Medidas de desempeño y eficiencia del gasto en el sector público descentralizado. El caso de Bolivia

The aim of this paper is to conceptually present measures of performance, cost and efficiency of the public sector and quantify them for various services in the Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. As in all applied research, the work has limitations that originate, fundamentally, in the lack of information. But using the available information some results are obtained that can be challenged in future research. The quantifications show important improvements between 1992 and 2012. In this period, the vertical structure of the general government of Bolivia underwent a profound transformation originated in the process of fiscal decentralization. Expenditure from subnational government levels (departments and municipalities) doubled its share in total spending between 1990 and 2012 and municipal participation went from approximately one third of subnational spending to approximately two thirds. The preliminary conclusion of this work is the existence of a positive relationship between performance in the health, education, and housing and urban services sectors and decentralization. With the improvement in performance also increased the political participation of citizens so that it can be concluded, preliminarily, that the country moved in one of the positive intervals of the federalism frontier of Inman and Rubinstein.