지방공기업 부채 절감방안에 관한 소고

Abstract

With the rise of the needs and demands of local residents, local governments have established increasing number of local public enterprises (corporation) to cope with such needs and demands. As long as local public enterprises perform their proper roles, the rising trends in the number of local public enterprises is not alarming. Unfortunately, however, one of the primary reasons why the number of local public enterprises and their roles are rapidly expanding is to cover budget deficit in general and special accounts of the general government. Although part of the causes of local debt increases is associated with fiscal policy of the central government, it lies more with the structure and governance system of local public enterprises, institutional limits, and moral hazard on the part of local government and public enterprises. To address such problem, we recommend that proper rules and regulations be instituted when considering an establishment of new public enterprises. Second, an effort must be made to enhance local governance capacity to cope with governance and collaboration problem. Third, local public enterprises must do every effort to run their entity in an efficient and effective manner so that they can control their budget deficit. Overall, we believe that an enhancement of local governance capacity along with institution of proper rules and regulation must follow to cope with mounting debt in the local public enterprises.