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Inter-Jurisdictional Comparison of Public Asset Utilization in Tokyo Metropolitan Local Governments

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 05 May 2022

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Abstract

Japanese local governments have been significantly undergoing reform to pursue better efficiency of public services, where public assets play a pivotal role. Optimizing public asset utilization possibly entails efficiency improvement. Using a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis, this paper estimates efficiency scores, regressed on various composites of public assets for Tokyo’s 49 local governments (23 special wards and 26 Tama cities) over the 2008–2017 period. Our evidence suggests that the special wards could invest more in living and infrastructure and lessen shared services with their higher-tier government. In contrast, the Tama cities could increase their educational assets and curtail infrastructure investment.

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Notes

  1. The same applies to the amounts of assets in the second stage of regression as the independent variables.

  2. Tokyo LGs use cash budgeting and evaluate their budget performance via the budgetary accuracy of expenditures and revenue. The former indicator is generally defined as the ratio of actual expenditure to budgeted expenditure. Similarly, the latter refers to the ratio of actual revenue to budgeted revenue.

  3. The covariance structure of the random effects could not be specified for the SWs because the maximum likelihood estimation did not coverage.

  4. The significance for investment disappears in the SWs when the sample is divided into the SWs and TCs. Also, the correlation coefficient changed into a positive sign in the TCs, though statistical significance remained.

  5. The effect of population density on efficiency is still identified for both the SWs and TCs when the samples is separated (β = -0.0895; p < .01 and β =-0.0842; p < 0.10).

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Funding

This study was supported by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) research fund.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Digital Economics and E-Commerce, Vietnam-Korea University of Information and Communication Technology, The University of Danang, Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street, Hoa Quy ward, Ngu Hanh Son District, Da Nang City, Vietnam

    Thien-Vu Tran

  2. VN-UK Institute for Research and Executive Education, The University of Danang, Da Nang City, Vietnam

    Thien-Vu Tran

  3. Department of Business Administration, Graduate School of Management, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1 Chome-1, Minamiosawa, Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan

    Hosomi Shoichiro & Masayoshi Noguchi

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  1. Thien-Vu Tran
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  2. Hosomi Shoichiro
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  3. Masayoshi Noguchi
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Correspondence to Thien-Vu Tran.

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Tran, TV., Shoichiro, H. & Noguchi, M. Inter-Jurisdictional Comparison of Public Asset Utilization in Tokyo Metropolitan Local Governments. Public Organiz Rev 23, 197–218 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-021-00585-7

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