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Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental grants: the European regional policy and Spanish autonomous regions

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  • Juan González Alegre

    (Universidad Pablo de Olavide)

Abstract

Most of the Structural Actions are designed as an incentive to increase public investment in less-developed areas. However, we suspect that the efficiency of the policy is related to the level of fiscal autonomy of the subsidized government. In this paper we construct a paned data model in order to estimate the role of fiscal federalism on the effectiveness of the EU Structural Actions in enhancing public investment. We use data from the seventeen Spanish regions for the period 1993-2007. The estimation is run upon three alternative strategies: firstly we break the sample according to the level of fiscal autonomy of the units; secondly, we insert an interaction term capturing the join effect of both variables, fiscal decentralization and EU Structural Actions; finally, we estimate a simultaneous equation model in which public investment and the EU transfers are decided simultaneously. Results unambiguously support the hypothesis that the effectiveness of the Structural Funds decreases with larger decentralization. Our results suggest also that this could be due to the fact that regions find it more difficult to be eligible for additional EUSF as they gain fiscal autonomy. The general conclusions include the recommendation that the future design of the European Cohesion policy should take into account the heterogeneity of Fiscal Federalism across the Member States in order to the get the most out of it.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan González Alegre, 2010. "Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental grants: the European regional policy and Spanish autonomous regions," Working Papers 2010/6, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2010-6
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    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Larin & Bernd Süssmuth, 2014. "Fiscal Autonomy and Fiscal Sustainability: Subnational Taxation and Public Indebtedness in Contemporary Spain," CESifo Working Paper Series 4726, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal federalism; intergovernmental grants; European Union; regional policy; panel data; simultaneous equations for panels;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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