The long-term care insurance system introduced in 2000 is now indispensable for our daily lives, but due to the rapid increase in demand, the service cost has increased rapidly, putting a burden on local government finances, and there is a problem with the sustainability of the system.

　Under these circumstances, community-based services were introduced in 2006, and are expected to be an opportunity for promoting home care from high-cost facility care. This thesis verified the effect of the service using the supplier density as an explanatory variable. Two-phase model was used in the analysis. The first phase is user's voluntary demand. The second phase is supplier-induced demand, which is often discussed in medical economics.

　As a result, community-based services were effective in reducing demand for facility services in terms of voluntary user demand, and were also observed with facility services in terms of supplier-induced demand.

　Constitutional political economy (CPE) is a subprogram of public choice. As Buchanan (2003) formulated, it has three hard core of presuppositions that impose limits on the domain of scientific inquiry. Those are (1) methodological individualism, (2) rational choice, and (3) politics - as - exchange. Based on these three presuppositions, this paper reviews the departure, development and future of CPE.

　The idea of a two - stage social contract and a veil of uncertainty, as well as the three presuppositions, are point of departure for CPE from the benevolent despot (BD) model of the mainstream economics. Development of CPE saw Leviathan modelling of governments, the expressive voting concept as a reply for the paradox of not - voting. Reformulating the concept of uncertainty, the rational choice concept and variations of preference from the homo - economics model of an individual actor are examined. Grants and exploitation as well as exchange can be incorporated in the future of CPE research. Brief prospects on the deflation equilibrium and irrational choice of economic agents, a voter model in a super aging society and CPE under the forth industrial revolution are given.

　I am very honored to contribute an article to this issue of Public Choice Studies as the 4th President of the Japan Public Choice Society: 2009－2012.

　The founders of Public Choice Society, such as Buchanan, Tullock, Downs, Olson, and Niskanen, tried to challenge the failure of Arrow’s Social Choice Theory to reflect realities.

　I would like to stress four points in this research field and method in order to further Public Choice studies in Japan. First, Public Choice scholars should undertake research on global issues beyond nation - state boundaries. Second, they should consider analyses of economic or political crisis and increasing catastrophes in the global scale. Third, although scholars in this field usually do not carry out the data collection, it is becoming more important for them to attempt to collect primary data through surveys. Fourth, given the dominance of Public Choice studies on the industrialized western societies, it is necessary to encourage studies about non - western societies.

　This Essay describes an onlooker's evaluation of the Public Choice approach and articles from a methodological point of view. The strong but cool attitudes and articles of Public Choice founders and research followers based on 'Positivism' effectively have influenced to so - called Main Stream Academician in economics and political science. No one denies the above observations, the special, outstanding and innovative example is about skillfully description of Rent - Seeking Behavior developed by G. Tullock, who is the real founders of Public Choice as well as enormously distinguished J. M. Buchanan.

　From an onlooker's eye, an enthusiastic characteristics of Public Choice have gradually been rarefying, so I expect young and motivated fellows of the Japan Public Choice Society starting to develop the other innovative and path - breaking concepts to analyze fundamental political and economic malaise and abuses.

　The author has researched the field of "public choice" for over 40 years, ever since the dawn of public choice studies in Japan. This paper discusses the dawn of public choice studies in Japan through a personal viewpoint, reviews the origins of public choice studies, and proposes Japanese research topics that should be explored in the future.

　Based on primary documentary evidence, the paper describes the contribution of the late Professor Hiroshi Kato to the founding of the Japanese Public Choice School in the mid - 1970s. In Japan, Professor Kato was one of the first to consider collective decision - making in democracy based on debate and discussion by each member of society, namely "deliberative democracy." This leads us to consider the location of deliberative democracy in the constitutional political economy. Finally, the paper points out that the challenge of public choice studies in Japan is to conduct research on history, theory, and policy in the context of Japan’s own democracy, to clarify the problems that exist in the current Japanese democratic system, and then to present possible solutions.

　In the past, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) was called "the strongest government agency". When the consumption tax was introduced in Japan, the MoF played a leading role in persuading the prime minister's office. But what about today's Treasury? Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has twice postponed a planned increase in the consumption tax rate. Despite the Ministry of Finance's resistance.

　Many of Japan's tax and political research focuses on the strong initiatives of the MoF. However, since the establishment of the Personnel Bureau of the Cabinet, strong intervention in the bureaucracy through personnel affairs at the Prime Minister's Office has been pointed out. How have the appointments of bureaucrats at the Finance Ministry changed?

　Using the network theory, this paper clarifies the transition of the personnel system of bureaucrats. Specifically, the bureaucratic personnel system, which had been closed and stable, has become open and unstable. In addition, posts at the Prime Minister's Office, which were once rare, are now placed in the bureaucratic personnel system. This indicates that the relationship between the MoF officials and the prime minister's office has been strengthened in the bureaucracy related to taxation.

　This paper discusses taxpayer paradox in Japan. We define tax payer paradox as the situation with high tax morale but strong tax resistance. Based upon our own survey, we first show that tax morale in Japan is high. Furthermore, almost half respondents are against the consumption tax hike scheduled in October 2019. While trust in government is not suitable to explain the mechanism behind tax morale in Japan, we suggest that it has a weak but negative relationship with the approval for the consumption tax increase. This implies that the skepticism with regard to the Japanese government and the politicians may be a culprit of the tax resistance we define here. The Japanese government should entrench the consumption tax system so that the citizens do not have any misgiving regarding the system.