A Study of the Impact of the Fiscal Decentralization on the Regional Disparity: Focus on 16 Metropolitan and Provincial Governments of South Korea

This paper examined the impact of fiscal decentralization of regional disparity by analyzing a 16 Metropolitan and Provincial Governments of South Korea using the multiple regression analysis.According to the analysis, local governments' revenue and expenditure decentralization have a different impact on regional disparity each other.Financial independence ratio and fiscal self-reliance ratio indicators, those relate to local governments' revenue decentralization have a statistically significant correlation with regional disparity.However, the impact of local governments' expenditure decentralization on regional disparity was relatively weak.There is a limit to conclude that the progress of decentralization has a positive influence on easing the regional disparities.For these reasons, in order to achieve balanced regional development and easing the regional disparity, it is necessary not only to improve the financial capacity of each local government and progress fiscal decentralization, but also consider the policy that includes central governments' fiscal adjustment intervention to be parallel.