Effects of Government Characteristics on the Quality of Life
Posted by Lee Chae-jeong, Associate Research Fellow (chaelee@nafi.re.kr)
This article examines how the characteristics of a government defined as quality, size, and function influence the quality of life of its citizens by applying fuzzy-set analysis on data from 30 OECD counties. The results show that quality of life is enhanced when the quality of government, or its policy effectiveness, is maintained at a certain level, while increase in government size, spending, and intervention has a negative impact. Based on the premise that the government’s quality and size are at a certain optimal level, quality more likely increases when the economy is stabilized by the market mechanism and security is guaranteed both internally and externally than when the government is actively involved in producing public goods. Thus, without economic and social stability, expansion of social policy is unlikely to have a positive impact on improving quality of life as was intended.
Keywords : government quality, government size, government function, quality of life, fuzzy-set
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