Dry Rot: The Corruption of General Subsidies in Japan
Dry Rot: The Corruption of General Subsidies in Japan
复制标题
干腐：日本一般补贴的腐败
DOI：
10.1080/1354786022000007889
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发表时间：
2002
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
A. Dewit
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Dewit
在短短几年内，日本超过20万亿日元的一般补贴制度已经从神圣的牛变成了改革菜单上的一个重要项目。这一发展反映了以小泉纯一郎首相为代表的改革派势力的崛起，以及他们对自民党保守派对日本经济管理不善的批评。然而，取消一般补贴的合法性也有一个较长的轨迹。它源于财政过度集中和政府间财政体系中浪费补贴的蔓延。日本在上世纪80年代中期进行的大规模财政改革预计会出现截然不同的局面。他们认为扩大一般补贴和地方发起的公共工程是克服具体补贴明显削弱政治的重要手段。人们普遍忽视的是改革带来的巨大道德风险。没有人能预见到20世纪90年代，当时中央政府越来越多地将地方公共工程资金作为其财政政策的一部分。因此，本文追溯了日本一般补贴制度的政治经济学，以及它通过分肥桶激励而日益丧失合法性。它还概述了当前关于如何改革该体系的争论。
Within a few short years, Japan's over ¥20 trillion system of general subsidies has gone from being a sacred cow to a salient item on a menu of reforms. This development reflects the rise of reformist forces, notably Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, and their critique of the Liberal Democratic Party old guard's extraordinary mismanagement of the Japanese economy. The delegitimation of general subsidies has, however, a longer trajectory as well. It derives from excessive fiscal centralization and the spread of wasteful subsidies throughout the intergovernmental fiscal system. Japan's extensive fiscal reforms in the mid-1980s anticipated a very different scenario. They saw the expansion of general subsidies and locally initiated public works as important means for overcoming the clearly debilitating politics of specific subsidies. What was generally overlooked was the great scope for moral hazard that the reforms entailed. And no one could have foreseen the 1990s, when the central government increasingly force-fed the locals public-works funding as part of its fiscal policy. This paper therefore retraces the political economy of Japan's general subsidy regime and its increasing delegitimation through pork-barrel incentives. It also sketches the current debate over how to reform the system.