Urban Public Finance

Today, has gained a prominent position as a popular policy concept for less favored problems in the rural areas of Japan. At the same time, many commentators have criticized the concept for its inadequacy as an academic term thus far. Nevertheless, the reason why gained such popularity in both central and local governments so quickly or why a area come to be operationally defined by the municipal depopulation rate has rarely been discussed. The purpose of this paper is to present a thesis that addresses these questions from the viewpoint of local public finance problems, focusing especially on local allocation taxes, a Japanese fiscal equalization scheme.Kaso emerged as an appealing catchphrase to describe rural social problems in the mid 1960s. This term is the opposite of kamitsu which represents the overpopulation problems experienced in metropolitan areas. The opportunity for this term's gaining popularity came after the release of the 1965 census data, which clarified the quantitative realities of depopulation in peripheral areas.Previous studies argued that the release of census data had a strong impact on the populace in regard to the severity of the depopulation problem and this led to the quick permeation of this term. The author believes this to be partly true but thinks that it is insufficient to explain the outcomes. It is argued that this situation has had the most significant impact on national and local government officers since the announcement of the latest census results requires the renewal of statistics used for the fiscal demand calculation of local allocation taxes. According to an estimation using a weighted regression model, given an unchanged local allocation tax system and assuming price constancy, about one third of municipalities with less than 5, 000 inhabitants were anticipated to face more than a 10% decrease of standard fiscal demand. This figure represents the amount of resources ensured by the local allocation tax for each local government as an operationally calculated cost for executing standard administrative activities.This dysfunction of the fiscal equation scheme in severely depopulated municipalities is thought to be the most important factor for the permeation of into central and local governments. The central government quickly established a depopulation modification coefficient (jinkou kyugen hosei) in standard fiscal demand calculations in 1966. In addition, Shimane Prefecture, an area facing this problem, started to develop a Special Area Act for the national government in cooperation with the Prefectures concerned.At the beginning, the area name in the proposed Act is known as a severe depopulation area, not a Kaso area because depopulation is directly connected with the local allocation tax problem. However, the national government started to stress the solving of regional disparities and responded by shifting target areas in resource allocation from metropolitan areas and industrial districts to peripheral areas after the mid 1960s. Following this shift, the Special Area Act movement sought not only to maintain the status quo but also to make the rest of the country catch up, and changed the area name to for its popularity and comprehensiveness.In this change, an operational definition of a area had to be defined. Considering that the starting point of this movement exists in a dysfunctional problem of local allocation tax, it seemed natural to define a area in the proposed Act using the municipal depopulation rate. Finally, the Emergency Area Revitalization Act, which designates its target area by the municipal depopulation rate, came into effect as a members' bill in 1970.

Studies in state and local public finance

In Uganda, 90% of business owners admit that taxes are a huge constraint to their businesses UBOS (UNHS, 2011), they claim that taxes are high and do not allow new businesses to cover up initial cost. Odongo (2011) points out that Tax mainly affects the performance of small scale enterprises through lost sales during closure of the business premises, loss of machinery and equipment due to delay in remitting tax and the loss of capital due to fines imposed. Thus the purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between Local Government Taxes and performance of Small Scale Enterprises in urban local governments in Uganda taking the case of Mpigi Town Council. Specifically, the study set out to find the relationship between trade licenses and performance of small scale enterprises, to examine the relationship between market fees and performance of SSEs and also to determine the relationship between local service tax and performance of small scale enterprises in Mpigi Town. The study used a cross sectional study design adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. This prompted the research to use primary and secondary data to which end it used questioning/ interviewing, key informants. Documentary review on local government tax policies and documentation on small scale enterprises was employed. Out of the targeted sample size of 181 the study drew responses from 179 respondents giving a 99% response rate. Quantitative data was entered and cleaned in Epidata and analyzed using SPSS version 17.0. Pearson's correlation coefficient and regressions were further used to show the relationships among the dimensions of variables. While qualitative data was analyzed by categorizing themes basing on the objectives of the study From the findings of the study a positive significant relationship between local government taxes and performance of small scale enterprises was clearly indicated, with the trade license providing a better explanation of performance of small scale enterprises as compared to local service taxes and market fees. The study also indicated that all the three dimensions of local government taxes relate positively with small scale enterprises’ performance. The study recommended that more awareness should be made on local government taxes by local government authorities, sensitization and collection of taxes should be done in a more friendly manner and local governments should consider abolishing Tax Sir charges for late payments as they cause more pain to tax payers

