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First this paper indicates the fault common to the analysis given by three professors as to the Deposit-Refund System, and then provides a (much better?) alternative model for Deposit-Refund Theory. In their papers, all three professors have adopted two-stage construction. In the first stage the economic subject demands soft-drink cans following the utility-maximizing rule qua consumer (Jekyll), and then, in the second stage, he suddenly turns into entrepreneur (Hyde) and pursues his profit following the marginal cost-price rule, completely independent of the former behavior. (In Prof. Fujioka's paper, he firstt appears as Hyde. Then transformation into Jekyll!) Their analyses only place a utility-maximizing behavior and a profit-maximizing behavior in juxtaposition completely independent of each other. Such dissociation should not be overlooked. Alternatively a simple (and much better?) model of a unified Deposit-Refund Theory is proposed, which incorporates toil and trouble attendant on refunding into utility function as disutility, together with including the refunded money into the budget equation.
Yasuhiko Oishi (Mon,) studied this question.