4. Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to analyze the e¤ects of spatial development policies on regional income equalities in Korea and to test whether structural changes in the causality of inequality connected with development policies took place during the period from 1971–1997. This study demonstrated that the distribution of regional incomes was positively correlated with the spatial distribution of educational services, employment opportunities, transportation and water supply facilities, and information network variables, whereas the regional disparity was negatively correlated with per capita GDP and the urbanization process. An adjustment period of about three years would be required in order to identify the full e¤ect of these spatial development policies on regional income inequality. Finally, impacts of decentralization policies on regional inequality were shown to fluctuate until the early 1980s, but these
influences began to stabilize as industrial restructuring and spatial reorganization progressed during the 1990s.
In order to apply the results of this paper to the assessment of investment priorities for regional development strategies, the cost of regional policy indicators should be quantified in monetary terms. Government expenditures to reduce the Gini coe‰cient of educational services by 1% point are expected to be very di¤erent from those of regional information networks by the same % point. As such, the higher elasticity in the spatial distribution of educational services alone does not warrant priority being given to investments in higher educational institutes in the less-developed regions. Also, if causation between the spatial distribution of regional incomes and regional employment ran in both directions, it would be necessary to develop a structural equation model to determine the regional income disparity in further research of this kind.
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