Year of Publication



Martin School of Public Policy and Administration

Degree Name

Master of Public Policy

Committee Chair

Dr. Merl Hackbart

Executive Summary

South Korea has implemented strong land use regulations controlling the growth of the capitol region (Seoul, and around areas) in order to encourage balanced regional development between the capitol area and the non-capitol area. However, there are ongoing debates about the relationship between the regulatory policies and the balanced regional development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of the effect that the land use deregulation in the capitol region has on growth of both regions. To address this question, I use a difference-in-differences model to empirically analyze how the land use deregulation in the capitol region in 2008 has affected the economic growth of the capitol and non-capitol regions.

The results suggest that the deregulations in the capitol region have no significant effects on the change of GRDP. In other words, the regulatory policy in the capitol region does not promote balanced regional development because the deregulation does not restrict the economic growth of the non-capitol region. Moreover, the GRDP has a high correlation with the factors related to productivity such as economically active population and operating surplus. One possible explanation for this result is that the difference of economic growth between regions depends on the difference of productivity in each region. Therefore, Korea’s government needs to consider policies that promote productivity of less developed regions to balance the regional growth.