财政分权与政府公信力关系:韩国案例分析

The relationship between fiscal decentralization and trust in government:evidence from the South Korean case

今天,为了更好地响应本地居民的多样化需求,更有效地维护公共利益,很多发展中国家继续实施财政分权制度。然而,人们对财政分权与政府公信力之间的联系仍然知之甚少。本文以韩国为案例开展实证研究,分析财政分权制度如何提高政府公信力——不仅包括国家层面,还包括地方层面。本文进行了多水平回归和面板数据分析,研究成果部分证实了赞成财政分权的研究的结论,即地方财政自主权的增长与政府公信力呈显著正相关。具体而言,我们发现随着财政分权制度的完善,公众对地方政府的信任度也相应提高。此外,我们的研究还发现,在提升政府公信力方面,收入分权的效果往往比支出分权更加明显。这个结果表明,从长远来看,比起赋予其支出自主权,允许地方政府拥有自己的收入来源,能够帮助地方政府更好地响应公众需求。

To date,many developing countries have continued to implement fiscally decentralized governance systems to respond o the diversified needs of local residents more effectively and to better act in line with the public interest However,lttle is known about the fiscal decentralization-trust link.Focusing empirically on the South Korean case,this study examines how financially decentralized governance might increase government trustworthiness not just at the national level,but also at the local level.The results of multilevel regression and panel data analyses partly confirm the results of pro-fiscal decentralization studies in that the growth of local fiscal autonomy is positively and significantly related to public trust in government Specifically,we find that as fiscal decentralization improves,levels of trust in local government also rise.In addition,our findings show that in terms of having higher levels of public trust in government,the impact of revenue decentralization tends to be greater than that of expenditure decentralization.This evidence implies that allowing local governments to have their own revenue sources rather than expenditure autonomy can be a way to better respond to people's needs in the long run.