Regionalism and redistribution in South Korea (pdf 186K)

In South Korea, it has been widely known that an incumbent president allocates a disproportionally larger amount of intergovernmental transfers to regions with more loyal supporters. It has been also believed that despite a government change in 1997, this positive and linear relationship between support for an incumbent president and allocated public funds did not change.

This paper shows that neither is valid. Based on a formal model, we argue that an incumbent president allocates a larger amount not only in his own turf but also in his rival's and a smaller amount in regions where votes are divided more evenly between candidates. This quadratic relationship between vote and money is highly significant under the Kim Young Sam administration (1993--1997) but not significant during the Kim Dae Jung administration (1998--2002).

• Resource link:
  http://apseg.anu.edu.au/ degrees/pogo/discussion_papers/ PDP04-5.pdf
• Published: 2004
• Source: Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government (http://apseg.anu.edu.au)
• Added to ADG on: 09 December 2004 , contributed by: APSEG
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