Abstract
This paper empirically investigates economic and political factors in municipal mergers in Japan.First, municipalities can’t reach the agreement on a merger, when the income gap is large among the members in the merger council.Second, financial support from the central government does not always motivate the municipalities to make a merger, while a considerable political conflict among mayors prolongs merger talks in the council.Third, the populous municipality tends to merge with the less populated, because it can take the initiative in the council.Contrary to the prior studies, neither the size, the number , nor the demography of municipalities is statistically significant on the probability of merging.
