Abstract
As a 70th Anniversary Article for the Japanese Forest Economics Society, this study reviewed past research on public finance and local government in forest policy. Since the 2000s, many studies have been conducted on public finance research, including those by public finance researchers and especially on Forest Environment Taxes. As for research on local government, studies based on expectations of local government expanded in discussions about forest management in the early 2000s, but interest gradually shifted to practical issues such as personnel capacity. Research on municipal forest administration thus became the main focus. While these studies have succeeded in clarifying specific themes and advancing research methods, however, fundamental discussions on how public finances and local autonomy should be handled in forest policy have not yet been sufficiently addressed.
