In Japan, as compared with the US and some EU countries, the independent policy think-tanks, above all, so called “advocacy think-tanks” have been so far less developed and valued in public governance. But, major shift in sociopolitical paradigm in recent years, such as new emergence of various “policy-networks” and complication or sophistication in policy issues like climate changes requires, in the field of public governance, promotion of making good use of the specialized or coordinated “APAOs” (Alternative Policy Advisory Organizations) represented by active thinktanks. Lately, even in local governance, so called “municipal think-tanks” established mainly by city-governments have been increasing in the process of decentralization. This situation, as well as popularization of “manifesto” as policy-package, can be considered a sign of introduction of “evidencebased policy making” into Japanese local governance.

The decentralization of power from Japan's central government to its local governments has led to an interesting development at the local level: the establishment of think tanks by local governments. The author calls these “local government think tanks.”

The author defines local government think tanks as “institutions（organizations）organized to conduct serious research on local government policies and to propose solutions to specific problems.”

These local government think tanks can take various forms, including incorporated foundations or third-sector（non-profit）organizations. The types of organizations discussed in this paper are local government think tanks established as part of a local government. For example, the Policy Research Institution of Toda is located at Toda City Hall, and the Shinjuku Institute for Policy Studies is located at the Shinjuku City Office.

Using these think tanks as examples, this paper discusses the trend toward local government think tanks and identifies the challenges and prospects related to their future development.

The municipality think tank is a research organization that independently approaches the increasingly complex and diversified problems the municipalities have and improves policy-making capabilities of the municipality.

Through summarizing the approach of the Joetsu City Policy Research Unit, to which I belong, I think that important roles of municipality think tanks are to provide data for policy making, to propose policies, to promote administrative reforms, and so on.

In order to fully perform such role, it is necessary to harmonize apparently contrastive elements such as closeness and independent, specialty and comprehension. In addition, with maturity of administrative management, the organizational forms of municipality think tanks should progress from project-type to comprehensive-type, and network-type.

This study aims to determine the factors causing automobile CO₂ emissions increase, and to make forecasts toward year 2020. Rapid aging and a sharp decrease in population are expected to reduce CO₂ emissions in local city areas. However, analysing three factors, periodical, aging, and cohort, it is estimated that population will decrease, yet increased car dependency among elderly men and women across all age groups will lead to a increase of automobile CO₂ emissions.

This paper investigates the possibility of crowding out that the so-called local forest ecotax could bring to The Green Donation, and studies compatible measures. Fund-raising for The Green Donation is carried out in 47 prefectures under the Fund Raising for Greenery Law, and is used to support forest improvement such as planting trees in water resource areas, greening promotions including forest development in residential areas, and volunteer activities. The local forest ecotax began in Kochi Prefecture in 2003, and it is currently institutionalized in 30 prefectures. The tax revenues are used to improve forests and support volunteer activities. Using the model described by Andreoni（1989, 1990） for the private provision of public goods, I analyze the possibility of crowding out, and provide an empirical study about the results.