지방교육재정교부금에 대한 재정제도주의적 해석 = A Fiscal Institutional Perspective on Local Education Financial Grants

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Primary and secondary education finance has become a focal point of discussions on budget reductions as declining birthrates and decreasing school-age populations intensify. However, efforts to reduce funding for primary and secondary education appear unlikely to achieve their intended outcomes easily. This calls for an analysis of the endogenous and exogenous institutional factors surrounding education finance policies and the primary funding source—local education financial grants.
Previous studies on local education financial grants have mainly focused on micro-level aspects, such as distribution methods. In contrast, a macro-level institutional approach, as suggested by fiscal institutionalism, sheds light on the structural reasons that make it difficult to reduce primary and secondary education budgets. From the perspective of endogenous institutional factors, primary and secondary education finance heavily relies on national funds in the form of local education financial grants. These grants increase in proportion to national tax revenues rather than reflecting actual educational demands. Such characteristics create an environment prone to common resource problems in education finance. In addition, stakeholders—including the government, educational organizations, members of the National Assembly, and provincial superintendents—tend to act in ways that maximize their interests. Elected officials, in particular, often engage in budgetary populism and politics aimed at gaining public approval. Under these endogenous and exogenous institutional factors, the interactions among stakeholders within this institutional context make it difficult to restructure the current financial system for primary and secondary education.