The current study evaluates the role of a democratic institution—participatory budgeting—in improving government efficiency. Participatory institutions aim to enhance governance, information sharing, and the responsiveness of political agents to citizens, leading to fiscal accountability and efficiency. Drawing from a database of 221 municipal governments in South Korea around a mandatory participatory budgeting adoption period, we find that participatory budgeting adoptions are followed by improvement in multiple dimensions of government efficiency. In particular, municipal governments experience statistically significant improvements in their fiscal sustainability and administrative efficiency. In additional analysis, we find that the efficiency improvements are more pronounced in the presence of strong mayoral leadership. Overall findings suggest that participatory budgeting programs contribute to fiscal health and administrative efficiency, above and beyond their role in securing fiscal democracy.

Points for practitioners

The current study suggests that participatory budget systems not only contribute to quality in democracy (as prior studies have found), but also improve fiscal efficiency and accountability by serving as a bottom-up governance mechanism. We document that introductions of participatory budgeting programs are followed by statistically significant improvements in fiscal sustainability and administrative efficiency. The results also indicate that the efficiency-improvement effect differs across municipalities, depending on their political environments. Overall, this study provides a strong argument for the participatory budgeting system by empirically supporting its efficiency-improvement effect.

中文翻译：

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参与性预算和政府效率：韩国市政府的证据

当前的研究评估了民主机构（参与性预算）在提高政府效率方面的作用。参与机构旨在加强治理，信息共享以及政治代理人对公民的反应能力，从而实现财政问责制和效率。从韩国221个市政府的数据库中得出关于强制性参与式预算采用期的信息，我们发现参与式预算采用率在政府效率的多个方面得到了改善。特别是，市政府的财政可持续性和行政效率在统计上都有显着改善。在其他分析中，我们发现，在强大的市长领导下，效率提高更为明显。

从业人员要点

当前的研究表明，参与性预算制度不仅有助于民主质量（如先前的研究所发现的），而且还可以通过充当自下而上的治理机制来提高财政效率和问责制。我们记录到，引入参与性预算计划后，财政可持续性和行政效率在统计上有显着改善。结果还表明，效率提高效果在各个城市之间有所不同，具体取决于其政治环境。总体而言，本研究通过经验支持其效率改善效果，为参与性预算制度提供了有力的论据。