바그너 법칙이 지방재정 성장에 미친 영향에 관한 연구

Local finance in Korea has surprisingly improved after returning to Local Autonomy system. This study has been conducted to analyze the actual effects of Wagner's Law on it. Wagner's Law was set when the activities of European countries were rapidly expanding, and has become to be one of the essential elements to the growth of local finance. The theory is as follows: If the income is higher, if the society is more industrialized, and if the population is higher, the public sector will get bigger, and, thus, the local finance will grow as well. This study will show how Wagner's Law affected the local finance in Korea for 10 years between 1996 and 2005 after getting back to Local Autonomy. Pooled time-series regression analysis was used to analyze, and this study indicates that income and population do have a clear relationship with the growth of local finance in Korea. However, industrialization, which was assumed to be influential in the hypothesis, did not show meaningful impact on the growth of local finance. Hence, Wagner's Law, which suggests that income, population, and industrialization will have direct influence on the growth of local finance, can be concluded to apply partially to the growth of local finance in Korea.