Arbeitspapier
The role of Japanese local governments in stabilisation policy
Local governments in Japan account for about 80 per cent of general government spending when excluding social security expenditures. Therefore, for the implementation of fiscal policy it is important how local governments will behave. On the basis of the economic theories on fiscal federalism it is generally rational for local government entities, especially smaller ones, not to participate in the stabilisation policy of the central government and to take a free rider position. Such a behaviour would imply a substantial reduction or even an offsetting of the effects of a stabilisation policy of the central government. As for empirical evidence, a procyclical behaviour of local entities was observed in several countries, among them Germany. We show that in Japan this was not the case and that so far local governments do participate in the stabilisation efforts of the central government. In a second step we show the institutional arrangements that have enabled the central government to influence the fiscal behaviour of the local governments accordingly. Will recent regulatory changes and the enourmous debt level have a significant impact? We argue that although from April 2000 some legal changes in the direction of decentralisation were enforced, many influence mechanisms remained intact and thus the changes weaken the established system, but did not break it up altogether.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Duisburg Working Papers on East Asian Studies ; No. 40/2001
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
- Subject
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local government borrowing
intergovernmental fiscal relations
Japan
federalism
fiscal equalisation
fiscal policy
government debt
local allocation tax
local autonomy
public finance
stabilisation policy
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Pascha, Werner
Robaschik, Frank
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Gerhard-Mercator-Universität Duisburg, Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften
- (where)
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Duisburg
- (when)
-
2001
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Pascha, Werner
- Robaschik, Frank
- Gerhard-Mercator-Universität Duisburg, Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften
Time of origin
- 2001
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