Participatory budgeting and the pattern of local government spending: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

We use a panel of Korean municipalities to examine the impact of participatory budgeting on local government expenditures. We find that participatory budgeting systematically alters the pattern of local spending. Municipalities using participatory budgeting reallocate resources toward more immediate and visible expenditures and away from long-term development expenditure. We also find evidence that participatory budgeting affects the municipal budget by a greater amount than the expenditures directly allocated through participatory budgeting. Our findings indicate that participatory budgeting leads to the reallocation of local public spending by increasing information flows between policymakers and service users.