This paper investigates the municipal amalgamation effect on expenditure for elderly in Japan. We focus on the expenditure for elderly for the following reasons. First, the expenditure for elderly has private goods character, which is different from total expenditure studied in previous studies. Second, the municipal amalgamation effect gives suggestions for association policy (cooperation with municipalities) for elderly care in Japan. Our approaches are DID (difference in differences) and Matching estimations used in policy evaluation in Economics (Reingewertz (2012), Miyazaki (2013), Abadie and Imbens (2004, 2006, 2011) ) by using municipal-level panel date from 2000-09 (1707X10). We found that the municipal amalgamation effect on expenditure for elderly does not have a cost reduction effect found in the previous studies focusing on total expenditure (Reingewertz (2012), Miyazaki (2013) ). Conversely, the effect on expenditure for elderly has an increasing effect due to private goods character, which does not produce economies for scale in comparison with public goods.

　In the Japanese municipal National Health Insurance, about 70% of insurers have made extralegal transfer from general account and/or appropriation mode in advance in special account for National Health Insurance program. When we have seen in its total of all, such transfer and appropriation mode amount to near 550 billion yen in the 2011 fiscal year. In between the National Health Insurance officials, they have been regarded as a compensation of National Health Insurance financial deficit. The purpose of this study is to analyze why they are performed. In this study, I examine it by using the panel data of Japanese municipality. As a result, it is statistically significant for support contribution for the healthcare system for the elderly aged 75 and over, insurance premium, ordinary adjusting subsidy, debt service burden ratio and Communist Party votes rate about transfer and for the health insurance benefit(although some models only), insurance premium, ordinary adjusting subsidy, insured population density per square kilometer, net taxable amount and insurance base stability transfer about appropriation mode.

　This research evaluates the benefit of public facilities. We focus on these because while supply of public facilities has become excessive in accordance with the decline of population, demand for public services will change. We select Kobe city, where has a large population and fiscal scale. Moreover, there are a lot of public facilities close to inhabitants.

　A hedonic approach with Geographic Information System (GIS) is used for empirical examination. Our results suggest that residents in Kobe city strongly confirm the benefits of public facilities. Our policy implication is that scientific and quantitative investigation on the priorities and cost-effectiveness of public facilities is important in order to understand the needs of local residents.

　The Japanese government categorizes municipalities into groups of"similar" entities through the Categories of Similar Municipalities, and provides information on fiscal performance within the group through the Tables for Fiscal Comparison. Thus, the central government intends to let municipalities use this system to identify their"reference of comparison"and utilize its fiscal information as a reference for fiscal planning. We take advantage of this system of fiscal information to derive a municipal personnel expenditure function that is strategically dependent on other municipal personnel expenditure, and examine if interdependence among personnel expenditure exists. Our examination indeed shows that there is such fiscal interdependence.

　This paper examines the effects of an inheritance tax on inequality between generations focusing on asset holding. The inheritance tax is taxation on transfer of assets and is likely to have influence on the correction of inequality in households' assets. It, however, cannot be so effective in the short run. On the other hand, it can have influence for long periods because inheritances are inherited from generation to generation.

　But, these effects are substantially affected by an ancestor's motive for asset. In the life-cycle model, an ancestor tries to avoid severer burden of inheritance tax and willingly consumes his own assets after leaving office. In this case, the inequality in assets decreases both inter and intra generations. In contrast, in the Dynasty model, an ancestor is likely to try to increase his inheritance reacting against the inheritance tax. As a result, the inheritance tax does not necessarily reduce the inequality.

　James Buchanan is well known and praised for his pioneering contributions to Public Choice and also for having launched Constitutional Political Economy, and eventually received the Nobel Praise in economics in 1986. The latter research program is usually regarded as a form, a branch, or an extension of public choice.

　On the other hand, though not explicitly pointed out in our country, Buchanan's definition of economics (as catallactics or a science of exchange) and his understanding of market mechanism (as spontaneous order), are not only specific, it is also quite different from the definition of economics that mainstream economists (especially, neoclassical welfare economists) retain and, above all, opposed to the definition of economics that many public choice theorists use. The latter have, in effect, adapted the Robbins 1932 definition of economics as a science of choice that Buchanan criticizes and rejects. Therefore, Buchanan' constitutional political economy does not match well with the common understanding of public choice theory as in the textbook and cannot be a branch of public choice. In order to correctly understand Buchanan's political economy, we must start from knowing exactly the reason why Buchanan has always been, and remains, an outsider.

　Normative constitutional political economy of Virginia School has achieved to explain modern democracies from individualistic foundations. Starting from the three core premises, namely the methodological individualism, rational behaviors of acting entities and transactions, the establishment of governments are successfully explained using the two-stage social contracts model. In this setting a "veil of uncertainty" is a crucial concept which make a self-interested individual act fairly. But the notion of normative constitutional political economy has several controversial points when applied to policy advices.

　In this paper I investigate the methodological foundation of normative constitutional political economy as well as its underlying social philosophy. When applying it to a policy advice, it has a strong advantage of methodological consistencies to other normative assertions such as the explicit declare principle of value premises. But the normative individualism of normative constitutional political economy will gain its validity in modern democracies only with the unanimous support of individuals involved.