IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2007cf511.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Fiscal Needs: Japan's Experiences

Author

Listed:
  • Nobuki Mochida

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)

Abstract

The Local Allocation Tax (LAT) plays important role in fiscal equalization in Japan. The purpose of this paper is twofold: reviewing the key themes and issues of the LAT; and considering package of reforms designed to revitalize Japan's fiscal equalization program and to establish a sustainable basis for the future. We argue that the addressing expenditure needs in equalization should be retained, to do so will require improvement in the way of addressing expenditure needs. In addition, The LAT formula should be redesigned so as to encourage local government to deliver services in the most cost-effective manner. First, it should be based more systematically on objective criteria (e.g. size of school age population, remoteness indices) rather than actual endowment, such as public infrastructure. Second, the reliance on discretionary elements, including special LAT and various aspects of modification coefficient used in the LAT calculation, should be reduced and, in general, the formula made more transparent.

Suggested Citation

  • Nobuki Mochida, 2007. "Measuring Fiscal Needs: Japan's Experiences," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-511, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2007cf511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2007/2007cf511.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:tky:fseres:2007cf511. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.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.