The Effects of various factors in particulate matter projects on related budget allocations

Abstract

Even though the Korean government directs majority of the funds allocated to solving poor air quality into projects related to transportation on the road, why it the performance of these projects not as good as other projects? To answer this question, this paper explores the impact of various factors on the budget of particulate matter in Korea by using a panel data analysis tool, the pooled OLS. After examining the relationship between factors and budget allocation in particulate matter projects, this research examined various features of projects with larger budget allocation. This paper focused on the performance indicator used in managing projects, the field, and the characteristic of projects through the ANOVA and Chisquare analysis. As a result, field factors can affect the budget of particulate matter response projects. This paper also found that there are relationships between field factors and performance indicator factors. Specifically, the transportation_road project which showed low performance with rich financial sources mainly used output indicators. On the other hand, industry projects which had a good performance result in reducing particulate matter emission with a small budget used both output and outcome indicators, not focusing on only output indicator. This gives implications for performance management and for budget allocation with performance information. Simultaneously, this paper showed that the performance achievement rate used by the government in the evaluation of each project did not relate to the budget. This foundation means that the performance evaluation tool the government used was not so effective. The Korean government needs to improve performance management and evaluation, thus encouraging use of outcome performance indicators could better align with desired goals. This research had limitations in gathering performance results from a whole field approach, not from each project. The limitation is natural given that tracking real performance results from each and every individual project is beyond the reach of any government. To verify the cause and effect between performance indicators and real results, further studies are needed to give more detailed implications to governments.