Toshihiro Ihori - Böcker

The purpose of this book is to introduce the substantial literature on consumption tax policy and the taxation of capital income, the early literature on optimal tax theory in dynamic overlapping generations models, the more recent literature on optimal taxation in the Ramsey growth model and models of endogenous growth, and the literature on taxation in open economies. The authors summarize the main arguments for and against consumption taxation, present the main theoretical and empirical results of the technical literature, and, finally, extend the literature in a number of useful ways by complicating the models used to study tax issues. These extensions include bequeathing behavior, the time consistency problem, the capital levy, charity and privately produced public goods, environmental externalities and renewable resources, durable goods and land, and money used in exchange and as an asset. Chapters are self-contained as far as possible, and each uses a variety of models rather than just one to study the issue at hand. Models and notation are explained each time they are used, so that the reader can open the book at any chapter without needing to refer back to earlier discussions. The book will be of value to specialists working on tax policy and to the general economist interested in a broad survey of research on tax policy. It will also be useful for students interested in learning how research on tax issues is done, especially the technical aspects of manipulating models, deriving predictions, as well as bringing theory and empirical tools to bear on tax policy issues.

Increasingly ageing populations and a slowing rate of growth in the macroeconomy are forcing advanced countries to reconsider their social security programmes. The need for detailed examination of the possible reforms and initiatives has never been greater.This book brings together internationally-renowned scholars to evaluate the effect of recent social security reforms in advanced countries (pension programmes in particular) and to suggest policy reforms for the future.Including detailed studies of countries including Australia, Germany, Japan, Scandinavia, the UK and the USA, this book will be of essential interest to economists and policy-makers working in pension financing reform, and public economics more generally.

This title presents a theoretical-based comprehensive analysis of economic consequences of government deficits and fiscal reform in Japan. Particular emphasis is directed at developing tools that can be applied to theoretically and empirically clarify essential economic concerns in Japan such as generational incidence of fiscal reform and a growing dependence on government bonds for covering financial deficits. The book evaluates the recent movement of Japanese fiscal reform and government deficit. The authors first summarize fiscal policy in 1990's. Then, they move on to investigate the macroeconomic impact of government department and the sustainability problem, and then discuss benefits and costs of public investment. The political aspect of fiscal reconstruction movements in Japan is also examined. Finally, the authors investigate the behavior of central government's control on local governments' debt issuance and its effect on the real activities of local governments. This book points out that the long-run structural fiscal reform is more important than the short-run Keynesian fiscal policy in Japan.

Government Deficit And Fiscal Reform In Japan presents a theoretical-based comprehensive analysis of economic consequences of government deficits and fiscal reform in Japan. Particular emphasis is directed at developing tools that can be applied to theoretically and empirically clarify essential economic concerns in Japan such as generational incidence of fiscal reform and a growing dependence on government bonds for covering financial deficits. This book evaluates the recent movement of Japanese fiscal reform and government deficit.The authors first summarize fiscal policy in 1990's. Then, they move on to investigate the macroeconomic impact of government dept and the sustainability problem, and then discuss benefits and costs of public investment. The political aspect of fiscal reconstruction movements in Japan is also examined. Finally, the authors investigate the behavior of central government's control on local governments' debt issuance and its effect on the real activities of local governments. This book points out that the long-run structural fiscal reform is more important than the short-run Keynesian fiscal policy in Japan.

This book provides the reader with the basis for a theoretical understanding of public-sector finance in general - and more specifically, a comprehensive, policy-oriented application of that understanding to Japanese public finance.Particular emphasis is placed upon developing tools which can be used both theoretically and empirically to clarify essential economic concerns in Japan's public sector. These include the macroeconomic incidence of fiscal decentralization, dependence on government bonds for covering fiscal deficits, and social security reform. In analyzing Japan's underperforming public sector, the authors develop and recommend policy solutions aimed at achieving Japan's growth potential, improving the quality of the public sector, and strengthening the sector's contribution to the Japanese economy.Guiding the reader toward an overall understanding of public-sector reforms, decentralization and fiscal policy in Japan, this book will strongly appeal to academics, students and researchers with an interest in modern public finance theory and macroeconomic analysis.

This is a wide-ranging survey of the theory and evidence on public goods. Its four parts present the main literature on public goods, both theoretical and empirical, in a systematic manner. Moreover, the authors extend the existing literature in numerous ways. Each section of the book includes a discussion of the main results, emphasizing the innovations and new outcomes. The main strength of the book is the breadth and depth of its coverage. The organization of topics covered by the book follows the recent literature and the presentation is written for a broad audience. Where technical material is presented, it is done in a way that is generally well explained and easy to follow. The book is thus suitable as a textbook for graduate and upper level undergraduate public finance courses as well as for researchers interested in the field.

