Masayoshi Hayashi

The University of Tokyo | Todai · Department of Economics

大学の学部専門課程で利用される財政学や公共経済学の教科書では，課税が市場に与える効果の一例として，完全競争下における部分均衡の枠組みを用いた「物品税の効果」が取り上げられている．その典型的な解説では，納税義務が供給者にある場合，物品税によって供給曲線が税率分だけ上方に「シフト」し，シフト後の「供給曲線」と需要曲線との交点が物品税下での新しい市場均衡であると議論される．本稿では，この物品税の効果に関して，1990年以降に出版された財政学や公共経済学の教科書115冊が如何なる解説を行っているかを検証する．そして，多くが必ずしも正確に解説している訳ではなく，場合によっては読者（学生）を誤った理解へと誘導しているおそれがあることを指摘する．

On the basis of the standard model of local public production, we delineate the factors that account for the "U-shaped" per capita local public expenditures and relate them to construct an efficiency indicator for local populations. We articulate that population-induced changes in the per capita cost are related to the relative magnitude between th...

This study examines the existence of a “loosening effect” on a local social policy of central funding by exploiting a specific mechanism in the Japanese system of central grants and two institutional changes in categorical grants for local social assistance programs. Despite performing various types of estimations, we fail to substantiate the exist...

Based on the theory of land price capitalization, we evaluate the effects of municipal mergers by exploiting extensive municipal mergers in the Heisei territorial reform and dataset of land prices compiled by the Japanese government. We allow the effects of municipal mergers to vary over time-both ex-ante (as anticipation effects) and ex-post (as r...

Local governments form an integral part of the Japanese system of health and long-term care for the elderly. In particular, municipalities (cities, towns, and villages) manage National Health Insurance (NHI) programs and Long-term Care Insurance (LTCI) programs for their elderly residents. Furthermore, all municipalities within a given prefecture f...

We provide an English language introduction to the local government system in Meiji Japan. At the municipal level, this system was characterized by proportional taxation, very limited intergovernmental transfers, and electoral rules that gave substantial extra weight to the elite.

This paper examines the current state and challenges related to inclusive growth and fiscal decentralization in Japan. After reviewing the literature, it discusses the Japanese system of local public finance, with a description of recent reforms that have contributed to its fiscal decentralisation. The discussion highlights the integral role of loc...

本稿は平成２９年４月１３日開催の財政経済研究会における，東京大学大学院経済学研究科教授林正義氏の『１０３万円の壁（？）と就業調整』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである．

While a number of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) studies examine public sector activities, those addressing social assistance are indeed limited. This study then aims to improve on the literature by investigating the efficiency of social welfare offices in the Japanese system of local public administration. The Japanese case indeed merits analysis...

The Japanese government provides information on local fiscal performance through the Fiscal Index Tables for Similar Municipalities (FITS-M). The FITS-M categorize municipalities into groups of “similar localities” and provide them with the fiscal indices of their group members, enabling municipalities to use the tables to identify their “neighbors...

近年の厳しい財政状況の中，地方公務員の人件費は削減されてきた．日本の地方公共団体による政策決定においては，「横並び意識」が重要と議論されるが，本文ではこの「横並び意識」を明示的に考慮して，地方公共団体の人件費関連変数の決定要因を考察する．ここでは特に日本の地方財政制度としての「類似団体区分」を用いて横並びの対象となる団体を規定し，「財政比較分析表」を通じた地方間の相互依存関係が存在する可能性を検討する．(The Japanese government categorizes municipalities into groups of “similar” entities through the Categories of Similar Municipalities, and provide...

We examine the efficiency of social welfare offices in Japan and explore the external factors that affect their efficiency. We elaborate on the influence of population, surface area, and fiscal capacity and explore the implications of their effects.

Local governments form an integral part of the Japanese system of health and long-term care for the elderly. While the central government designs the care system, local governments play other important roles. In particular, municipalities (cities, towns, and villages) manage National Health Insurance (NHI) programs and Long-term Care Insurance (LTC...

