies by focusing on paradigmatic cases from the fields of life and environment. Here, genome editing for reproductive treatment and renewable energy under the constraint of climate change in Japanese and global contexts are involved. The volume comprises a combination of topics and aspects such as public policy and philosophy of science, medicine and law, climate ethics, and the economics of electricity. This edited collection will thus motivate forward-thinking readers across the diverse spectrum of social sciences and humanities to survey themes of their own interests in multi-disciplinary studies. In so doing, they can explore the evolving frontiers of those disciplines and the depths of individual contributions by experts in philosophy, ethics, law, economics, and science, technology, and society (STS), including bioscience.

This book is a study on the Japanese city gas industry, which has been rapidly liberalized in recent years. Especially, it focuses on the background, reasons, methods, and effects of the privatization of publicly owned city gas utilities in Japan. In Japan, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the liberalization of the electric power and gas business has progressed rapidly. There are a number of studies on the reform of Japan's electricity market, but there are few studies on city gas business. This book describes the state of Japan's public city gas utilities and the necessity of their privatization. And it explains the role of concession as a method of privatization. Then it verifies that the effects of past privatization cases are insufficient. The book also covers deregulation of public utilities in Europe, which triggered Japan's liberalization of its energy and other public utility sectors, and privatization of electricity and gas businesses in India, a developing country in Asia. Finally, this book explores future regulation and business of city gas industry. Pipeline network should be regulated to comply with future unbundling starting from 2022, and gas business altogether with electricity and water businesses need more digitization.

How should we proceed with advanced research of humanities and social sciences in collaboration? What are the pressing issues of this new trend in a cataclysmic time for civilization? This book, originated with a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Topic-Setting Program, addresses these challenging questions in four parts for innovating twenty-first-century humanities and social sciences. It broadens the horizon for reviewing multi-disciplinary landscapes of risks and regulation of new technologies by focusing on paradigmatic cases from the fields of life and environment. Here, genome editing for reproductive treatment and renewable energy under the constraint of climate change in Japanese and global contexts are involved. The volume comprises a combination of topics and aspects such as public policy and philosophy of science, medicine and law, climate ethics, and the economics of electricity. This edited collection will thus motivate forward-thinking readers across the diverse spectrum of social sciences and humanities to survey themes of their own interests in multi-disciplinary studies. In so doing, they can explore the evolving frontiers of those disciplines and the depths of individual contributions by experts in philosophy, ethics, law, economics, and science, technology, and society (STS), including bioscience.

This book is the first attempt to establish a collaborative and interdisciplinary field of economics and legal studies. It is designed to help readers - advanced undergraduate and graduate students, but also fellow scholars who are interested in interdisciplinarity - to think through the dual lenses of economics and law. "Econo-Legal Studies," as we call it, is an economics that pays greater attention to the perspective and heritage of legal studies, and at the same time legal studies that fully utilize the views and methods of economics - while "law and economics" is just a one-way economic approach to law focusing on the effects of the latter on efficiency. The aim of this book is to encourage readers to think like economists and, at the same time, legal scholars as they analyze complex real-world issues. It presents stimulating discussions on the intersection of law and economics, the differences and unexpected similarities between the two perspectives, and the new insights to be gained when approaching a problem from both angles. For this purpose, the extensive corpus of knowledge produced within the framework of the Econo-Legal Studies interdisciplinary program at Kobe University can be capitalized on. Basic knowledge of both economics and law is also included in this volume, making it an engaging read for beginners in both fields as well.