This book is a broad survey of the literature on public goods. There has been an explosion of research in the last ten years in a broad variety of - eas in this literature and the time seems right for a survey of this work. This includes the recent work on dynamic theories of public goods, s- ond-best financing methods, surveys and contingent valuation in determ- ing the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for public goods, voting models, p- vately produced public goods, charity and national radio, experiments on public goods, public inputs, public capital and infrastructure, the Tiebout sorting mechanism, local public goods (LPGs), club goods, and fiscal competition and coordination. We survey developments in the theory and the empirical work in each area. We also present the classic results to place the new developments in context. This book is appropriate for advanced undergraduates, graduate students who wish to learn the latest research in this area, and for practitioners who want to broaden their knowledge outside their own area of expertise. We present the background for each result and try to give the reader a feel for how a particular area of the literature developed. The technical results are provided and an intuitive explanation for them is also given. We also p- sent some new results in many of the chapters as well. Each chapter is r- sonably self-contained.

This book investigates the reasons for persistent public deficits and delayed fiscal reform in Japan, placing a special emphasis on political economy aspects.

This book investigates the reasons for persistent public deficits and delayed fiscal reform in Japan, placing a special emphasis on political economy aspects. Japan is confronted with the need to pursue fiscal discipline for fiscal consolidation and implement structural reforms for reorganizing fiscal expenditures. Focusing on particular policy fields including social security, female labor supply, public works, and intergovernmental transfer schemes, the book clarifies economic and political elements that have hindered effective steps toward these two goals. Facing population aging and a business downturn, the Japanese government was urged to increase social security expenditures and the budget for Keynesian stimulus policies. As elucidated in the book, the institutional design has worked to over-represent the demands of elderly generations and local interest groups and to expand these expenditures. Rigorous theoretical and numerical analyses reported throughout the book consequently provide readers with insights into incentive designs and institutional reforms necessary for fiscal consolidation, also presenting points of view for public policy and public debate.

This book presents fifteen papers selected from the papers read at the 53rd Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance held at Kyoto, Japan, in August 1997. Although organized under the general title of Public Finance and Public Investment, the Congress covered a wide range of topics in Public Finance. One of the highlights of the Congress was a historic and brilliant debate between two of the greatest living authorities in the area of public finance, Professors James M. Buchanan and Richard A. Musgrave, on the nature of the welfare state and its future. Part I of this book is concerned with this debate and its empirical counterpart. James M. Buchanan (Chapter 1) warns that the welfare state will be unsustainable unless it preserves generality or at least quasi generality in welfare programs. The introduction of overt discrimination in welfare programs through means testing and targeting can only diminish public support. He argues that a political version of the "tragedy of commons" will emerge if and when identifiable interest groups recognize the prospects of particularized gains as promised by discriminatory tax or transfer payments. Faced with mounting pressure from entitlement-like claims of special interest groups against public revenues on one hand and equally strong pressure against further tax burdens on the other, political leaders are attracted to solutions that single out the most vulnerable targets. Distributional disagreement among classes will then become a major source of political discourse and an impetus for class conflict.

The current state of research in the international public finance field is elucidated in the fifteen papers collected in this volume, selected from among the more than 200 that were presented at the 53rd Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance held in Kyoto, Japan, in August 1997. The collection assembled here is not intended to comprise a proceedings of the Congress but, rather, presents the ideas of eminent scholars in seven areas of current research in the international public finance field: The Welfare State, Public Investment and Economic Growth, Inter-Governmental Relations, Tax Competition and Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign Investment in Transitional Economies-Russia and China, and Equalization Transfer Systems in Japan and Australia. The highlight of the Congress was the brilliant debate between two of the greatest authorities in the area of public finance, James M. Buchanan and Richard A. Musgrave, whose papers form the opening section of the volume.

This textbook equips instructors and students with an overview of the existing literature so that the latter can attain an overall understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic public finance.

This textbook equips instructors and students with an overview of the existing literature so that the latter can attain an overall understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic public finance.

Conventional wisdom dictates that a fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical. In particular, by incorporating the political effort behavior of private agents into a weak government model, we explore how income fluctuations affect the optimal budget deficits in a political economy.

In this book the authors demonstrate how the economics of insurance, risk reduction, and damage control or limitation can be combined with concepts of collective choice and collective behavior to improve analysis of the escalating threats faced by alliances throughout the world.The book develops a theory of risk management as integrating likelihood of loss, magnitude of loss, and isolation from loss into a consolidated model.  It extends existing concepts of  individual risk management by a single person to decision theory for an entire country, managed by a government bureaucracy and lodged in a universe of overlapping alliances. The authors uncover a tendency, inherent in any bureaucracy for policy coordination in the realm of risk control to fail because of misunderstanding, disinterest, or perverse incentives.  Understanding such incentives is essential to any sort of progress in risk management of  proliferating national and global threats.  Self-protection aims to reduce the chances of loss. This reduction may require the use, or threat or promise of use, of defensive military weapons or, depending on context, the use of offensive military weapons. Japan's constitution limits Japan to use of defensive measures only, even if Japan and the USA have formed a military alliance. This places Japan at an “economic corner solution” of providing only self-insurance. However, the Abe government intends to change the interpretation of the constitution so that Japan can provide a full range of self-protection as well as self-insurance. With the prospect of such constitutional change, this book becomes of special relevance to Japan's national security.