Huh, Won-Jea
(2009)
Politics and Economics: Theory and Evidence from Korea's Regions.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Because there is a controversy about the relationship between democracy and development, my objective is to clarify this confused intellectual landscape by using Korean regional data covering the years 1971-2001. This is a period that spans Korea's transition from dictatorship to democracy. In this dissertation, I use civil society organizations (CSOs) as a yardstick for quantifying the level of regional democracy. And, I test for the impact of CSOs on economic growth and key public goods − such as education and health services, and social overhead capital (SOC) − under the dictatorship and under a democracy. The democratization of Korea in 1987 forms the boundary between the autocratic and democratic regimes. And, it also provides a good opportunity to identify and compare the efficacy of fiscal decentralization in the different political systems. Accordingly, estimating the impact of fiscal decentralization on socioeconomic development before and after 1987, I examine whether the level of fiscal decentralization stimulated by democratic system leads to better public goods. First, the least-squares analysis with fixed effects shows that political civil society has beneficial effects on education and health services but unfavorable effects on SOC and regional domestic product, experiencing a democracy. Moreover, nonpolitical CSOs have also had an ambiguous influence on economic outcomes under a democracy. This is consistent with existing literature arguing that the CSOs can be either rent-seekers and/or proponents for social welfare. A surprising finding, however, is that in general political and nonpolitical CSOs are strongly associated with good economic outcomes under the autocracy. I develop a conceptual framework for interpreting these findings. My analysis also indicates that fiscal decentralization is not always more efficient under a democracy. In fact, with the exception of health services and SOC, fiscal decentralization has a negative association with many economic outcomes under a democracy. All results are robust to the specification checks and the panel corrected standard errors (PCSEs) method.
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Details
Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
Status: |
Unpublished |
Creators/Authors: |
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ETD Committee: |
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Date: |
30 September 2009 |
Date Type: |
Completion |
Defense Date: |
29 July 2009 |
Approval Date: |
30 September 2009 |
Submission Date: |
16 July 2009 |
Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Economics |
Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
Refereed: |
Yes |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Civil Society; Democracy; Public Goods and Services; Economic Growth; Fiscal Decentralization |
Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07162009-215736/, etd-07162009-215736 |
Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 19:51 |
Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:46 |
URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8406 |
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