참여정부 지방재정정책의 실적과 평가

Evaluation of Local Fiscal Policies during the Participatory Government

The President Roh s Participatory Government has adopted the decentralization as one of four national policy agendas. In particular, the local finance roadmap by the Administration represents three important policy directions: increasing the size of local public sector relative to the central government, enhancing the fiscal accountabilities of local governments, improving the local governments abilities for autonomous decision making. According to the Roh Administration, 14 local finance related policies have been emphasized during the past five years to improve local autonomy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the Participatory Government s 14 local fiscal policies. Based on our quantitative measurement and qualitative survey, it s hard to say that the changes of fiscal arrangements during the Roh Administration have achieved their intended goals. While the local tax share and local taxing power have been remained stable over the last five years, the fiscal gap between local government expenditures and tax revenue has widened.