In this article we present the research of local agricultural tax policy in Poland. It is a specific kind of tax as its volume depends on an artificial measure, i.e. the price of rye. The article aims to find out if with this construction of tax the local tax policy may be efficient. Our research proves that the lower the share of agricultural tax in property taxes, the more efficient is the tax policy. The reduction in the agricultural tax correlates positively with the growth in agricultural tax in the current year, and also to a lesser extent in the next year. Higher rye prices result in an increased reduction in agricultural tax rates as well as in tax revenues, and the tendency is reversed in the following year.

Objectives: To explore governance, coordination and implementation actors, structures and processes, facilitators, and barriers within local government and between central and local government in Ghana’s COVID-19 response during the first wave of the outbreak.Design: Cross-sectional single case study. Data collection involved a desk review of media, policy and administrative documents and key informant in-depth interviews.Setting: Two municipalities in the Greater Accra region of GhanaParticipants: Local government decentralised decision makers and officials of decentralised departments.Interventions: None.Main Outcome Measures: NoneResults: Coordination between the national and local government involved the provision of directives, guidelines, training, and resources. Most of the emergency response structures at the municipal level were functional except for some Public Health Emergency Management Committees. Inadequate resources challenged all aspects of the response. Coordination between local government and district health directorates in risk communication was poor. During the distribution of relief items, a biased selection process and a lack of a bottom-up approach in planning and implementation were common and undermined the ability to target the most vulnerable beneficiaries.Conclusions: Adequate financing and equipping of frontline health facilities and workers for surveillance, laboratory and case management activities, transparent criteria to ensure effective targeting and monitoring of the distribution of relief items, and a stronger bottom-up approach to the planning and implementation of interventions need to be given high priority in any response to health security threats such as COVID-19.

What impact have unfunded environmental mandates had on local governments? Carol Cimitile, Victoria Kennedy, Henry Lambright, Rosemary O'Leary, and Paul Weiland's two-pronged research studied seven local governments in New York State in 1994. First, they examined if and how these local governments prioritized risks (such as environmental and public health problems) to decide what environmental areas should have priority. Second, they examined how local governments were paying for the implementation of environmental mandates. The division of responsibility for environmental programs differs dramatically among the seven local governments studied. Common themes, however, were discovered and are discussed. The authors conclude that the problems posed by unfunded environmental mandates are the result of a number of factors including fragmentation (institutional, scientific, legal, and political), lack of information, and the rigidity of laws and regulations. They call for a national reexamination of environmental regulation. One of the first bills passed by Congress during the 1995 session and signed into law by President Clinton was P.L. 104-4 which addresses the issue of unfunded mandates. The passage of this law came on the heels of a number of other actions that called attention to a multitude of unfunded mandates being passed from the federal government to the states and from the states to localities. In 1993 and 1994, numerous resolutions were introduced in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives to limit the passage of unfunded federal mandates. In 1993, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12875 (President Clinton, 1993) calling for a reduction in unfunded mandates. And October 27, 1993, was declared National Unfunded Mandates Day by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties. One purpose of all these actions was to call attention to the growing number of environmental mandates handed down from federal and state governments to local governments. Increasingly, the duty to implement environmental laws is falling on local governments. Environmental responsibility has shifted downward but without the needed funds to implement the programs mandated by the laws (ACIR, 1990., Fix and Kenyon, 1990; Schwartz and Peck, 1990; Zimmerman, 1992). Unfunded environmental mandates affect many of our nation's governments (DiLorenzo, 1993; U.S. Conference of Mayors/Price Waterhouse, 1993). Although much has been written on federalism and environmental policy (Fitzgerald, McCabe, and Foltz, 1988; Peretz, 1992; Tobin, 1992), little attention has been paid to the issue of how local governments are dealing with unfunded environmental mandates. The cost of federally mandated environmental programs has been estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be $99 billion for 1990 alone (Pompilli et al., 1992). Yet there is little information on the impact of environmental mandates on individual local government entities. In one of the few studies on the subject, officials in Columbus, Ohio, estimated its portion of those costs to be $1 billion from 1992 to the year 2000 (Environmental Law Committee, 1991). In another study, the overall impact of environmental mandates on Anchorage, Alaska, was estimated to be $430 million from 1992 to 2000 (Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, 1992). To gather further empirical evidence to understand better how local governments are coping with the unfunded environmental mandates facing them, we studied seven local governments in New York State. The focus of the research was two-pronged. First, we examined if and how these local governments prioritized risks (such as environmental and public health problems) in order to decide what environmental areas should have priority. Second, we examined how local governments were paying for the implementation of environmental mandates. Researchers asked the questions: Are risk and finance balanced by these local governments? …

