Inter-Jurisdictional Comparison of Public Asset Utilization in Tokyo Metropolitan Local Governments

Abstract

Japanese local governments have been significantly undergoing reform to pursue better efficiency of public services, where public assets play a pivotal role. Optimizing public asset utilization possibly entails efficiency improvement. Using a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis, this paper estimates efficiency scores, regressed on various composites of public assets for Tokyo’s 49 local governments (23 special wards and 26 Tama cities) over the 2008–2017 period. Our evidence suggests that the special wards could invest more in living and infrastructure and lessen shared services with their higher-tier government. In contrast, the Tama cities could increase their educational assets and curtail infrastructure investment.