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

to accept higher levels of set-aside acreage because of an accumulated glut of rice. In
order to achieve this high targeted set-aside acreage, government changed the stance
towards lending their ears to farmers’ complaints at regional level. This might have
played a role in collecting information about the acceptability of each region. It is
convincing that the explanatory power of the model shows highest performance during
this middle part of the period. In other words, this middle part of the period is a typical
age when the political situation which is depicted by the model can actually be
observed.

The explanatory power of the model decreased again during the last part of the
observation period. The reason may be inferred that government changed the basic
direction of allocation from an artificial and intentional policy-oriented principle to a
market-oriented principle.

Bureaucrats’ behaviors as rational individuals

One of the points of this study is that, even though bureaucrats in Japanese ministries
are not political appointees, it is suggested that the allocation of the rice set-aside
program by bureaucrats’ discretion can be revised by political pressure. Therefore, the
incentives that force bureaucrats to accept such political pressure should be clarified.

Among the principles of bureaucrats’ behaviors which have been explained in
previous studies in the field of public choice, the budget-maximizing principle
presented by Niskanen (1971) is one of the most plausible and widely accepted.
However, this theory cannot apply to this case of set-aside programs because it is not a
matter of budget but one of regulation¹⁵. On the other hand, as Downs (1967) and Chant

¹⁵ Regulation theories, such as the conceptual model by Peltzman (1976), seem to be
applicable. Nevertheless, it is difficult because the model assumes that government as a
policy maker and bureaucrats as those in charge of its implementation are aimed at
maximizing the probability of being re-elected. This means that bureaucrats are political
appointees. This is not suitable for the case of Japanese bureaucrats who are not

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