妊婦健診公費負担額における相互参照行動

In this paper, the public burden for physical check-up of pregnant women is considered. This is a public expense that must be implemented by local governments independently. Public expenditure in this regard may be determined strategically by local governments to take into account the public behavior of other local governments. Through observation of the public policy levels of neighboring local governments, other local governments within prefectures, and similar local governments, local governments may verify the strength of the impact of public expenditure in other local governments and set their own public expenditure accordingly. Our estimation results make it clear that the policy levels of the neighborhood and similar local governments raise the public expense burden of a municipality. Local policy making is strongly influenced by the public policy levels within the same prefecture, neighboring local governments, and local governments of comparable financial standing and scale. Our results show clearly that cross-reference behavior between local governments raises public expenditure for the physical check-up of pregnant women.