Author(s)

Rena Akamatsu, Kazuki Hiraga^*

School of Political Science and Economics, Tokai University, Kanagawa, Japan.

This paper investigates whether the Japanese local government debt is sustainable. We apply the fiscal stabilization rule that each local government improves their primary balance in the current year when they issue additional debt the previous year. We check it using panel data of the Japanese prefectural governments. We find that Japanese prefectural governments were not sustainable across 1956-2007, though were sustainable across 1956-1989.

Prefectural Government, Fiscal Sustainability, Fiscal Stabilization Rule

Akamatsu, R. and Hiraga, K. (2015) Fiscal Sustainability of Japanese Prefectural Government Debt. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 3, 88-92. doi: 10.4236/jss.2015.38009.