Research

abstract
Most studies have focused on the economic consequences of disaster shocks, but the broader impact on areas outside the disaster remains unclear. Using the shock of the Great East Japan Earthquake and cross-municipality variation in the locations of nuclear power plants unrelated to the earthquake, this paper shows the indirect impact of disasters on population dynamics. The earthquake triggered nuclear power plant accidents, which heightened residents’ risk perceptions of the plants. We find that population inflows to and outflows from municipalities with nuclear power plants decreased after the earthquake. The effects could also be driven by the residents’ risk perceptions and falling land prices.  Our findings suggest that policymakers and researchers need to consider the broader extent of disaster effects more carefully.

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This study examines how police reform with fiscal decentralization affects local crime. The rationale for decentralization is that local governments might be better positioned to respond to citizens’ needs. However, empirical evidence supporting this claim is limited, and research on police decentralization remains scarce. To address this gap, this study focuses on a reform in postwar Japan that created municipal police departments in jurisdictions that exceeded a population threshold. We find that decentralization leads to an increased recognition and crackdown on local crimes. These results suggest that decentralized policing enhances law enforcement's responsiveness to local needs, thereby supporting the fundamental rationale for fiscal decentralization.

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This study examines how the complete absence of electoral competition shapes politicians' behavior in a democracy. To explore this, we focus on uncontested elections, which are common in democracies worldwide yet are understudied. We develop a dynamic model with belief updating in which politicians elected unopposed lower their perceived risk of future challenges and raise their optimal salary. We test these predictions using the context of Japan’s uncontested elections, which operate within a common institutional framework. We find that mayors who win office without a contest subsequently increase their salaries. The salary response is largest after the first uncontested win and smaller thereafter, consistent with learning and belief convergence in the model. These findings suggest that when visible public conflict—such as the presence of other candidates—is absent, politicians are more likely to seek personal gain, highlighting the fundamental role of elections in disciplining officeholders.

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This paper examines whether the specific design of information and communication technology (ICT) implementation plays a critical role in enhancing the fiscal efficiency of local governments. Although ICT has been widely promoted through e-government initiatives to improve government operations, the effectiveness of implementation specifications has received limited attention. We study Japan’s Regional Information Platform (RIP), a standardized system specification that facilitates interoperability across municipal administrative systems and weakens vendor lock-in. Building on a model of municipal procurement under switching costs, we show that standardization reduces expenditure through two channels: weakened vendor lock-in that lowers system costs, and improved cross-departmental interoperability that reduces labor input. Using variation in RIP adoption across Japanese municipalities, we estimate difference-indifferences models and find that RIP adoption substantially reduces per capita total expenditure. The decline is also driven by decreasing system-related and persone expenditure. These findings suggest that e-government outcomes depend not only on ICT adoption itself but also on implementation design.

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This paper examines whether hiring retired National Tax Agency (NTA) officials can strengthen local fiscal capacity by transferring tax-enforcement-specific human capital to municipalities. Exploiting cross-municipality variation in the timing of such hires, we estimate the effects of these appointments on tax collection outcomes. We find that municipalities hiring retired NTA officials improve their delinquent tax collection rate by approximately 2 to 3 percentage points, with no corresponding increase in tax administration spending. These findings suggest that reallocating specialized public-sector human capital may offer a cost-effective pathway to strengthening local fiscal capacity.