Electoral Institutions, Hometowns and Favored Minorities Evidence from Japanese Electoral Reforms

Abstract This paper presents evidence that electoral institutions affect the geographic distribution of both candidate electoral support and government resources. I exploit two electoral reforms in Japan to identify the effect of institutional incentives: 1) the 1994 electoral reform from a multi-member district (MMD) system to a mixed single-member district/proportional representation (SMD/PR) system; and 2) the 1925 electoral reform from SMD system to a MMD system. Using several new datasets, the two main findings of this paper are: 1) the electoral support of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politicians is more concentrated around their hometowns in MMD as compared to SMD systems; and 2) intergovernmental transfers are more concentrated around LDP incumbents' home offices in MMD as compared to SMD systems. In addition to being consistent with the theoretical results i