Marketing e strategie territoriali (Alfaomega) (Italian Edition)

The goal was to prioritize spending on health and education, as well as to ensure fiscal discipline - among other ends. In short, a solid tradition of federal regulation was once again employed to implement compensatory policies that would address social and geographic inequalities. Brazil's experience shows that - apart from a general identity of belonging to a national community the concept of nationhood - distrust in the willingness of local elites to implement and respect the rights of citizens can serve as powerful source toward centralizing political authority, even in federal states.

Under these circumstances, even progressive elites favorably disposed to the local implementation of public policies prefer that the federal government regulate the way in which these policies are implemented. The idea is to tie the hands of governors and mayors who, it is assumed, are eager to convert federal resources into conservative, corrupt, and clientilistic policies. As previously discussed, an adequate interpretation of decentralization requires a conceptual distinction between responsibility for policy-making and the authority for policy decision-making.

This implies avoiding a frequently employed analytical inference: To a large extent, the proposition regarding the autonomy of subnational governments in Brazil is compromised by the conflation of these two concepts. Fleshing-out this analytical distinction allows for a considerably more accurate interpretation of the Brazilian federation and the dynamics of implementing decentralized policies.

Given the historical processes summarized in the previous section, it should be clear that the central government possesses considerable tools to regulate subnational governments. Furthermore, the provision of public services and the allocation of spending are strong influenced by federal legislation and supervision. The result is that, although constituent units are politically autonomous and have responsibility for tax collection and policy implementation, their decision-making autonomy cannot be adequately interpreted if we ignore how subnational agendas are affected by federal regulation.

Therefore, any analysis of the territorial inequalities affecting Brazilian citizens requires an examination of national policies. Homogenous federal rules govern the tax authority of Brazil's constituent units. Local and state governments are not authorized to freely collect taxes, even if their citizens accept to pay them. Unlike a Tieboutian world, municipal governments are authorized to tax only urban property, services and the transfer of property.

They are forbidden to tax any other taxable basis. Therefore, the taxation authority of municipal governments in Brazil is limited to defining their own tax rates. The revenue streams of municipal government do include, however, constitutionally mandated transfers. The distribution of these transfers is governed by multiple criteria. In practice, this formula has been frozen since Rezende, Constitutionally mandated transfers at the state level operate by the principle of tax rebate.

Seventy-five per cent of the amount to be distributed must be calculated according to revenues collected in each jurisdiction. Finally, a fourth component of municipal revenues comes from universal conditional transfers. These transfers became universal on the early s and are, therefore, a more recent tool employed to reduce revenue-based territorial inequalities.

They are also compulsory earmarked to specific policies. These transfers are earmarked to cover from basic health care to hospitalization. They are also universal because virtually percent of Brazil's municipalities opted to follow the rules of the Unified Health System. With regards to education, earmarked transfers are universal because all subnational governments are obliged, by the Federal Constitution, to deposit 20 percent of their own tax revenues and federal transfers in an audited account whose redistribution occurs across each state.

For each state-level fund, revenues are distributed according to the number of slots offered. Figure 1 presents the impact of each revenue source in municipal budgets. Constitutional transfers - from the federal and state governments to municipalities - represent a significant increase in resources for municipal coffers. For their part, universal conditional transfers have had an additional positive impact. As illustrated by Figure 1 , the remaining transfers have had minimal budgetary impact.

This indicator is mostly irrelevant, because it reveals that the impact of negotiated transfers on municipal revenues is marginal. In short, it tells us little relative to the other indicators that provide data on transfers. Therefore, it is clear that a significant part of municipal revenues lies outside the realm of political bargaining, because their distribution is mandated constitutionally.

Hence, although negotiated transfers possess some relevance for political negotiations between the president and parliamentarians, their ultimate impact on municipal resources is much less relevant than assumed. Mayors receive resources from the central government independent of their political affiliation or political behavior. Although additional resources may be welcome, the supply of local public services does not depend on political relations, whether they be partisan or individual.