本稿は，平成２６年１１月１３日開催の財政経済研究会における，東京大学大学院経済学研究科教授林正義氏の『介護保険財政の仕組みと現状』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである．

This study proposes a method to obtain the social marginal costs of public funds (SMCF) that allows for heterogeneity on a household basis as well as labor supply responses along both the extensive and the intensive margins. To demonstrate our methodology, we take the example of the 1999 national income tax reform in Japan and evaluate it by estima...

This study explores the effects of spousal allowances (SAs) in the Japanese system of personal income taxes, using the micro-simulation method based on the discrete choice model of labor supply. Our simulations show that the complete abolishment of SAs would increase the average annual working hours of all wives by 1.6% only, which is smaller than...

Local governments in Japan implement social assistance programs, called Seikatsu Hogo or Public Assistance (PA). In late 2000s, local PA programs faced drastic changes in socio-economic environments due to the economic crisis in 2008. The purpose of this note is to put in perspective the consequences of such changes by examining annual municipal (c...

Despite frequent discussions on regional variations in health care expenditure (HCE), few studies account for the sources of such regional disparities. This study bridges this gap in the body of knowledge by taking the following two steps. First, we explore the determinants of regional HCE in Japan, covering a data period that expands the scope of...

We obtain equivalent scales that allow for different number and age of children by estimating a system of demand functions with micro-data for Japanese households. We then compare the estimated scales to the equivalent scales based on the costs of living institutionally set out in the Japanese system of public assistance (PA scales). We then show t...

Forecasting welfare caseloads has grown in importance in Japan because of their recent rapid increase. Given that the forecasting literature on welfare caseloads only focuses on US cases and utilizes limited classes of forecasting models, this study employs multiple alternative methods in order to forecast Japanese welfare caseloads and compare for...

This study proposes decomposition and estimation methods that can be applied to analyze both regional stabilization and redistribution. The method proposed herein follows the approach taken by Shorrocks (1982), and applies it to per-capita level quantities of the relevant variables rather than the log-linear quantities used by Asdrubali et al. (199...

本稿は，平成２５年４月１１日開催の財政経済研究会における，東京大学大学院経済学研究科准教授林正義氏の『市町村国保財政の仕組みと現状』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである。

In this study, we recast the formula of the social marginal cost of public funds (SMCF) and highlight the role of what we call individual marginal costs of public funds (IMCF). After elaborating on aspects of distributional weights, we estimate the wage elasticity of labor supply and the IMCFs on a household basis. This allows us to explore not onl...

In this study, after introducing the Japanese system of the National Health Insurance (NHI), I quantify the effects of transfers within the NHI system on the nexus between NHI medical benefits (which reflect aggregate health care demand within a municipality) and NHI premiums (which reflect the fiscal burden on the insured in a municipality). In pa...

There are more than 1,700 municipalities serving as insurers in Japan's system of National Health Insurance (NHI). The NHI has several institutional routes to buffer local premiums from abrupt changes in regional health demands that destabilize the NHI benefit expenditures. After briefly introducing the system of public health care in Japan, this s...

本稿は，平成23年11月10日開催の財政経済研究会における，東京大学大学院経済学研究科准教授 林 正義氏の『社会的セーフティーネットの現状について』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである。

This is an unpublished paper presented at Microeconomics Workshop 2011, Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo, on November 29, 2011.

本稿では一般財源化と高齢化が就学援助に与える影響について検証を行う．就学援助の認定基準や給付内容の決定は市町村に委ねられているが，2004年度までは国庫補助が行われており，国の補助条件が一定の基準を提供していた．しかし，2005年度に準要保護者への就学援助に対する国庫補助が一般財源化され，就学援助が地方の財政状況に左右されやすくなったと考えられる．また，高齢化については先行研究が示すように，高齢者が多数を占めることを意味するから，高齢化は子ども向けの支出を減少させる可能性がある。本稿では，新入学児童・生徒1人当たり年間援助額や就学援助率については，財政力の多寡が就学援助に震予響を与え，とりわけ，新入学児童・生徒1人当たり年間援助額については一般財源化後に財政状況が与える影響が増大したことが示...

