38 Asia The Economist May 21st 2022
of 16.6, the highest in the oecdafter New
Zealand. Japan’s ratio of 7.5 is among the
lowest.
The problem of high house prices keep
ing young families from settling down is
not unique to Asia. But Japan’s housing
market is different. Unlike most rich coun
tries, it has planning rules that make it rel
atively easy to build more homes. Housing
stock in Tokyo has consistently grown fast
er than the city’s population (which is also
still rising). Also, Japanese homes are not
built to last, so they are demolished and re
placed regularly. Wooden Japanese homesare deemed by the tax authorities to depre
ciate in value to zero over 22 years. That
means that the secondary market in resi
dential property is more limited, and gives
landowners an extra incentive to rip down
old buildings and build taller ones.
Economists debate how much of Ja
pan’s relatively affordable housing is down
to those policies on supply and construc
tion, and how much is down to the coun
try’s slow economic growth. But either
way, the ease of building in popular areas is
likely to keep prices in check.
Many Japanese are glad that their country seems likely to avoid total demographic
collapse. But Japan still has by far the worst
oldage dependency ratio, or the number
of people over 65 (a lot) relative to the num
ber of workingage people (not enough),
among rich Asian countries. That has ef
fects on everything from the affordability
of health care for the elderly to the size of
the government budget dedicated to pen
sions. The drop in fertility rates elsewhere
presages similar problems to come for the
countries following inJapan’s footsteps.
They may find there are lessons to be
learned from Japan.nI
t is themiddle of 2021. An Indian
woman on her way to London ap
proaches the customerservice desk at
Frankfurt airport and presents her vacci
nation certificate. The airline agent looks
at the document, at the woman, at the
document again, and frowns. Something
is fishy. An accusation of fraud is hurled
at the passenger: the certificate is an
obvious fake, the photo on it is clearly of
someone else—a bearded man! Ah, the
passenger explains: that is Narendra
Modi, our prime minister. He is on every
one of the billionodd vaccine certif
icates issued by the Indian government.
Hilarity ensues.
The story, probably apocryphal, went
viral on Indian social media last year
because it gets at a truth known to all
Indians: that the prime minister is ines
capable. He peers out from newspaper
advertisements extolling his achieve
ments. He adorns the homepages of
government websites. He beams down
from billboards across the country.
But for the vast majority of Indians
who do not read the papers or access
government websites, it is in the provi
sion of welfare that the prime minister’s
stamp is most clearly visible. The names
of most new schemes bear the prefix
pradhan mantri, or prime minister. Bags
of governmentsponsored grain deli
vered to poor villagers during the pan
demic came emblazoned with his smil
ing face. A housing programme named
after Indira Gandhi, a former prime
minister, was expanded and relaunched
under Mr Modi as the “Prime Minister’s
Housing Scheme”.
For those who liked and shared the
Frankfurt airport story, the prime min
ister’s tendency to put his name on
everything is a sign of megalomania, or a
sinister attempt to build a personalitycult. The reality is more sophisticated: Mr
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) has
worked out how to claim credit for things
people like.
In 2014, as the bjptook power after
years in opposition, Lokniticsds, a poll
ing group, asked Indians whom they cred
ited for welfare programmes. Just over a
fifth pointed to the federal government in
Delhi for a housing scheme, and a little
more than a quarter did so for a rural jobs
guarantee. By the time of the 2019 election,
after Mr Modi’s first term, more than half
of all respondents attributed both to the
central government. For newer schemes,
such as to provide cooking gas or bank
accounts, 70% correctly credited Delhi.
Opposition parties running state gov
ernments are learning from Mr Modi that
they should associate themselves with
their handouts. In newspaper ads Uddhav
Thackeray, the chief minister of Maha
rashtra, highlights cash payments to
families of covid19 victims. The head of
Rajasthan points to his state’s “model of
health care”. It is “clearly copycatting what
they did on the national level”, says Neelanjan Sircar of the Centre for Policy
Research, a thinktank in Delhi.
For poor Indians, the benefits are
clear. Not only does the central govern
ment have a bigger incentive to improve
their lives; states also feel the need to
compete with it in munificence. It is
better, too, for Indian democracy for
politicians to pitch for votes based on the
services they provide rather than on the
grievances they stoke. Despite the bjp’s
constant drumbeat of Hindu majoritar
ianism, it is the party’s record of provid
ing basic goods that appeals to many
more voters, including Muslims.
But there are pitfalls, too, notes Milan
Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, an American think
tank. It is easier to run schemes that
yield quick, concrete results, such as
building toilets or opening bank ac
counts. Investments in intangible goods,
such as education and health, take longer
to pay off. And it is hard to withdraw or
curb handouts, making them a never
ending, everexpanding fiscal liability.
A third danger is that funnelling all
credit to the top robs local mps of their
connection with voters and centralises
power. Party defections are thus com
mon. Indeed, even chief ministers of
bjprun states have to be content with
being the supporting act in their own
regions: it is Mr Modi’s image that looms
large. That may not be a huge concern for
either voters or senior leaders today. But
it means that little thought is given to
developing future talent.
Lacking a charismatic leader, the
Congress party for years named its wel
fare schemes after dead luminaries,
reaping little reward. Today, the bjphas
no star besides Mr Modi. When he is
gone, his heir may have to keep relying
on that ubiquitous bearded visage. India’s politicians have figured out how to turn welfare into votesBanyan Attributary state