Capacity and Funding: Examining Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Gaps, Challenges, and Solutions for High-Risk, Low-Income (LGUs)

This study elaborates the link between local government performance and the trust gap between higher trust in national government and lower trust in local government. The data in this paper come from China, which is characterised by an apparent trust gap between upper and lower government echelons. Ten national surveys are used for preliminary statistics, three of which are used for regression analysis and robustness testing. This paper finds that good local government performance can significantly increase trust in local government and thus narrow the trust gap between central and local government. In addition, by comparing the effect of cultural factors and local government performance on narrowing the trust gap, this paper finds a more critical role for local government performance. Therefore, in order to promote the balance of trust between national and local government, the focus should be particularly on improving local government performance.

Local Government Tax and Land Use Policies in the United States is an accessible, non-technical evaluation of the most recent economic thinking on the nexus between local land use and tax policies.

Local Government Tax and Land Use Policies in the United States is an accessible, non-technical evaluation of the most recent economic thinking on the nexus between local land use and tax policies.

The paper presents a model of the market for early child care services, where the preferences of households and local government are influenced by relative prices, disposable income and cost conditions, as well as «social norms» such as the attitude to working women and the value assigned to the educational (as well as supervisory) role of institutional child care. A simple partial equilibrium model describes alternative outcomes in the allocation of private and public provision. In the case of the latter the allocation scheme could be influenced by the welfare model adopted by local governments: this could explain their paternalistic policies and may lead to conflict with the motivations of households, which may be affected by the «consolidation of needs» induced by a long tradition of public provision at prices lower than average costs. Moreover public budget constraints interfere with the diverging attitudes of the various players by introducing rationing schemes and redistributive goals that reduce «market» transparency. The empirical importance of the «non economic» motivations referred to above therefore seems to make them a major issue to be considered when evaluating the allocation process. Using a survey on economic and social conditions of the households in the province of Modena in 2006, which directly surveys the willingness to pay for child care services, the second part of the paper explores the demand for early child care through an econometric estimation of the reservation price with particular attention to «economic» and «non economic» determinants. There are complex relationships between the motivations of local government and households: the paternalistic behaviour of public providers is clear from their supply and price strategies; on the other hand, households seem to be affected by a form of needs consolidation which is a barrier to the correct evaluation of the costs and benefits of services, and by a greater focus on mere «child-minding». The tensions between the different attitudes of households and local governments reflects the different welfare models which implicitly underlie their behaviour. This points to the need for a more explicit dialogue between local governments and citizens on the costs and benefits of the services involved, to improve the transparency of this «market».