In this paper, we estimate labor responses of Japanese prime-age males by taking into consideration the Japanese income tax system and utilizing a large micro-data set. We employ three maximum likelihood methods: (i) a modified version of (Hausman, 1979) and (Hausman, 1981), which assumes a linear labor supply function; (ii) that given by Zabalza (...

In countries where local governments are heavily involved in financing health care for the indigent, regional disparities in local revenues may adversely affect the access of the poor to medical care. It is thus important to examine how central governments provide funds for such local medical needs. In Japan, local governments finance all medical c...

Local governments in Japan implement social assistance programs, called Seikatsu Hogo or Public Assistance (PA). The scope of PA programs is rather large since the PA is the only tax-financed national program that covers those excluded from contributory social insurance programs. Local PA programs are therefore funded through layers of central gran...

While a number of empirical studies have explored the determining factors of welfare caseloads, none of them has examined the effect of workload on caseload. However, several studies outside the field of economics have suggested that workload may be an important factor in determining caseload size, in that higher workloads may lead to the rationing...

In Japan, the central government has claimed that increases in central subsidies make local governments lenient in granting eligibility for social assistance. While the issue of whether or not central grants affect local welfare caseloads is an empirical question, it is a difficult one to evaluate: the rates of matching subsidies are nationally uni...

本稿は，平成22年10月14日開催の財政経済研究会における，東京大学大学院経済学研究科准教授 林 正義氏の『生活保護と地方財政』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである。

The equilibrium size of political jurisdictions may be too small if there are efficien-cies of scale in providing public services and mergers require majority approval from all the jurisdictions involved. In the case of Japanese municipalities, estimates of effi-ciences of scale are available in central government data. Using survey data on stated...

This essay reviews theoretical arguments concerning the issue of decentralized redistribution. We make a representative examination of what are regarded as the merits and demerits of fiscal decentralization from a redistributive perspective, emphasizing the concepts of social solidarity. We proceed to take a closer look at the decentralization theo...

生活保護は日本国憲法の生存権規定をうけた公的扶助である。生活保護を求める権利（保護請求権）は全ての国民に無差別平等に与えられているが、最後の安全網である生活保護を利用するには、既に他の利用可能な公的援助制度が活用されていなければならない。この「他法活用の原則」により生活保護の守備範囲は「残余的」であり、生活保護以外の社会保障制度が充実していると、生活保護の守備範囲は小さくなり、またその逆の場合は大きくなる。この生活保護の残余性という観点から日本の生活保護の実態を眺めると興味深い。まず、総額約 2.6 兆円（平成 20 年度予算ベース）の給付費のうち約半分（49.8％）は医療扶助として低所得者の医療保障に向けられ、また受給世帯数をみると高齢者世帯が半分近く（46.1%）を占めている。つまり日本...

This study systematically describes the current arrangements for social protection in Japan, including the key elements of coverage, benefits, and management. Special attention is paid to the roles assumed by local governments in social protection schemes. With the exception of public pensions, local governments are involved in every aspect of soci...

This study examines the effects of central matching grants for the School Expense Assistance (SEA) in the midst of increasing child poverty in Japan. The 2005 reform replaced SEA grants with increases in general revenues through the system of Local Allocation Tax (LAT). By exploiting the facts that the replaced grants were closed-ended and that LAT...

本稿では，地方単独事業の計画額と決算額の乖離が拡大した1990 年代後半の期間を対象に，中央官庁から出向した官僚が地方単独事業に与えた影響を検証する．大蔵省出向の都道府県財政課長は，他の場合と比べ，単独事業を大きく抑制する傾向を有することが示された．さらに，自治省出向の財政課長も，少なくとも都道府県プロパーより単独事業を拡大する傾向にはないことが示された．また，都道府県知事や総務部長が自治省出向者である場合は大蔵省出向者や都道府県プロパーからの有意な差は検定できなかったが，運輸省出向の総務部長は単独事業費を大きく拡大する傾向にあることが示された．

We estimate the magnitude of the effect of public expenditures on the intensive margin of labor supply of prime-age males, who pay a considerable part of labor income tax revenues, making use of micro-data of Employment Status Survey 2002. Since MCPF (marginal cost of public funds) created by distortionary taxation depends on the effects of public...

