IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/adbiwp/0599.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Case Study of Central and Local Government Finance in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Bessho, Shun-ichiro

    (Asian Development Bank Institute)

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an overview of the basics of Japan’s local public administration and finance system and to analyze how Japan’s municipalities restore their fiscal balance after a fiscal shock. In Japan, local governments play a major role in redistribution. Combined with regional disparities in tax capacities and an inflexible local tax system, there is a large vertical fiscal gap in Japan between the central and local governments—a gap that necessitates the transfer of funds from central to local governments. Under this system, the fiscal adjustments in Japan’s municipalities occur mainly via changes in government investment, and they account for 63%–95% of adjustments in permanent unit innovations in grants and own-source revenue. In contrast to the role of expenditure, the municipalities’ own-source revenue plays a limited role in balancing the local budget. The results of this study also reveal that 40% of the increase in own-source revenue is offset by a reduction in grants. Furthermore, municipalities can induce grants by expanding government current expenditure. Finally, this study offers and discusses some policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Bessho, Shun-ichiro, 2016. "Case Study of Central and Local Government Finance in Japan," ADBI Working Papers 599, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/199446/adbi-wp599.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    2. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Vanessa Smith, L. & Yamagata, Takashi, 2013. "Panel unit root tests in the presence of a multifactor error structure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(2), pages 94-115.
    3. Schoppa, Leonard J., 1993. "Two-level games and bargaining outcomes: why gaiatsu succeeds in Japan in some cases but not others," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(3), pages 353-386, July.
    4. Buettner, Thiess & Wildasin, David E., 2006. "The dynamics of municipal fiscal adjustment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1115-1132, August.
    5. Tajika, Eiji & Yui, Yuji, 1996. "Public Policies and Capital Accumulation: Japan at the Dawn of Economic Growth," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 37(2), pages 135-153, December.
    6. Guy Navon, 2006. "Budgetary dynamics in the local authorities in Israel," Israel Economic Review, Bank of Israel, vol. 4(2), pages 19-52.
    7. Ms. Anita Tuladhar & Markus Bruckner, 2010. "Public Investment as a Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from Japan’s Regional Spending During the 1990s," IMF Working Papers 2010/110, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Takero Doi & Toshihiro Ihori, 2006. "Soft-Budget Constraints and Local Expenditures," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-422, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    9. Navon, Guy, 2006. "Budgetary Dynamics in The Local Authorities in Israel," MPRA Paper 9707, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Shun-ichiro Bessho, 2010. "Implementation of public works and intergovernmental relationships in Japan," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 6(1), pages 167-198, February.
    11. Isabelle Joumard & Per Mathis Kongsrud, 2003. "Fiscal Relations across Government Levels," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(1), pages 155-229.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bessho, Shun-ichiro, 2021. "Local fiscal multipliers and population aging in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. Kameda, Taisuke & Namba, Ryoichi & Tsuruga, Takayuki, 2021. "Decomposing local fiscal multipliers: Evidence from Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. Peter J. Morgan & Long Q. Trinh, 2017. "Fiscal decentralization and local budget deficits in Viet Nam: an empirical analysis," Chapters, in: Naoyuki Yoshino & Peter J. Morgan (ed.), Central and Local Government Relations in Asia, chapter 10, pages 333-368, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Hirota, Haruaki, 2023. "Do public account financial statements matter? Evidence from Japanese municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. Shin-ichi Fukuda & Naoto Soma, 2021. "Evaluation of Japan’s Macro-Fiscal Policy and its Challenges," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 17(2), pages 1-28, November.
    6. Bessho, S., 2023. "Elections and COVID-19 benefit payments," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Ogawa, Hikaru, 2015. "Fiscal adjustment in Japanese municipalities," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 1053-1068.
    2. Richard Jaimes, 2020. "Fiscal adjustments at the local level: evidence from Colombia," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(5), pages 1148-1173, October.
    3. Albert Solé-Ollé & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2011. "The dynamic adjustment of local government budgets: does Spain behave differently?," Post-Print hal-00711451, HAL.
    4. Jaimes, Richard, 2016. "Estimating Fiscal Adjustments at the Local Level in Colombia," MPRA Paper 75507, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Cem Ertur & Antonio Musolesi, 2017. "Weak and Strong Cross‐Sectional Dependence: A Panel Data Analysis of International Technology Diffusion," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 477-503, April.
    6. Ostadzad, Ali Hossein, 2022. "Innovation and carbon emissions: Fixed-effects panel threshold model estimation for renewable energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 602-617.
    7. Xiaowen Xie, 2023. "Analyzing the Impact of Digital Inclusive Finance on Poverty Reduction: A Study Based on System GMM in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-20, September.
    8. Herzer Dierk, 2022. "Semi-endogenous Versus Schumpeterian Growth Models: A Critical Review of the Literature and New Evidence," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 73(1), pages 1-55, April.
    9. Emmanuel Anyigbah & Yusheng Kong & Bless Kofi Edziah & Ahotovi Thomas Ahoto & Wilhelmina Seyome Ahiaku, 2023. "Board Characteristics and Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-26, February.
    10. Giorgio Canarella & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2022. "Globalization, long memory, and real interest rate convergence: a historical perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(5), pages 2331-2355, November.
    11. Tajul Masron & Mduduzi Biyase & Talent Zwane & Thomas Udimal & Frederich Kirsten, 2023. "Ecological footprint and population health outcomes: an analysis of E7 countries," Economics Working Papers edwrg-07-2023, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, revised 2023.
    12. Hosan, Shahadat & Rahman, Md Matiar & Karmaker, Shamal Chandra & Saha, Bidyut Baran, 2023. "Energy subsidies and energy technology innovation: Policies for polygeneration systems diffusion," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    13. Bergin, Paul R. & Glick, Reuven & Wu, Jyh-Lin, 2017. "“Conditional PPP” and real exchange rate convergence in the euro area," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA), pages 78-92.
    14. Gangopadhyay, Partha & Jain, Siddharth & Bakry, Walid, 2022. "In search of a rational foundation for the massive IT boom in the Australian banking industry: Can the IT boom really drive relationship banking?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Namahoro, J.P. & Wu, Q. & Su, H., 2023. "Wind energy, industrial-economic development and CO2 emissions nexus: Do droughts matter?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).
    16. Eleni Sardianou & Vasilis Nikou & Ioannis Kostakis, 2023. "Harmonizing Sustainability Goals: Empirical Insights into Climate Change Mitigation and Circular Economy Strategies in Selected European Countries with SDG13 Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, December.
    17. Dong, Kangyin & Sun, Renjin & Li, Hui & Liao, Hua, 2018. "Does natural gas consumption mitigate CO2 emissions: Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for 14 Asia-Pacific countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 419-429.
    18. Kangyin Dong & Yalin Han & Yue Dou & Muhammad Shahbaz, 2022. "Moving toward carbon neutrality: Assessing natural gas import security and its impact on CO2 emissions," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 751-770, August.
    19. Antonio Afonso & Hüseyin Sen & Ayse Kaya, 2021. "Government Size, Unemployment and Inflation Nexus in Eight Large Emerging Market Economies," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 235(1), pages 133-170, March.
    20. Joakim Westerlund, 2016. "An IV Test for a Unit Root in Generally Trending and Correlated Panels," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(5), pages 752-764, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Japan; local government; administrative system; local public finance; local revenue; fiscal shock; fiscal balance; tax system; “flypaper effect”;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ADB Institute (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/adbinjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.