Most statistical analyses on the impact of constitutional transfers do not distinguish between federal or state transfers. One exception is Biderman , who disaggregated them and demonstrated that federal transfers are progressive whereas state transfers, regressive. In effect, taking central-local relations seriously requires this analytical distinction.

As previously observed, the allocation of these transfers is governed by multiple criteria. Figure 2 disaggregates the different revenue streams of Brazilian municipalities and presents their respective Gini coefficients. Results are calculated for self-generated tax-collection itself and for additional sources of revenue. The indicators therefore measure the impact of each type of transfer on revenue territorial inequality in relation to self-generated tax collection.

In this way, if Brazil's municipalities were to count only on the resources derived from their own tax collection, Gini Coefficients suggest that their spending capacity would be highly unequal close to 0. If Brazil's municipalities were only to count on state-level transfers -- namely, from ICMS and IPVA , in addition to their own self-generated tax revenues, they would be less unequal, since this revenue source reduces the Gini coefficient to approximately 0.

Put differently, the tax collection of municipalities, added to state transfers, in large part reflects the disparities in economic activity across Brazil's municipalities, given that state transfers operate as rebates. Federal transfers reduce a lot self-generated revenue inequality. Their entry into municipal coffers reduces the Gini coefficient by close to 0. That is, if Brazilian municipalities could only count on their own tax revenues and on the revenues of the Municipal Participation Fund, their revenue inequality would be cut by half.

Note that the data presented in Figure 1 indicates that federal transfers are a main components of municipal revenues. The Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Advancement of Teaching and the Unified Health System's 96 Basic Operational Norm were actually implemented in , which explains why universal conditional transfers began in this year.

Their redistributive impact have been significant. If they were the only transfer municipalities had access to, besides municipal self-generated tax collection, their effect on the reduction of revenue inequality would be similar to the Municipal Participation Fund. Beginning in , these policies began to have a more significant impact than all other resources that had previously been marshaled towards reducing revenue inequality among jurisdictions. In isolation, these policies are surely the most redistributive, because in the transfers of the Unified Health System and the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Advancement of Teaching reduced the Gini coefficient to 0.

However, it is important to note that their global impact on municipal revenues is rather limited refer to Figure 1. Negotiated transfers had an important effect on reducing revenue inequality, particularly after they were initiated in Contrary to the expectations of public choice theory, these transfers do not appear to reinforce or reproduce inequality derived from the wealth of each jurisdiction - even if their redistributive effect is more limited than the combined impact of the Municipal Participation Fund, the Unified Health System, and the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Advancement of Teaching.

Finally, municipal revenue sources altogether hover around a Gini coefficient of 0. Instead of an outcome associated with tax competition, Brazil's fiscal rules clearly reduce revenue inequality among municipalities. Whichever of the federal transfers we take - the Municipal Participation Fund or the Unified Health System and the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Advancement of Teaching - and the same for negotiated transfers, the data confirms the proposition that the poorest jurisdictions are those that most benefit from the redistributive role of transfers.

Moreover, revenue inequality reduction is not associated with political negotiations to form coalitions in support of presidential legislative initiatives. Instead, distributive mechanisms work in highly predictable ways; after all, they are governed by constitutional and infra-constitutional rules. Rules regimenting the spending of Brazil's subnational governments constitute a central component of federal policies governing decentralization. These rules limit the decision-making autonomy of constituent units in relation to the allocation of their resources. As previously discussed, these rules do not represent a new component of the federal regulations that govern subnational entities.

In effect, "binding" constituent units to desired spending behaviors through constitutional imperatives was a feature of the Constitution, and served to link a small amount of revenues to developmentalist goals. More recently, the Calmon Amendment and the Constitution of earmarked subnational revenues to education Arretche, Therefore, the novelty of earmarking subnational expenditures, beginning in the mid s, refers to the policy areas that federal regulation is addressed to.

