재정준칙과 독립재정기구의 상호보완성이 재정건전성에 미치는 영향*: 의회 거버넌스를 고려한 EU 27개국을 중심으로

초록

This study empirically examines whether the effects of fiscal rules and independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) on fiscal soundness vary with parliamentary governance, using panel data for 27 European Union member states over the period 2015–2024. While prior research has largely focused on the adoption of fiscal institutions or cross-institutional comparisons, relatively little attention has been paid to the political and legislative contexts that may condition their effectiveness. To address this gap, this study measures fiscal rules and IFIs in terms of their functional strength rather than mere existence, and estimates a dynamic model of the structural fiscal balance using the System GMM estimator to mitigate endogeneity and dynamic panel bias. The results are as follows. First, the standalone effects of fiscal rules and IFIs are not statistically robust with respect to the structural fiscal balance. Second, their interaction term is positive and statistically significant, providing evidence of institutional complementarity: fiscal performance improves when fiscal rules and IFIs are jointly strengthened. Third, the moderating effect of parliamentary governance, proxied by bicameralism, is not statistically significant, contrary to theoretical expectations. Fourth, the structural fiscal balance exhibits strong persistence, being heavily influenced by its lagged value. These findings suggest that fiscal soundness depends less on the presence of individual institutions than on their complementary interaction within an integrated governance framework. For policy design, this implies that fiscal rules and IFIs should be developed as mutually reinforcing components of fiscal governance, rather than as isolated reforms. In the Korean context, this underscores the need to pursue the legal institutionalization of fiscal rules alongside strengthening the functional independence and analytical capacity of IFIs as part of a coordinated strategy.

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