The Determinants of Japanese Local‐benefit Seeking

Abstract

"This paper examines the determinants of the allocation of Japan's central government spending across its prefectures. Using the framework developed by Atlas et al." (American Economic Review, 85:"3, June 1995, 624-629"), "the paper examines whether over-represented Japanese prefectures receive larger real per capita transfers than under-represented prefectures. A broad concern of the paper is whether institutions matter. Per capita representation of prefectures, party affiliation, and intra-party characteristics are found to be determinants of Japan's central government transfers. The results suggest that institutions do matter." ("JEL" H3, H5, H6, H7) Copyright 1999 Western Economic Association International.

Legislator Incentives in a Fragile Democracy: Evidence From Budget Allocation in Thailand

“…Their greater efforts in winning budget allocation mean that smaller (overrepresented) constituencies tend to enjoy more allocation of the government expenditure. 10 Past studies including Atlas et al (1995), Atlas, Hendershott, and Zupan (1997), Meyer and Naka (1999), and Kawaura (2003) show that relative representation is among the determinants of budget allocation when legislative representation deviates from the country's demographic distribution. If this relative representation hypothesis applies to Thai legislators, RRI is expected to have a positive coefficient.…”

“…There is a rich body of literature that has investigated this relationship in mature democracies. Atlas et al (1995), Meyer and Naka (1999), and Kawaura (2003), for example, confirm that the geographical distribution of government expenditure reflects legislative representation of regional units such as U.S. states and Japanese prefectures.…”

The Productivity of Public Capital: Evidence from the 1994 Electoral Reform of Japan

“…5 Yoshino and Yoshida (1988) showed that the number of seats per popu-lation positively affected the amount of public capital intended for industrial purposes that each region received. Meyer and Naka (1999) The change of seat allocations across prefectures is tabulated in Table 1.…”

Fiscal Equalisation in OECD Countries

“…• Meyer and Naka (1999) shows that transfers from the central government in Japan to prefectures are not only affected by income-differences among different prefectures but by various political institutional factors, such as party affiliation and per capita representation. The results indicate that over-represented prefectures received more real per capita transfers than did under-represented prefectures.…”