本稿は，平成21年6 月11日開催の財政経済研究会における，一橋大学国際・公共政策大学院准教授 林 正義氏の『社会保障と地方財政』と題する講演内容をとりまとめたものである。

This article surveys empirical analysis in Japan regarding labor supply, keeping in mind the policy assertion that "reducing taxes will vitalize the economy." The following two points characterize empirical analysis in Japan. First, there has been no comprehensive estimation done on the labor supply of prime working-age males who make up the core l...

This paper considers the effects of municipal fiscal climates on eligibility assessments in the Japanese system of long-term care insurance (LTCI). We find that municipalities with more stringent fiscal climates tend to reject more applications for LTCI benefits, almost certainly in the hope of containing benefit expenditures. This would not be a s...

Japan, it has been claimed by the central government that an increase in central subsidies makes local governments lenient in granting eligibility for public assistance. Still, it is arguable that this is not so, due to the very fact that Japan is a unitary country where localities are administratively controlled by the center. While the issue of w...

March 18, 2008 This paper is a revised version of the earlier drafts titled "The CES Utility Function, Non-linear Budget Constraints and Labor Supply: Results on Prime-age Males in Japan" (PRI Discussion Paper Series 05A-15). The tax simulation studies in Japan have necessarily relied on arbitrary sets of preference parameters due to the paucity of...

The purpose of this chapter is two-hold. First, we provide a set of theoretical perspectives to decentralized redistribution in Section 2. We especially examine what are regarded as the merits of fiscal decentralization from a redistributive perspective, emphasizing the concepts of community sharing and social solidarity. We take a closer look at t...

It is widely recognized that the degree of inefficiency in the voluntary provision of a public good increases with the group size of an economy. However, we find that only a slight modification in the conventional assumptions gives rise to a profound difference in outcome. In particular, we show that there is a case where the Nash equilibrium provi...

The chapter by Professors Tajika and Yui provides a very nice overview of the system of local government finances in Japan, and offers a number of sensible suggestions on how to improve intergovernmental finances. Their careful documentation of the growing role of local governments underscores the importance of reform, both on efficiency grounds an...

This paper surveys the economic literature on the Local Allocation Tax (LAT), the system of general-purpose intergovernmental transfers in Japan, and delineates unexplored areas for further researches. The ‘popular’ views held by many Japanese economists on the LAT are summarized and critically assessed with alternative, and possibly ‘heretical,’ v...

We argue that tax policy in Japan is on a shaky empirical ground. First, until recently, no serious attempts had been made to estimate labour responses to taxation, especially with respect to prime-age male workers. Second, while there is some stock of empirical analysis on labour supply response of female workers, few studies have appropriately al...

This essay critically examines what are regarded as the merits of fiscal decentralization from a redistributive perspective. Among them is the celebrated decentralization theorem, at which we take a closer look. We argue that the theorem is not an appropriate framework for the examination of the issue of redistribution. We also review the rest of t...

This paper, taking an explicit account of the progressive tax system, calculates the social marginal cost of public funds (SMCF) for the Japanese economy. First, we calculate the SMCF for the three types of progressivity preserving tax increases. Second, we also calculate the SMCF for a single bracket tax rate change and compare the estimates among...

The Canadian system of equalization is designed to address differences in revenue-raising capacity across provinces, basing a province's annual entitlements on its actual tax bases. However, the standard against which a given province's equalization entitlements are calculated fluctuates from year to year with all provinces' tax bases and tax rates...

The migration equilibrium model allows us to employ information on land rents to evaluate the effects of local fiscal variables. Several studies apply the model by Robach (1982), which measures the value of amenities, to the case of public capital, assuming that public capital does not affect the expenditure side of local public finance. Given this...

