This may end up marginalising subnational entities in greater financial distress, as they cannot afford to pay the remaining share of the matching funds (Kim et al., Standardised, earmarked and conditional grants in Korea often end up restricting the flexibility of local authorities, thus reducing their ability to meet local demands and risking sub-optimal spending (Jones and Yokoyama, 2005). Interestingly, this concern seems to fade when comparing the per-capita amount of subsidies from MOLIT and the financial independency rate of local governments, which shows a strong negative correlation: the higher the financial independency rate of the metropolitan city or the province, the less subsidies the latter received from MOLIT (Figure 1.23).