An inquiry into the opportunistic behavior by decision makers : Heisei Municipality Amalgamation in Japan

这项研究通过考察市政市长的累积任期如何影响预算规模和地方政府合并来重新审视民选官员的任期问题。多任期在职者通过边做边学，从政府支出中获得更大的寻租潜力。他们在制定预算方面的努力程度随着任职年限的增加而增加，因此预算规模往往随着累积的市长任期而增加。他们也更有可能寻求合并，在合并中，他们的地方是占主导地位的实体。我们使用日本市政当局的数据检验了这些假设，发现长期任职的市长扩大了公共活动，并参与了与规模较小的合作伙伴的合并。

This research revisits the issue of elected officials’terms by examining how the cumulative tenure of municipality mayors affects budget size and local government consolidations. Multi-term incumbents enjoy greater rent-seeking potential from government expenditure through learning-by-doing. Their effort levels in budget formulation rise with the length of service and thereby budget size tends to grow with cumulative mayoral terms. They are also more likely to pursue mergers in which their localities are the dominant entities. We test these hypotheses using data on municipalities in Japan and find that long-serving mayors expand public activities and engage in consolidations with smaller partners.