In the history of the local autonomy in Korea, the local election and local finance were played as important factors for the actual local autonomy. The local election makes the political decentralization on the aspect of that it elects head of the loc...
In the history of the local autonomy in Korea, the local election and local finance were played as important factors for the actual local autonomy. The local election makes the political decentralization on the aspect of that it elects head of the local government and local assemblyman, and the local election makes the economic decentralization on the aspect of that it processes a region problem by the their own.
However, currently the low participation in local elections and the weak local finance have been made local autonomy difficult. Particularly, the news about the loose finance management of the local government have often been reported, even some of the local government declared Moratorium just after the local election.
This research paid attention to the relation between the local election and local finance operation. The effect of an election had been gradually expanded in the finance management of local government since the its head and a local assembly began to be organized by residents.
In this circumstance, judging the effect about the local finance of the specific variables, such as the local election, could offer basis of the determination that is about positive or negative effect of a variable in the management.
Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of local election on the performance of the local finance operation. For this purpose, the research model and hypothesis were set up based upon the theoretical consideration and preceding research related to the local election and the performance of the local finance operation.
The turnout of voters in a local election and vote for local government's head were selected for the independent variable.
General characteristic of the local government(reliance rate of local finance, population and public finance scale), characteristic of an election(conformity with party between upper and lower level head of the local government, the party of head of the local government, reelection of head of the local government), and the direct democracy system which had relations with the local finance(citizen participatory budgeting system) were selected for the control variable.
The performance of the local finance operation consisted of the soundness(the rate of current expenditures, the rate of personnel expenditures, the rate of redemption of a debt, the balance index of a debt), efficiency(the rate of event․festival expenditures, the rate of transfer expenditures to private sector, the rate of investment, the rate of end of the year expenditures), and planning(the rate of budget execution on mid-term financial planning, the rate of budget execution on investment and loan, the rate of settlement revenue to a budget of revenues, the rate of settlement revenue to a budget of expenditures) of the local finance analysis index as dependent variables. The verifying hypothesis and analysis were performed based on the research model described in the above for 230 local governments. The result of the analysis through multiple regression analysis are as follows.
Firstly, when turnout of voters in a local election rose, the soundness field of the local finance was decreased(the rate of personnel expenditures, the rate of redemption of a debt, the balance index of a debt). Therefore, the effort for high turnout of voters in a local election could be helpful for the soundness improvement of the local finance.
Secondly, when turnout of voters in a local election rose, the rate of event/festival expenditures was increased. However, the transfer rate of expenditures to private sector was decreased. There is the tendency that it spends more event․festival expenditures from the region where participating rate of a resident is high in the local election. Therefore, management of the event․festival expenditures over a standard rate should be required.
Thirdly, when turnout of voters in a local election rose, the rate of budget execution on investment and loan was increased. But the rate of settlement revenue to a budget of revenues was decreased. It means that spend more than an original budget plan in the region which the local election participating rate of a resident is high. Therefore, managing the proportion of settlement revenue to a budget of revenues over a standard rate should be required. Meanwhile, the head of local government and the vote rate was exposed to do not have effect among the independent variable in all indexes of the local finance analysis.
These results suggest that whether the local election could influence on the performance of the local finance operation. In the analysis, there is a negative effect on the rate of settlement revenue to a budget of revenues of the planning field and the rate of event and festival expenditures of the soundness field in the region where participating rate of the local election is high.
Consequently, the local finance variable negatively affected by participating rate of a local resident has to be managed with the effort for raising the local election participating rate of residents.