- 著者
-
萩原 清子
- 出版者
- 日本地域学会
- 雑誌
- 地域学研究 (ISSN:02876256)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.15, pp.185-211, 1985-12-31 (Released:2008-10-10)
- 参考文献数
- 31
- 被引用文献数
-
2
During the periods of high economic growth, outmigration from agricultural and mountain villages to urban areas increased rapidly. As a result overpopulation in the urban areas and depopulation in rural areas have become social problems.The rural areas play a very important role particularly in supplying food, conserving national land, cultivating the head sources of a stream and conserving the natural environment. However, it has become difficult to manage the community and these areas have not been able to play the abovementioned roles in depopulated areas. Therefore, the Japanese government has taken a number of measures to promote rural areas and alleviate some of the problems. In this paper the depopulation problem is considered from the viewpoint of local finance. Attention is paid particularly to the role of intergovernmental grants.Firstly, using a concept of local public goods, the inefficiency which results from free migration is considered. If in moving from one region to another a migrant does not account for the effect of his moving on the tax price of the public good of residents in the region he leaves or enters, Tiebout type of decentralized free market equilibria may not be Pareto-efficient. And if this externality is not internalized by centralized decision-making, the one region may be overpopulated and the other underpopulated. In the framework of a simple model the source of inefficiency of resource allocation is shown. Using the same model the analysis is extended to consider the role for intergovernmental grants in the face of such inefficiencies. And it is suggested that the central government may be justified in using a system of intergovernmental grants to overcome these inefficiencies.In order to explore the role of intergovernmental grants, the model is applied to Agatsuma district of Gunma Prefecture, a district which includes a number of the depopulated towns and villages. Firstly, settled accounts of revenue and expenditure from 1965 F. Y. to 1982 F. Y. are investigated. The percentage of transfer payments including grants from both the Japanese government and the government of Gunma Prefecture has become very large since the laws of the depopulated areas enforced. Secondly, principal expenditures are determined for each town and village. In each town expenditure on education and promotion for agriculture and construction account for a very large percentage of total expenditure. Finally, the level of components which constitutes residents' utility is examined. There is still a difference between the levels of many components in this district and those in the other region.From the above results it is shown that the situation is going to a desired direction by various measures, particularly intergovernmental grants. However, in some areas there is still a possibility of the situation deteriorating. Therefore, it is necessary to allocate intergovernmental grants carefully as well as encouraging each local government to work autonomously.