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Political Mergers as Coalition Formation: Evidence from Japanese Municipal Amalgamations

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  • Eric Weese

Abstract

Political coalition formation games can describe the formation and dissolution of nations, as well as the creation of coalition governments, the establishment of political parties, and other similar phenomena. These games have been studied from a theoretical perspective, but the models have not been used extensively in empirical work.This paper presents a method of estimating political coalition formation models with many-player coalitions, and then applies this method to the recent heisei municipal amalgamations in Japan to estimate structural coefficients that describe the behaviour of municipalities. The method enables counterfactual analysis, which in the Japanese case shows that the national government could increase welfare via a counter-intuitive policy involving transfers to richer municipalities conditional on their participation in a merger.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Weese, 2008. "Political Mergers as Coalition Formation: Evidence from Japanese Municipal Amalgamations," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd08-017, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd08-017
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    File URL: http://gcoe.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/research/discussion/2008/pdf/gd08-017.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Kuninori Nakagawa, 2014. "Municipal sizes and municipal restructuring in Japan," ERSA conference papers ersa14p416, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Weese, Eric, 2011. "Political Mergers as Coalition Formation," Center Discussion Papers 107268, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    3. Ronny Freier & Benjamin Bruns & Abel Schumann, 2015. "Finding your right (or left) partner to merge," ERSA conference papers ersa15p188, European Regional Science Association.
    4. Takeshi Miyazaki, 2014. "Municipal consolidation and local government behavior: evidence from Japanese voting data on merger referenda," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 387-410, November.
    5. Miyazaki, Takeshi, 2013. "Municipal Consolidation and Local Government Behavior: Evidence from Japanese Voting Data on Merger Referenda," Discussion Paper Series 588, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Coalition Formation; Municipal Mergers; Japan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

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