This study examines regional differences in local environment factors to better understand the sustainability of local governments indexed by per capita public spending. Under the condition of heterogeneous population size, we examine how factor characteristics differ depending on the spatial context represented by the urban area category. By employing a Cobb–Douglas cost function with congestion effects on public service provision, the estimated factors enable us to articulate major factors and differences in cost-efficiency between urban area categories. We found that statistical significance and even the signatures of local environment factors differ depending on the urban employment area category. Regarding factors such as the ratios of employees in secondary and tertiary industries, these did not tend to be statistically significant in small-sized urban areas, while small-sized cities in large-sized urban areas were likely to gain confidence intervals. Moreover, we did not observe any statistical significance for the ratio of elderly people due to the balance of spending between national and local governments. These findings could contribute to sustainable management of cities in the advent of population decline.

这项研究考察了当地环境因素的地区差异，以更好地理解以人均公共支出为指标的地方政府的可持续性。在人口规模异质的条件下，我们研究了要素特征如何根据城市类别所代表的空间环境而不同。通过使用对公共服务提供有拥挤影响的Cobb–Douglas成本函数，估计的因素使我们能够阐明主要因素以及城市类别之间成本效率的差异。我们发现，统计显着性甚至是当地环境因素的标志都根据城市就业区的类别而有所不同。关于第二产业和第三产业的雇员比例等因素，在小型城市地区中，这些趋势在统计上往往不显着，而大型城市地区中的小型城市则有可能获得置信区间。此外，由于国家和地方政府之间的支出平衡，我们没有观察到老年人比例的任何统计意义。这些发现可能会随着人口减少的到来而对城市的可持续管理做出贡献。