At least 40 percent of municipal revenues must be allocated to the areas of health care and education - 25 percent for education 11 and 15 percent for health. With regards to urban development, such as urban infrastructure, housing, public transport, and sanitation, the influence of federal regulation is much more limited.

Although municipal governments receive transfers to implement these policies, they are neither universal nor regular. Furthermore, spending in these areas is not constitutionally determined. In other words, subnational governments enjoy considerable autonomy in implementing these policies. In this study, regulated policies apply to public education and health care, whereas non-regulated policies are urban development housing and urban infrastructure , and public transport.

It is important to note, however, that this analytical distinction is not an attribute of public policy, but rather an attribute of central-local relations that in turn affects the decision-making autonomy of the government level in charge of implementation. As a hypothetical situation, a constitutional mandate that municipalities spend one percent of their revenues on public housing would be considered a regulated policy. Similarly, a federal policy that creates regular and universal transfers for transportation policies in metropolitan centers - and earmarks municipal budgets to this end - would imply federal regulation for relevant municipalities.

It is therefore central regulation that converts a municipal policy into a regulated one. Given the characteristics of Brazilian federalism, the possibility exists to regulate subnational budgets in any area of public policy. The concept of regulation advanced in this study refers to an upper-level government authority to establish the rules policies implemented by subnational governments as well as its authority to supervise them. As Brazil's municipalities are considered "equal units" as providers of public services, it is possible to examine the effect of federal regulation - its presence or absence - on their spending behavior.

Two interconnected effects - however different - can be examined. The first refers to discordance among jurisdictions, and the second to territorial inequality. It can be evaluated by levels of spending. Inequality in spending, in turn, refers to the distance between a hypothetical situation - in which all jurisdictions would have the same spending per capita - and actual levels of per capita spending.

This can be measured by the Gini coefficient. Figure 3 presents a box-plot that illustrates variation in the share of health on total spending for all of Brazil municipalities from to Almost half of Brazil's municipalities are very close to the median, which hovers around 20 percent of total municipal budgets. However, if we consider all municipalities, we may note that there is a substantial degree of discordance.

Including the outliers, one fourth of municipalities spend ten percentage points above the average. The other half spend comparatively little on health; in effect, they tend to spend less than what is mandated by the Constitution. The box-plot in Figure 4 illustrates the same data, but refers to spending on education.

For half of Brazil's municipalities, variation in spending priorities in this area hovers around an median value of 25 percent, which indicates that they obey constitutional rules. The interval in variation for all municipalities falls between 10 and 50 percent of total spending.

In this particular policy, we find a behavior similar to that which is encountered in public health spending, although the internal variation is larger. In general, Brazil's municipalities confer high priority to education. Figure 5 presents the same data in housing and urban spending. The results indicate that spending in this area receives low priority in the budgetary decisions of municipalities.

Twenty-five percent of municipalities allocated between zero and five percent of their spending to these policy domains. Note that the variation hovers around a median of approximately ten percent of total spending - a lower outlay than is observed in regulated policies. In sum, the data indicate that housing policies and urban infrastructure receive less priority from municipal governments.

Federalism and territorial equality: a contradiction in terms?

Finally, Figure 6 presents the same information on spending for public transport. This policy clearly receives low priority among all municipalities. It tends to reflect behavior that is considerably homogeneous; that is to say that there is a concentration around the median, below five percent. Twenty five percent of municipalities applied close to zero in this policy, indicating a virtual absence of priority in this area of public spending. Observe that a group of outliers gave high spending priority to this area.

In sum, the spending priorities of Brazil's municipalities illustrate a clear pattern. Regulated policies receive high priority in municipal expenses, whereas non-regulated areas do not. This behavior is not a random result; it can be explained by central-local relationships and by the convergence produced as a result of federal legislation and supervision.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore variation in the priority accorded to different policies, in and of themselves. Despite regulation, there are municipalities that discord with the priorities of others. This brings us to the issue of inequality. Figure 7 presents Gini coefficients on municipal spending in each one of the policies previously examined, 15 from to Spending in public education and culture presents the smallest Gini coefficient - and as early as 0.

