This paper examines what influences life satisfaction and happiness of the elderly in China, from the perspective of the social attributes of the elderly and the filial piety of their children. It also studies the effects of the Chinese government’s support services for the elderly in terms of these life satisfaction and happiness levels. In addition, it tests the hypothesis that party cadres and civil servants feel more life satisfaction and happiness, while farmers feel less life satisfaction and happiness, to see who feel more life satisfaction and happiness in China. Moreover, it has already been shown that people in Bhutan feel a sense of happiness even if they are not economically affluent. China is entering an era of low economic growth, thus, the introduction of such policy indicators of happiness and their application to elderly welfare policies will contribute to the search for low-cost models of elderly support and to the improvement of the efficiency of elderly support services.

　Laws and systems regarding the protection of personal information in Japan are currently undergoing major changes. The system for personal information protection in Japan has been decentralized, because that the idea of local autonomy was emphasized, and some local governments enacted personal information protection ordinances that were more advanced than the law of national government. Such decentralization was maintained even when the Personal Information Protection Law was enacted in 2003. The national government has been involved in the protection of personal information of local governments to a certain extent only.

　However, in the areas of handling personal information when a large-scale disaster occurs and handling personal information related to medical care, the decentralized system has become more troublesome. For this reason, the system for personal information protection has come to be unified in recent years. In this paper, we examine this transformation process of from decentralized system to unification lead by national government.

　There is no concrete understanding of the extent to which residents benefit from the various administrative services provided by the national and local governments.

　In this study, as an approximate approach to understanding the beneficiaries of residents, we attempt to understand the balance (= return) between public services in monetary terms, i.e., expenditures by the national and local governments as “residents’ benefits” and taxes borne by residents as “residents’ burdens,” by region.

　As a result of the estimation, the excess of benefits continues at the national level, and the regional incidence shows that urban areas are heavily burdened, non-urban areas are heavily benefited, and the national government’s involvement in bringing this about continues to be significant. On the other hand, in non-urban areas, it was recognized that the benefits from local governments are increasing.

　It is necessary to review the relationship between the central government and the local governments to ensure a comfortable living environment by providing administrative services that are more suited to local conditions, and to maintain fiscal discipline by ensuring that these services are borne appropriately by local communities. For this reason, it is important to constantly measure and understand the benefits and burdens of residents.

　In the situation that people infected with COVID-19 increase, some municipalities have reduced or exempted water charges to support the livelihoods of residents. This paper analyzes the factors behind the reduction and exemption of water charges for 26 municipalities in Kyoto Prefecture among 14 months from January 2020 to February 2021. First, since the existence of special grant from the national government was introduced during this period, I analyze the impact of that information. Secondly, this exemption is being implemented in multiple municipalities. From this situation, I examine whether cross-reference behavior with other municipalities influenced municipalities for the choice of the reduction and exemption of water charges. In this paper, some variables that are weighted using the distance between municipalities buildings for the verifying this influence from other municipalities are adopted.

　As a result of the analysis, it was found that the municipalities were not affected from the information informed of the existence of the special grant. On the other hand, it was found that the reduction or exemption of water charges in municipalities may affect the same behavior in other municipalities.

　Various empirical studies both qualitatively and quantitatively have shown that policies diffuse across local governments through learning. Although people often regard it as a phenomenon that only good policies are survived, it is not necessarily the case. By reviewing existing theoretical findings, the present study aims to identify the conditions under which policy diffusion yields a good outcome. Based on the literature of policy experimentation, we first argue that policy diffusion through policymakers’ learning does not work when a free-riding problem across local governments is severe. Based on the literature of yardstick competition, we next argue that policy diffusion through voters’ learning fails when the electoral accountability system does not appropriately work in each local government. We finally discuss how we should design political institutions to make policy diffusion work.

　This paper examines the effect of Osaka citizens’ preference for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture government on their support for Hirofumi Yoshimura, a governor of Osaka prefecture. Many scholars point out that TV media have a strong influence on citizen attitudes, and Yoshimura’s high approval ratings are caused by the media effect. However, this paper argues that Osaka citizens’ preference for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture governments directly and indirectly result in Yoshimura’s consistent popularity. First, this preference indirectly affects the approval of Yoshimura via partisanship in local politics. Second, this preference also directly affects the approval for Yoshimura, because of the strategy of Osaka-Ishin-no-Kai, which aims to solve the problem of dual administration in Osaka. The results of the empirical analyses show that Yoshimura’s high approval ratings stem not only from perceptions of his political leadership abilities, but also from public support for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture governments.