This paper quantifies and analyzes the economic impact of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami on the Japanese electricity industry using alternative event study methodology. The data set includes daily stock prices of 11 publicly traded electricity companies. This paper investigates the changes in systematic risk, abnormal returns (ARs), and cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) before and after the natural disaster. In addition, I compare the movement of the stock price in the electricity industry with other indices in Japan to investigate the aggregate level impact on the Japanese economy. By examining the economic impact of the earthquake, this paper provides a visual and a numerical representation of the change in investors’ views on the electricity industry. The results showed no statistically significant changes in ARs in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. On the other hand, statistically significant changes in CARs were found for all 11 electricity companies over an extended period following the disaster. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant increase in systematic risk, especially in the nuclear-committed firms. Although the electricity industry was negatively affected, daily stock prices and CARs show that other industries were not as severely affected. These results provide insight to the global economic and the political implication of the disaster.

Ingeniero Civil / El objetivo de este trabajo de título es reproducir los acelerogramas observados en superficie sobre distintos tipos de suelo durante el terremoto de Tohoku de 2011. Primero, se implementa la metodología estocástica de falla finita propuesta por Otárola y Ruiz (2016) para generar registros de aceleración en el basamento rocoso de los sitios a partir del modelo de ruptura del terremoto propuesto por Kurahashi e Irikura (2011). Este método genera acelerogramas sintéticos en dos componentes horizontales ortogonales y en la vertical, considerando ondas sísmicas compresionales y de corte, polarizadas en la horizontal SH y en la vertical SV. Posteriormente, estas ondas sísmicas se propagan a través del suelo mediante el uso de funciones de transferencia que se deducen a partir del Método de Rigidez desarrollado por Kausel (1981). Los registros sintéticos de aceleración obtenidos en este trabajo capturan los impulsos asociados a las asperezas del modelo de ruptura. Además, se logran simular apropiadamente los espectros de respuesta observados en la base de las estaciones y se verifica la proporcionalidad de la amplificación respecto a su rigidez. Al incorporar el efecto de sitio a través de las funciones de transferencia, se verifica que las componentes horizontales se amplifican en las mismas frecuencias que el registro observado y con la misma amplitud. Sin embargo, aunque la componente vertical captura razonablemente la magnitud de las aceleraciones, no ajusta las frecuencias donde ocurren los peaks de energía. La metodología propuesta en este trabajo contempla fundamentos físicos de la propagación de ondas sísmicas, tanto en la corteza terrestre como en su superficie, logrando reproducir la evolución temporal del registro sísmico, lo que es fundamental en problemas como el análisis no lineal de estructuras.

Temporal variation of crustal structure is key to our understanding of Earth processes on human timescales. Often, we expect that the most significant structural variations are caused by strong ground shaking associated with large earthquakes, and recent studies seem to confirm this. Here we test the possibility of using P receiver functions (PRF) to isolate structural variations over time. Synthetic receiver function tests indicate that structural variation could produce PRF changes on the same order of magnitude as random noise or contamination by local earthquakes. Nonetheless, we find significant variability in observed receiver functions over time at several stations located in northeastern Honshu. Immediately following the Tohoku-oki earthquake, we observe high PRF variation clustering spatially, especially in two regions near the beginning and end of the rupture plane. Due to the depth sensitivity of PRF and the timescales over which this variability is observed, we infer this effect is primarily due to fluid migration in volcanic regions and shear stress/strength reorganization. While the noise levels in PRF are high for this type of analysis, by sampling small data sets, the computational cost is lower than other methods, such as ambient noise, thereby making PRF a useful tool for estimating temporal variations in crustal structure.

No description available.

