Parliamentary grants in the context of the implications for regional development

The paper focuses on the regional differention in allocation of the financial resources distribu- ted through parliamentary grants in the period of 2003 - 2007. The aim is to contribute to the de- bate on public financial flows within the territory of the Czech Republic as it has been recognised by both scholars and some policy-makers on the international scene that explicit regional develo- pment support might induce only limited regional impact in comparison to vigorously pursued se- ctoral and other public policies. It is argued that the volume of finance allocated within the system of parliamentary grants represents significant share of investment part of the state budget. In total, the share counts to 14,7 % on average over the investigated period i.e. CZK 12 billion annually. Moreover, the nature of grants supported by members of the Chamber of Deputies corresponds to the spheres addressed within the ministerial subsidies programmes, for instance, within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports or the Ministry for Regional Development. In other words, parliamentary grants sponsor activities according to regional subjective interests of the involved actors and not on the basis of objective criteria. The results of the regional analysis carried out on the NUTS 4 level confirm that there are significant disparities among Czech districts in the received financial volume per capita. Indeed, the Moravian districts recorded the above average financial allocations with respect to the Czech average. Accordingly, these regions were more successful in obtaining of the total number of grants. As a result, detected pattern of the regional distribution of parliamentary grants might bring significant spatial impact. Moreover, it might influ- ence developmental opportunities of particular municipalities of the same level of the settlement hierarchy as these public sources are allocated to the territory missing any objective evaluation of the real needs