Making the FILP Budget

Abstract

AbstractThe community of organizations whose members contributed to the processes of making and carrying out the Fiscal Investment Loan Programme (FILP) Budget in Japan was extensive. Its membership, drawn from a wide variety of statutory and non-statutory organizations and groups, was broadly of two kinds, distinguished by the concentration of resources of authority, information, and organizational expertise, and the regularity of interaction. Those (parts of) organizations, and groups within them, that interacted on a regular and routine basis in the processes of making and/or carrying out of FILP policy had ‘insider’ status. ‘Outsiders’ had some contact irregularly with other members of the policy community, over some policy issues or problems, but their interactions tended to be formal or ad hoc and non-routinized. This chapter looks at the FILP policy community, the politics of postal savings, how the size of the FILP Budget is determined, the process of allocation of funds to local governments as well as FILP agencies such as the Housing and Urban Development Corporation, in-year budget revisions, and implementation of the FILP Budget.