Arbeitspapier

Inefficiency and self-determination: Simulation-based evidence from Meiji Japan

Does the exercise of the right of self-determination lead to inefficiency? This paper considers a set of centrally planned municipal mergers during the Meiji period, with data from Gifu prefecture. The observed merger pattern can be explained as a social optimum based on a very simple individual utility function. If individual villages had been allowed to choose their merger partners, counterfactual simulations show that the core is always non-empty, but core partitions contain about 80% more (postmerger) municipalities than the social optimum. Simulations are possible because core partitions can be calculated using repeated application of a mixed integer program.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper ; No. 1050

Classification
Wirtschaft
Computational Techniques; Simulation Modeling
Cooperative Games
Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
International Law
Regional and Urban History: Asia including Middle East
Subject
Municipal mergers
one-sided matching
moment inequalities
mixed integer programming
Gifu

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Weese, Eric
Hayashi, Masayoshi
Nishikawa, Masashi
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Yale University, Economic Growth Center
(where)
New Haven, CT
(when)
2015

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Weese, Eric
  • Hayashi, Masayoshi
  • Nishikawa, Masashi
  • Yale University, Economic Growth Center

Time of origin

  • 2015

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