"Soft-Budget Constraints and Local Expenditures"

This paper investigates how the soft budget constraint with grants from the central government to local governments tends to exaggerate inefficient local expenditures. We first develop a theoretical model, which explains soft budget problem in a multi-government setting. We then show that in Japan's case local governments implemented inefficient public investments and hence the bad outcome of soft budget problem occurred in the 1990s.

Simulation Analysis of Debt Management Policies to Ensure the Sustainability of Japan's Public Debt (Japanese)

Amid increasing concern over the sustainability of Japan's public debt, Christian Broda and David E. Weinstein presented a paper (2005), arguing that Japan's public debt levels are sustainable. They make estimates based on simple accounting calculations of data from Japan's System of National Accounts (SNA) and state that net liabilities of the Japanese government are not so imminently large and Japan can achieve fiscal sustainability by securing a viable level of the government revenue-to-GDP ratio. However their simulation analysis includes overly optimistic scenarios. Therefore, by reconsidering the research of Broda and Weinstein, this paper seeks a more objective analysis of policy management needed to ensure the sustainability of Japan's public debt. This study closely verifies the estimates of Broda and Weinstein and then conducts a wide range of simulation analysis with different scenarios. Also the definition of government debt is reconsidered. For instance, most of financial assets held by the Japanese central and local governments, which are not supposed to be allotted to debt redemption, should not be offset to acquire the net debt. In addition, the recent (FY2002-2005) deterioration of the fiscal balance is taken into consideration. The results of this analysis indicate that a higher government revenue-to-GDP ratio than Broda and Weinstein's estimates is required in order for Japan's public debt to be sustainable. Specifically, Japan would need to raise its government revenue-to-GDP ratio from the current level of 30% to approximately 36%, which suggests that both reduction of social benefits and a comparable tax increase are required to achieve fiscal sustainability.

Central Bank Independence Promotes Budgetary Efficiency

This paper shows theoretically that inefficient public expenditure can be institutionally curtailed by an independent central bank. An advantage of our analysis is to employ a two-country model with cash-in- advance constraints. The model can deal with fiscal policy as well as monetary policy with considering international interdependence. Each government decides the levels of public goods provision and a lump-sum tax, and each central bank chooses the quantity of money supply, to maximize its own households' utility. When the central bank is not independent of the fiscal authority, that is, when fiscal policy is determined before monetary policy, the public good is oversupplied. When the central bank is independent (monetary policy is predetermined), however, the expenditure level is efficient. Because the government cannot decide the provision of public good in anticipation of seigniorage. Thus, an independent central bank can promote cuts of budgetary inefficiency.Central Bank Independence; Public Goods; Cash-in-advance Model

Sustainability, Debt Management, and Public Debt Policy in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to analyze sustainability issues of Japan's fiscal policy and then to discuss the debt management policy using theoretical models and numerical studies. We also investigate the desirable coordination of fiscal and monetary authorities toward fiscal reconstruction. We include a potential possibilities of the government bonds in our theoretical model The public bonds, therefore, cannot be sold when the issuance leads the amount of debt outstanding to be more than a certain level. In this respect, the fiscal authority has to take into account the upper limit of stocks of public debt. This possibility of debt default provides the fiscal authority to issue public bonds strategically in an earlier period. A strategic behavior of fiscal authority induces the monetary authority, in a later period, to boost output and raise seigniorage revenues to eliminate the distortion of resource allocation due to the limitation on debt issuance. Therefore, the monetary policy in a later period suffers from an inflation bias from the ax ante point of view. There are two ways to eliminate this distortion toward successful fiscal reconstruction. One of them is to make the monetary authority more conservative than society in the sense that the price stability weight of monetary authority is higher than that of society. The other way of eliminating the distortion of the resource allocation is to design an institutional ceiling on the debt issuance. The direct ceiling can provide a binding constraint of the public bond issuance for the fiscal authority of Japan because it has accumulated the debt outstanding much more than other countries.

Sustainability, Debt Management, and Public Debt Policy in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to analyze sustainability issues of Japan%u2019s fiscal policy and then to discuss the debt management policy using the theoretical models and numerical studies. We also investigate the desirable coordination of fiscal and monetary authorities toward fiscal reconstruction. We include a potential possibilities of the government bonds in our theoretical model. The public bonds, therefore, cannot be sold when the issuance leads the amount of debt outstanding to be more than a certain level. In this respect, the fiscal authority has to take into account the upper limit of stocks of public debt. This possibility of debt default provides the fiscal authority to issue public bonds strategically in an earlier period. A strategic behavior of fiscal authority induces the monetary authority, in a later period, to boost output and raise seigniorage revenues to eliminate the distortion of resource allocation due to the limitation on debt issuance. Therefore, the monetary policy in a later period suffers from an inflation bias from the ax ante point of view. There are two ways to eliminate this distortion toward successful fiscal restoration. One of them is to make the monetary authority more conservative than society in the sense that the price stability weight of monetary authority is higher than that of society. The other way of eliminating the distortion of the resource allocation is to design an institutional ceiling on the debt issuance. The direct ceiling can provide a binding constraint of the public bond issuance for the fiscal authority of Japan because it has accumulated the debt outstanding much more than other countries.

"Sustainability, Debt Management, and Public Debt Policy in Japan"

The purpose of this paper is to analyze sustainability issues of Japan's fiscal policy and then to discuss the debt management policy using theoretical models and numerical studies. We also investigate the desirable coordination of fiscal and monetary authorities toward fiscal reconstruction. We include a potential possibilities of the government bonds in our theoretical model The public bonds, therefore, cannot be sold when the issuance leads the amount of debt outstanding to be more than a certain level. In this respect, the fiscal authority has to take into account the upper limit of stocks of public debt. This possibility of debt default provides the fiscal authority to issue public bonds strategically in an earlier period. A strategic behavior of fiscal authority induces the monetary authority, in a later period, to boost output and raise seigniorage revenues to eliminate the distortion of resource allocation due to the limitation on debt issuance. Therefore, the monetary policy in a later period suffers from an inflation bias from the ax ante point of view. There are two ways to eliminate this distortion toward successful fiscal reconstruction. One of them is to make the monetary authority more conservative than society in the sense that the price stability weight of monetary authority is higher than that of society. The other way of eliminating the distortion of the resource allocation is to design an institutional ceiling on the debt issuance. The direct ceiling can provide a binding constraint of the public bond issuance for the fiscal authority of Japan because it has accumulated the debt outstanding much more than other countries.

"Japanese Fiscal Reform: Fiscal Reconstruction and Fiscal Policy"

This paper evaluates the recent movement of Japanese fiscal reform. We first summarize fiscal policy in 1990s. Then, we investigate several relevant topics of fiscal policy such as the macroeconomic impact of government debt and the ustainability problem. We then consider dynamic properties of fiscal reconstruction process by analyzing the dynamic game among various interest groups. This paper points out that the long-run structural reform is more important than the short-run Keynesian policy in Japan.

Paying for the FILP

This paper examines the financial health of the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP) as of the end of March 2001. We study the financial conditions of FILP recipients, which include public corporations and local governments. We find many are de facto insolvent. Our estimates suggest as much as 75% of the FILP loans are bad. The expected losses are estimated to be about ¥75 trillion (over 15% of GDP). We also studied the effects of the FILP reform of April 2001, which tries to introduce market discipline in allocation of FILP funds. No significant changes in financial flow are detected, yet. The financial market seems to differentiate the newly introduced FILP agency bonds, which are supposed to without government guarantee, from government guaranteed bonds. It is too early to tell, however, whether the financial market will become an effective monitor of FILP agencies