Did the Standard Tax Rate of Local Tax Affect the Efficiency of Regional Economy in Japan? : An Application of Stochastic Frontier Analysis <Article>

我が国の地方税に係る標準税率の経済的メリットは、必ずしも明確でない。そうしたなか、この問題を巡る代表的な先行研究である矢吹（2004）の理論モデルから導き出される結論と、1950年代中頃には地方税率を標準税率未満に設定する市町村が全国各地に存在したという事実に着目し、その後の各地方自治体による標準税率以上への税率引き上げが当該地域経済の技術的効率性を高める要因になっていたのか否かを、確率的フロンティア分析の手法を通じて確認した。推定の結果、矢吹（2004）で指摘されているように、標準税率には地域経済の技術的効率性向上に向けた自治体の行政努力を高める効果があったことが明らかになった。したがって、我が国で課税自主権拡大の観点から現行の標準税率を撤廃することの是非について考えるに当たっては、標準税率の政治的・経済的なデメリットに加え、その経済的メリットにも目配りすべきであると考えられる。The economical merits of the standard tax rate concerning the local tax in Japan have not necessarily been clear. The theoretical model in Yabuki (2004) which is a representative previous work over this problem concludes that the standard rate as a de facto minimum of the rate of local tax improves the efficiency of regional economy through encouraging administrative effort of the local government. Additionally, in Japan, there were not a few local governments which set the local tax at the rate lower than the standard tax rate in the mid-1950s. Paying attention to both, I checked with stochastic frontier analysis whether tax rates above the standard tax rate raised by each local government had brought improvement in technical efficiency of the regional economy concerned. As a result of estimation, it became clear that there was an effect of the standard tax rate which encouraged administrative efforts of local governments toward improving technical efficiency of regional economies as pointed out in Yabuki (2004). In recent years, expansion of tax autonomy of local governments is one of policy issues in Japan. In considering whether the present standard tax rate should be abolished from a viewpoint of tax autonomy expansion, we should also watch the economical merits of the standard tax rate in addition to the political and economical demerits