This study aims to advance our knowledge about the role of public participation in formulating budgetary decisions of local governments. By focusing on participatory budgeting as a prominent form of public participation in the budgetary process, we posit that participatory budgeting serves two important roles in aligning the fiscal outcomes of local governments with citizen preferences: (1) increased transparency of the local budget and (2) improved budget literacy of citizens. This study investigates a link between participatory budgeting and the fiscal outcomes of local governments by utilizing data drawn from Korean local governments for seven fiscal years. Employing instrumental variable regression to address endogeneity, there is strong evidence that public participation and deliberation during the participatory budgeting process have a positive association with the fiscal balance. There is also weak evidence that the authority delegated to participatory budgeting participants affects the fiscal balance. The findings of this study imply that it is the quality of public participation that matters in holding the government accountable for its fiscal decisions.

中文翻译：

---

将公众参与理解为影响政府财政结果的机制：参与式预算的理论和证据

本研究旨在加深我们对公众参与在制定地方政府预算决策中的作用的认识。通过将参与式预算作为公众参与预算过程的一种突出形式，我们认为参与式预算在使地方政府的财政结果与公民偏好保持一致方面具有两个重要作用：（1）提高地方预算的透明度和（2 ) 提高公民的预算素养。本研究利用韩国地方政府七个财政年度的数据，调查参与式预算编制与地方政府财政成果之间的联系。使用工具变量回归来解决内生性，有强有力的证据表明，参与式预算编制过程中的公众参与和审议与财政平衡呈正相关。还有微弱的证据表明，授予参与式预算参与者的权力会影响财政平衡。这项研究的结果表明，公众参与的质量对于让政府对其财政决策负责。