2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Empirical Analysis of Public Choice in a Local Governments Setting: Retrospective Voting and the Behavior of Interest Group
| Project/Area Number |
24530359
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Public finance/Monetary economics
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| Research Institution | Aoyama Gakuin University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2012-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | 公共選択論 / 地方財政 / 市町村 / 政治経済学 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
The main results of this research project are as follows: (a) Municipal mayors tended to win elections through weakening their own local public finances, especially in the recession of 1980-2004. This implies that voters are less motivated to hold back on worsening local finances. (b) It has been demonstrated that labor unions of civil servants succeeded to reject or mitigate the wage reduction requested by the central government. This implies that the mayors and local council members cannot ignore the pressures from local interest groups. Local government officials who are unable to ignore the interests of voters and civil servants are willing to sacrifice the local fiscal situation to satisfy voters and civil servants preferring higher expenditures regardless of fiscal impact.
I doubt whether it is wise to delegate authority to local governments with such tendencies. We should understand the public effect on local government more carefully.
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| Free Research Field |
公共選択論
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