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

Concluding remarks

The two major findings of this study are as follows:

Firstly, it was 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 was 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.

References

Breton, A., and R. Wintrobe. “The Logic of Bureaucratic Conduct: An Economic
Analysis of Competition, Exchange, and Efficiency in Private and Public
Organizations.” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, (1982).

Chant, J. F., and K. Acheson. “The choice of monetary instruments and the theory of

bureaucracy.” Public Choice, 12(1972): 13-34.

Davidson, R. and J. MacKinnon. “Estimation and Inference in Economics.”

Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, (1993).

Downs, A. “Inside Bureaucracy.” Little, Brown and Company, Boston, US, (1967).

Fujimoto, Y., Y. Ohiwa, H. Kawanobe, K. Kurokawa, and A. Yokoyama. “Yosan-haibun
to Seijiteki-youso [Allocation of budgets and its political factors].” Public Choice

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