This thesis examines the news coverage of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that devastated the country of Japan in March 2011 from a comparative standpoint. Drawing on the key concepts in the theory of social constructionism and frame analysis, the series of studies in this thesis comparatively examines how cultures and value systems factored into the process of news production, dissemination and consumption when it comes to the news stories on what the Japanese government officially named the Great East Japan Earthquake. The first section looks at how Japan and its people were portrayed amid disaster relief efforts and analyzes how culture itself has become the topic of discussion and part of reality construction. The second section, on frame analysis, focuses on the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, often called the Fukushima 50 by the Western media, and examines the cultural characteristics that contributed to the observable discrepancies in the ways they were represented by the Japanese media and their Western counterparts. The third study aims to shed light on the environment surrounding today’s foreign correspondents and international news reporting in the context of Japan, investigating what factors influence the ways journalist go about reporting and framing their versions of realities. The fourth section attempts to deconstruct the news narratives in terms of risk communication by paying particular attention to how people reacted to the coverage of potential dangers of radiation leaks as well as the tsunami warnings in Tohoku area. In the end, the series of studies described above underlines how cultural factors significantly affected the ways in which the journalists covered Japan in 2011 as well as the ways news audiences understood what was going on. The thesis argues that there are two types of cultural faming that contributed greatly to the social construction of realities in the aftermath of the triple disasters. The first type of cultural framing was observed when reporters consistently made the culture of Japan and its supposedly “unique” values as the main frame of news narratives. It often implied that the Japanese culture was somewhat exotic or alien through foreign eyes. The second type of cultural framing was observed when the cultural dispositions of journalists and audience framed the potential risk such as the incoming tsunami and the vital newsmakers such as workers in Fukushima Daiichi using familiar cultural molds. The finding accentuated the intricacy and precarious nature of “realities” in news reports. The research also indicated that when cultural factors in news process dictate and determine the focal point of reality perception, they tend to bring about racial discussions and stereotypical images in narratives. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The 2011 March 11 Tohoku-Oki earthquake with moment magnitude of 9.0 east of Honshu, Japan, has been the fourth strongest event in the era of instrumental seismology. This thesis is focussed on a detailed analysis of earthquake distribution in time and space in the broader area of Honshu during the time interval of fifty years (1964 - 2013), and on correlation of seismological data with tectonic structure and surface morphology, including the sea floor. The aim of the thesis is not to predict the earthquake retroactively but to put its occurrence into the context of the long-term development of seismicity, to identity differences in the seismic response to the process of plate tectonics prior, during and after the Tohoku-Oki earthquake and to delimitate the tectonic causes of areal limitation of the extent of the aftershock series. The space-time analysis of the development of earthquake occurrence utilized relocated hypocentral parameters primarily identified by the International Seismological Centre (so called EHB data), focal mechanisms of the Global Centroid Moment Tensor Solution programme, surface morphology and bathymetry data, and eruptive history database of active volcanoes. A series of epicentral maps and vertical sections of focal zones were construced for the analysis of seismic...

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第18085号 / 理博第3963号 / 新制||理||1571(附属図書館) / 30943 / 京都大学大学院理学研究科地球惑星科学専攻 / (主査)准教授 藤 浩明, 教授 家森 俊彦, 教授 福田 洋一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第19283号 / 工博第4080号 / 新制||工||1629(附属図書館) / 32285 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科社会基盤工学専攻 / (主査)教授 田村 正行, 教授 小池 克明, 准教授 須﨑 純一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第23455号 / 理博第4749号 / 新制||理||1681(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科地球惑星科学専攻 / (主査)准教授 成瀬 元 助教 松岡 廣繁, 教授 生形 貴男 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Liquefaction-induced deformations associated with lateral spreading represent a significant hazard that can cause substantial damage during earthquakes. The ability to accurately predict lateral-spreading displacement is hampered by a lack of field data from previous earthquakes. Remote sensing via optical image correlation can fill this gap and provide data regarding liquefaction-induced lateral spreading displacements. In this thesis, deformations from three earthquakes (2010 Darfield, February 2011 Christchurch, and 2011 Tohoku Earthquakes) are measured using optical image correlation applied to 0.5-m resolution satellite imagery. The resulting deformations from optical image correlation are compared to the geologic conditions, as well as field observations and measurements of liquefaction. Measurements from optical image correlation are found to have a precision within 0.40 m in all three cases, and results agree well with field measurements. / text