• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.49-74
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• 2022

This paper empirically examines how fiscal instability affects financial instability. According to an IMF forecast (2021a), the fiscal space in Korea will be steadily reduced in the future. The theoretical literature predicts that if fiscal stability is undermined, financial stability will also be in danger given that government guarantees on banks are weakened and/or sovereign bonds held in banks become riskier. This paper empirically finds the existence of this negative impact of fiscal instability on financial instability. I also find that the intensity of this fiscal-financial relationship is greater in a country where (i) its currency is not a reserve currency such as the US dollar or euro, (ii) its banking sector is large relative to government sector, and/or (iii) its private credit to GDP is high. Korea has all of these three characteristics and hence needs to put more effort into maintaining fiscal stability.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.23-36
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• 2014

Recently economic crisis has brought world economic instability. Each country in order to stabilize the economy, fiscal rules are introduced or reinforced. Fiscal Policy in a country plays an important role in determining the economic situation in the present and future. Existing fiscal rules tend to place a rigid limit not only on the deficit ratio and thus on the scope for fiscal stabilization, but also on the extent to which fiscal policy can be used for structural purposes. But the fiscal rules are operated in many ways and adopted in various forms, with different binding of each other, according to their own fiscal situations, and political circumstances. This study shows several important factors for successful National fiscal system and continuous fiscal soundness and development.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.157-177
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• 2010

This study analyzes the effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth by using each province city's panel data of China from 1985 to 2008. By using Recently developed fiscal decentralization index and autonomy of local government quantified this study finds the following conclusions. The increase of inflation rate affects positive effect on Chinese economy. This is the trade-off relationship with the growth of Chinese economy by the Phillips Curve theory. So this suggests the instability of Chinese economy. The affiliation of WTO of China shows positive effect on Chinese economy. This can be translated as the real evidence about free trade theory of Classical School. Expenditure decentralization in China led to economic growth and revenue decentralization also affected positively although it was not as much as expenditure decentralization's effect. Central tax and local tax negatively influenced economic growth; and differently from our expectation, local government autonomy quantified was not relevant to economic growth.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.41-67
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• 1991

Local autonomy of Korea's lower-level local council has been reinstated following elections last March for the first time in thirty years. Last June, we had elections for the upper-level local council. Mayors, governors, and administrative chiefs of cities, provinces and other local government bodies are slated for elections in the first half of next year. The impacts of local autonomy are taking effect in not only the political sphere, but also the administrative and economic spheres. In fact, it seems that some modification of all economic policy making and administration is inevitable. Since the initiation of local autonomy, in order to make the economy work more efficiently, it has become quite important to examine the impact of local autonomy on the national economy. The areas of local autonomy include independent legislative power, administrative power, organizational power, and most important of all, the independent public financial power of the local governments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of local autonomy on the national economy and ways of enhancing the role of local public finance to facilitate settlement and development of the local autonomy system. Local autonomy will contribute to the continuous growth of our economy, allow balanced development, and generate greater efficiency. However, local autonomy can also incur economic costs causing at times short-term price instability, inefficient resource allocation, through tax competition and tax exporting, and insolvency of local government due to abusive fiscal operation. To reduce these side effects, different alternatives must be considered. Local autonomy systems generally provide more efficient resource allocation than centralization. But in the model used in Chapter 3 of this paper, the relative efficiencies of both local autonomy and centralization are determined by comparing the elasticity of substitution between national public goods and local public goods. If the elasticity of substitution is bigger than one, centralization provides a more efficient resource allocation. The development of local autonomy could be attained through democratization of the local public finance system including the following three propositions. I) The independence of public financial power of local governments should be established over central government. Furthermore, a democratically operated scheme of intergovernmental fiscal coordination is especially necessary. 2) In the operation of local finance, direct democracy is needed to induce the voluntary participation of local residents. The residents can take part in planning both the local budget and the development of the community. To attain this goal, all the results of local finance operations should be made public. 3) Among economic ill-effects of the local autonomy system, the most serious one is the possibility of insolvency of local governments. Therefore, measures to limit abusive spending by the local governments should be introduced, such as the fiscal restraints system adopted in the United States.