This study aims to propose comprehensive improvements to tax policy in response to the significant social changes brought on by serious demographic shifts resulting from low birth rates and an aging population. Population structure changes can trigger economic downturns, erode national competitiveness, and even pose existential risks to the nation, making it imperative for the government to implement proactive strategies. A key tool in these national response measures is tax policy. Specifically, this study seeks to offer integrated solutions for six major tax categories－corporate tax, income tax, value－added tax (VAT), property tax, local taxes, inheritance tax, and gift tax－to address demographic changes effectively. To date, South Korea has employed various piecemeal tax measures to counter low birth rates and aging trends, but the effectiveness of these approaches has been limited. This research underscores the insufficiency of minor tax credits and emphasizes the necessity of a long－term, comprehensive tax strategy to effectively address demographic transitions. The findings of this study are as follows. First, corporate tax should be restructured to enhance competitiveness, with a focus on simplifying tax brackets and tax bases, implementing a reasonable tax rate, and aligning tax structures with new industrial transformations. Second, income tax reforms should include adjustments to tax systems and bases, a shift to a household－based tax unit, and the introduction of inflation－indexed tax schemes. Third, VAT reform requires a tax rate increase, improvements in exemption rules, and revisions to the simplified tax scheme. Fourth, property tax should be adjusted by switching to a household－based tax unit and introducing measures to reduce the tax burden on elderly taxpayers. Fifth, local tax policy should be refined to promote competitiveness through the integration of local governments into larger administrative units. Sixth, inheritance and gift taxes should be restructured to promote economic circulation, with a focus on abolishing taxes on spousal inheritance and gifts and indexing deductions to inflation. Lastly, to avoid distortions in elderly taxpayers’ economic and fiscal decision－making, tax policies must be carefully adjusted. This study recommends establishing a “Committee on Population Structural Change”, involving tax experts to devise and coordinate tax policies that directly support 1) economic growth and positive economic cycles, 2) policies to support higher birth rates, 3) support measures for the elderly, and 4) policies that encourage broader workforce participation, including that of women and foreign workers.

In a well-functioning democracy, citizens can influence public policy through voting. By voting prospectively, voters may aim to select politicians that make policies in line with their preferences, and, by voting retrospectively, they may reward or punish politicians for their performance. To what extent voters actually influence policy is unclear, especially in local government, where many impediments to policy responsiveness may exist. Moreover, voters may realize that their influence on public policy is negligible and vote expressively instead of instrumentally. We investigate a key area in public policy, tax policy, using panel data on municipalities in the Netherlands in the period 1998–2021. We find that changes in the political color of the municipal council on average do not lead to changes in tax levels or tax distribution. However, incumbents that lower taxes fare better at the polls than incumbents that moderately increase taxes. Interestingly, strong tax increases do not lead to more severe electoral punishment, and punishment does not seem to differ between left-wing and right-wing incumbents. Our results suggest that expressive voting plays an important role. People may vote left-wing and express their identity as charitable persons, and then punish incumbents who actually raise taxes.

The current article provides general features about the Japanese experience in the educational system and the inputs to its financing and spending, as the Department of Education in Japan is characterized by complementary between centralization and decentralization by providing double budgets for the advancement of education, so that the local authorities contribute almost half of the education expenses.Also, the amount of government spending on Japanese education exceeds about 20 % of the total national income, and these funds are often used well to serve the educational process.The local (municipal) municipal authorities participate in the central government in financing education, and each local authority provides the necessary financial support to educational institutions in it.Donations of individuals and organizations play a greater role in financing education, as do financial donation habits from banks, and those who hold funds contribute to financing Japanese educational programs.These financial donations appear to fund educational activities as the end of life nears the Japanese.This article concluded that

Industrial agglomeration externalities, local governments’ competition and environmental pollution: Evidence from Chinese prefecture-level cities