課税による歪みを考慮した公共プロジェクトの費用計測に用いられるように、公的 費用の限界費用(marginalcost of public funds: MCPF) は公共政策分析において重 要な晴報をもたらす。本稿では、我が国の費用便益分析におけるMCPF研究の重要 性を喚起することを目的に、今後の本格的なMCPF推計のベンチマークを提供する。 具体的には、欧米における先行研究の論点を明示しながら同質的個人の仮定に基づい たMCPFの算定フォーミュラを導出し、それを日本のデータに適用し、様々なパラ メータに関する仮定のもとで感度分析を行う。その結果、我が国における、1975年以 降のMCPFの変動の範囲は約o.956~ 1. 229と算定され、近年では、尤もらしい条件 の下で、最大でも1.1...

〔注：この論文は時系列データのみの推定もしくは横断面方向よりも時系列方向が大きなパネルデータを用いた推定を前提としています．通常のミクロデータで用いるような横断面方向が時系列方向よりも大きなパネルデータを用いた推定に関しては，別の論文である https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pfsjipf/5/0/5_119/_pdf/-char/ja を参照してください．〕This paper surveys the growing empirical literature on the production effects of public capital in Japan. Limiting our discussion to the estimation o...

Like defense expenditures in an alliance, contributions to foreign aid are re- garded as an international public good. Unlike defense expenditures, however, foreign aid is provided by private as well as public sectors. This paper develops a model that allows for both private and public contributions to foreign aid, and shows that crowding out betwe...

This paper sets out a simple diagrammatic analysis on vertical and horizontal externalities, and examines such externalities yield results expected from theory. In particular, its empirical analysis takes advantage of the data provided by the OECD on the taxing powers of state and local government.

This paper presents an empirical model of public production that allows us to statistically examine 'incentive' factors that may influence the internal effort level of local governments. Our model theoretically validates the application of the frontier analysis to the study of the incentive effect in local public …nance. We analytically show that t...

わが国における地方分権の推進と近年の厳しい財政状況を背景として，市町村合併の必要が以前にも増して論じられるようになっている。地方分権の議論において市町村合併は，分権の「受け皿」として行財政能力の拡充に資すると考えられており，財政悪化の議論において市町村合併は，「規模の経済」を通じて地方歳出削減に貢献すると期待されているようである。本稿では，後者の地方財政における「規模の経済」を考察の対象とし，市町村合併を考察するために有用と考えられる経済学的視点を提供することを目的とする。まず，わが国の関連する先行研究を批判的に概観することによって，本稿で考察すべき論点を明示する。第１は，多くの先行研究では実証分析の視座となるべき明示的な理論枠組が欠如している点である。したがって多くの場合，既存の実証分析か...

We apply the standard Nash model of the voluntary provision of a pure public good to the analysis of foreign aid. We estimate the degree of cheap riding in the contributions to multilateral foreign aid, by using the data for selected member countries of the DAC, the OECD.

Both federal and provincial governments in Canada levy corporate taxes on businesses in their jurisdictions, which potentially gives rise to horizontal and vertical tax externalities within the federation. Using a simple model of interdependent tax choices, we estimate tax-setting functions for the federal government, Ontario, Quebec, and an aggreg...

Standard studies on voluntary contributions to an international public good treat national economies as if they were single agents. This masks the fact that nations are comprised of populations of citizens, whose collective benefits a national government takes account of when deciding on the amount of the contributions. This paper constructs a mode...

This dissertation is a juxtaposition of two topics which are framed together under the banner of "fiscal interaction among competing governments." PART I concems international fiscal interaction among national governments, and studies voluntary contributions to international public goods. PART ii considers domestic aspects of fiscal interaction amo...

Mancur Olson's model of public (collective) goods has been used or referred to by a number of students of the social sciences. IR is not an exception and a number of its students have applied his model to the analysis of international public goods. Olson's original model, however, may contain two points to be improved upon. First, being a partial e...