Study of the Regional Economies: Factors for Invigoration (Japanese)

Central and local governments of Japan have made efforts to invigorate the regional economies for more than half a century, but the goal has not yet been achieved. People who have been directly or indirectly involved with regional polices indicated that problems were encountered during the process of making and executing regional policies. The problems can be attributed to the following three points: There has not been enough coordination among regional policies. Almost all of the regional policies have been formulated by the central government. There has not been enough cooperation in the regional areas. After analyzing some of the above cases and considering the economic theory, we conclude that the aforementioned three points are appropriate. We also discuss the necessity of forming a new regional system that fosters more decentralized regional economies and brings about sustainable economic growth in such regions.