지방정부의 재정건전성에 영향을 미치는 정치적 요인에 관한 연구

A Study on Political Factors Affecting Fiscal Soundness of Korean Local Governments

This study identifies the political factors that affect the fiscal soundness of Korean local governments. Previous studies on fiscal soundness of Korean local governments have been mainly focused on research on the fiscal system, the relationship with the central government, and the level of spending in specific sectors. However, this study focuses on the local government s political system and political environment in terms of fiscal institutionalism. Therefore, this study is an exploratory study that examines the political factors that affect the fiscal soundness of local government through panel data analysis. As a result, when the integrated financial balance ratio was set as the dependent variable, the divided government variable, the power concentration variable and the local council representative variable were statistically significant. The fiscal balance was likely to poor in the case of divided government, high concentration of power in council, and high resident representation. When the debt-to-budget ratio was set as a dependent variable, the party of governor of the local government and the proportion of proportional representatives were significant. The debt ratio was likely to be high when the Governor was belonged to left party and when the proportion of proportional representatives in local council was high. The results of the analysis were generally consistent with theoretical predictions.