The introduction of the Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Advancement of Teaching reduced inequality in spending: Conversely, public health and sanitation evince a Gini coefficient that is considerably higher than what is observed in the case of spending on public education and culture 0. The implementation of the Ministry of Health's Operational Norms in implied a reduction in the inequality of spending, to 0.

The trajectory trended downwards, until the last year of the data series: The coefficients of regulated policies remained basically identical beginning in , when conditional transfers and federal earmarking of subnational revenues were fully incorporated into public health and education policies.

This outcome means that central regulatory mechanisms produced similar results on the horizontal spending inequality in health and education. In effect, both policies are affected by similar regulatory mechanisms: The same can be said about non-regulated spending in urban housing, infrastructure, and transport. These areas present higher levels of spending inequality. The Gini coefficient for urban housing and infrastructure was high at the beginning of the data series 0.

In , the Gini coefficient was 0. With regards to public transport, the horizontal inequality of spending also trended upwards, with a 15 percent increase in the Gini coefficient, from 0. In short, there is a clear pattern of spending inequality among Brazil's municipalities. In the areas of health and education - regulated policies - the inequality in spending is much reduced, whereas non-regulated policy domains reflect significant disparities in per capita spending.

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What mechanisms can explain this result? Note that the Gini coefficients of regulated policies have values that approximate municipal revenues. The inequality of spending for regulated policies, therefore, is the result of a combination of the redistributive outcome of federal transfers with central-led regulation on spending - which puts conditions on revenues, earmarking them to selected policies.

The absence of federal regulation therefore implies higher inequality in spending among jurisdictions. It ought to be reiterated that this is not a random result, nor an expression of chaotic behavior. Instead, it can be explained by central regulation employed to "bind" local governments to specific policies. It consists of earmarking municipal revenues with spending functions and supervising them by means of Brazil's auditor general Tribunais de Contas.

Revenue place-inequality, by its turn, is reduced by the redistributive role performed by federal transfer. In theoretical terms, reducing territorial inequality presupposes that the central government is simultaneously advancing regulatory and redistributive measures. The data presented above indicate that, despite the convergence effect produced by federal regulation, there is considerable variation in how municipal governments accord their spending priorities, even for regulated policies.

It means that the autonomy of local governments over their own policies operates toward variation. In theoretical terms, the possibility of discord, derived from the autonomy of local governments, operates in the sense of territorial inequality. The combination of these two dimensions, that is, the centralization of authority combined with the possibility of discord is a central characteristic of the Brazilian federalism.

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By contrast, the autonomy of local governments tends towards inequality. Therefore, an adequate interpretation of "the particular nature of Brazilian federalism" must take into account these two dimensions. In the presence of both that is, in regulated policies , territorial inequality is bounded. In the absence of such regulation, the chances that a policy will assume priority are small; hence, spending inequality will be much larger.

The evidence presented in this paper does not confirm the expectation that Brazilian federalism can be aptly described as devoid of coordination. If our federal institutions produced, in effect, a Tieboutian world in which each jurisdiction advanced a strategy based on competition - derived from full tax and public policy autonomy - the expected result would be a "race to the bottom" in public spending. Each jurisdiction would try to get rid itself of the poor and attracting wealthy taxpayers, both citizens and businesses.

Instead, the results show priority to spending in public health and education, which primarily benefit the poor. The explanatory mechanism for this observed behavior is the regulation and supervision of the central government. Similarly, in a federalism characterized by praetorian competition, high inequality in revenues among jurisdictions would be the most likely result. But in the Brazilian case, the central government has assumed a role in which it reduces the inequality of revenues among jurisdictions.

