IRRESPONSABILIDADE FISCAL, PACTO FEDERATIVO E AS FINANÇAS MUNICIPAIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61673/ren.1999.1970Keywords:
Fiscal Federalism, County Public Finance, Public Budget, Fiscal Descentralization, Expenses with Employees, Ceará, Northeast, BrazilAbstract
The fiscal decentralization promoted by the reforms in the Constitution of 1988 have caused deep disequilibrium in the public finances at the county level. Up until 1988, the national counties kept, on average, a proportion of 60% of the budget with public employees, although the increase rate of those expenses was around 7% a year, and after 1988 such a rate doubled. In view of real needs of fiscal adjustments, Federal Government and all states have struggled to meet this goal, but, at the county level such policies have not been succeed. This paper focuses on evidence of budget disequilibrium in the State of Ceará at county level by measuring two finance indicators: Current deficit and fulfillment of Federal Law 82 of 1995 (expenses with public employees). Cross-sectional econometric models of limited dependent variables have been estimated, where showed, with high statistical significance, that a chaotic budget situation prevails at county level, regardless the classification of the counties by economic size, current deficit size, geographical location, among other factors.