Are Japanese bureaucrats politically stronger than farmers?: The political economy of Japan's rice set-aside program

Are Japanese bureaucrats politically stronger than farmers?: The political economy of
Japan’s rice set-aside program

Katsumi Arahata

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the political process of bureaucrats’ seemingly
discretionary allocations among prefectures in Japan’s rice set-aside program. Some
hypotheses and a model are proposed and then these are empirically tested. Two major
findings of this study are as follows:

Firstly, it is suggested that the bureaucrats’ discretionary allocation tends to be
revised in response to political pressure. Consequently, allocations among prefectures
tend to be inversely proportionate to the degree of political pressures. Moreover, such
pressures can be explained by the expected income from rice-production and the share
of part-time farmers, who are the majority in Japanese rural society and politically
powerful.

Secondly, among various factors which are publicly announced as those used in the
calculation of allocation, it is suggested that those which may naturally reflect the
market mechanism remain influential even after revision. Similarly, the factors which
are contrary to the market mechanism, such as the share of full-time professional
farmers, become less influential.

Key words: Rice set-aside program, Bureaucrats’ discretion, Uneven allocations, Public
choice, Political actors

JEL classification: Q180, H890

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