These results confirm the proposition that there is a trade-off between the reduction of territorial inequalities and the full autonomy of local government competencies. The centralization of revenues appear to provide a mechanism to reduce inter-jurisdictional inequalities in revenues. In the absence of transfers, the capacity of Brazil's municipalities to provide public services would be highly unequal.

Furthermore, federal regulation appears to be a condition for "binding" independent subnational units to a nationwide national goal. The pattern of spending among local governments - that is, high priority and low inequality in regulated policies as well as low priority and high inequality in non-regulated policies - clearly demonstrates the impact of federal regulation on the decisions of local governments. This is not necessarily a zero-sum game, however; each level of government undertakes different roles.

While the central government commits local governments to certain policies - through its regulatory powers - and thus avoids a race to the bottom in public health and education spending, local governments maintain authority over the implementation of policies. Hence, their political autonomy permits for the possibility of discord. As a result, even under the imperative of federal regulation, there is space for decision-making on the part of local governments.

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In this way, instead of a zero-sum game, the combination of federal regulation and the possibility of discord on the part of Brazil's constituent units implies limited inter-jurisdictional discord. This is to say that the extent of discord tends to be constrained by federal regulation, while the potential for discord explains differences among jurisdictions. Federal regulation operates in a uniform sense, whereas local autonomy operates in a variable fashion.

Given these conditions - the simultaneous presence of federal regulation and local autonomy - the inequality among jurisdictions tends to be circumscribed. It tends to vary within intervals. In the presence of these two conditions, bounded territorial inequality tends to be the most probable outcome. The impact of federal regulation is one of the reasons behind the absence of any relationship between subnational governments' spending pattern and mayor's partisan affiliation. Rather than being the expression of a programmatic fragility of Brazil's political parties, this result reflects the fact that the subnational expenditure decisions are affected by central regulation.

Independent of local median voter preferences, federal legislation constrains how mayors use their revenues. Given that these budgets are fixed, the effects of this regulation affect not only the spending on regulated policy, but also the resources available for non-regulated policy spending. In effect, the absence of a relationship between spending levels and local partisan preferences is the expected result of federal regulation.

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If political coalitions favorable to spending on public health and education - which benefit the poorest - were predominant among Brazilian jurisdictions, there would be no reason for federal regulation to obligate mayors and municipalities to allocate revenues to these policies. It is precisely the belief that this spending would not command priority from local politicians that lies at the origin of these policies. Therefore, federal regulation seeks to protect predetermined policies, regardless of the number of voters whose preferences prioritize this type of policy spending.

Given the evidence presented, interpreting federal transfers as mere pork barrel spending tends to underestimate their nature, origins, and results.

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The most significant portion of federal transfers in Brazil is marshaled to reduce territorial inequality in spending capacities. Historically, these have assumed an important role in Brazil's formation as a nation, similar to other federations, in which the idea of nationhood prevailed over regional autonomy. As early as the Constitution of , inter-governmental transfers were adopted together with constitutional rules to earmark subnational revenues to national policy priorities.

Therefore, far from permitting local governments to freely allocate revenues gleaned from other jurisdictions, the logic of this arrangement aimed to limit the latitude of local governments in deciding how national revenues would be prioritized. More recently, the constitutionally mandated transfer of resources adopted in were accompanied by limited authority for local governments. In the mid s they increasingly guaranteed that local revenues would be effectively allocated to policy objectives as determined by the central guidelines.

Regulated policies therefore have a different nature than the pork barrel; they aim to reduce the unchecked decision-making autonomy of subnational governments. That is to say, they are based on the belief that local authorities would not likely allocate spending to social programs if they were to enjoy full autonomy over revenues and spending.

It is, however, the perception of belonging to one national community that justifies a reduction in inequality and, in turn, the federal policies that advance this goal. With regards to the First Republic, see Hochmann Hence, results support that those who reveal more preference for feminine pop artists such as Alanis.

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