The Korea Local Administration Review

This paper addresses to review theories related to restructuring of local government system focused on the criteria for reorganization and optimal government size, conflicting views on consolidation, and alternatives of the consolidation. The results are: 1) the criteria for reorganization are often conflict each other and optimal government size is various according to governmental functions, 2) reformers propose large local government through consolidation while public choice scholars are against the consolidation, 3) there are many alternatives for solving regional problem besides consolidation. Based on the review, this paper diagnoses that the current drive for restructuring local government system in Korea is biased too much toward the district consolidation which is very difficult to implement and costly.