Empirics of the median voter hypothesis in Japan

Takero Doi

Empirical Economics, 1999, vol. 24, issue 4, 667-691

Abstract: This paper empirically analyses for the first time the median voter hypothesis in Japan as a means of investigating whether or not Japanese prefectural finance reflects the preference of the median voter. The hypothesis is tested by estimating the demand functions of local public goods in each prefecture. As official data on the income of the median voter is unavailable in Japan, respective prefectural data is constructed using official data on income distribution and taxation. Reasonable intuitive interpretation of results indicates that the median voter hypothesis is supported in prefectural finances, and that voter preference affects the outcome of gubernatorial elections, i.e., a governor's reelection probability, by estimating a probit model. When considering the centralized prefectural government system in Japan, these results indicate that central government management of prefectural expenditures via inter-regional grants ultimately reflects jurisdictional median voter preference.

Keywords: Median voter hypothesis; local public goods; Japanese prefectural finance; gubernatorial elections; probit model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-11-24
Note: received: December 1997/Final version received: February 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00181/papers/9024004/90240667.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:empeco:v:24:y:1999:i:4:p:667-691

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... rics/journal/181/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Empirical Economics is currently edited by Robert M. Kunst, Arthur H.O. van Soest, Bertrand Candelon, Subal C. Kumbhakar and Joakim Westerlund

More articles in Empirical Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().