Monopolar Concentration in Tokyo and Promotion of Urban-to-Rural Migration

This study proposes a simple framework for ex ante evaluation of migration subsidy. The Japanese government has recently initiated a migration subsidy program to promote urban-to-rural migration for the purpose of regional revitalization under the economy with monopolar concentration in Tokyo. The ex ante evaluation framework proposed in this study formulates the payout period of interregional migration as investment behavior. In the model, households compare the sum of the expected flow of net benefits available each year after the migration with the lump sum costs of migration, which are not explicitly observable for researchers. The migration subsidy leads to an incentive of interregional migration by reducing the payout period. Using the structural estimation with the interregional migration flow data, this study finds that households confront different migration costs at each stage of life. Counterfactual simulations provide scientific insight into the potential impact of migration subsidy, helping policymakers determine the optimal amount under the budget constraint.

The English version of this paper is 22-P-031.