Prior to the occurrence of the global financial crisis, the world had faced the “global imbalance.” This refers to the growing US current account deficit and, in parallel, the growing current account surpluses in China, other Asian countries, and resource-rich nations. This status of...

The number of municipalities in Japan has decreased from 3,232 in 1999 to 1,820 in 2006 because of municipal mergers, called Heisei-no-Daigappei. This paper estimates the effects of municipal mergers in Japan’s local public expenditure. In order to evaluate the expenditure of municipal...

This paper analyze the structure of the standard fiscal needs (SFN) of local allocation tax grants in Japanese prefectural data. The previous works on SFN reported that the scale effect of SFN (a U shaped per capita SFN curve) are observed in Japan. We mainly showed the per capita SFN has the...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an effect of new fiscal rules in the Japanese prefectural government. Especially, we focus on creative accounting [von Hagen and Wolff (2006)] in the Law Relating to the Financial Soundness of Local Governments (2007, Law No. 94). We estimated the effect...

This paper explored the yardstick competition among Japanese municipalities in providing medical subsidy for infants and children. In recent years, against the background of rapidly declining birthrate in Japan, municipalities aimed to reduce the medical burden of families with small children....

In this paper, the public burden for physical check-up of pregnant women is considered. This is a public expense that must be implemented by local governments independently. Public expenditure in this regard may be determined strategically by local governments to take into account the public...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an effect of new fiscal rules in the Japanese prefectural government. Especially, we focus on creative accounting [von Hagen and Wolff (2006)] in the Law Relating to the Financial Soundness of Local Governments (2007, Law No. 94). We estimated the effect...