Political Determinants of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: Alignment, Competition, Executive Partisanship, and Electoral Cycles in South Korea

Abstract

This study examines the political determinants of intergovernmental fiscal transfers in South Korea, focusing on partisan alignment, electoral competitiveness, national executive partisanship, and election timing. Using fixed-effects panel data from 17 regions (2013–2023), the analysis evaluates competing expectations from distributive politics and political budget cycle theories. The results provide little support for alignment-based favoritism or swing targeting: neither partisan congruence nor electoral competitiveness consistently predicts higher transfers. Instead, electoral timing—particularly the dynamics surrounding presidential elections—emerges as the dominant factor. Local elections exhibit anticipatory increases in the preceding year. In contrast, presidential elections generate a distinctive pattern: transfers contract 1 year prior and surge sharply during the election year, a timing consistent with the political and administrative pressures surrounding presidential transitions. These findings highlight the central role of executive-driven temporal incentives in shaping national–subnational fiscal relations and call for a more temporally grounded understanding of distributive politics.

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