Un estudio del efecto de largo plazo del mecanismo de las Transferencias: análisis comparado desde las transferencias brutas y desde las transferencias netas

FIGUERAS, ALBERTO JOSÉ; CAPELLO, MARCELO; ITURRALDE, IVAN

San Miguel de Tucumán

Congreso; 5ta Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Economía Regional; 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Economía Regional, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán

The Argentine system of cooperative federalism is far from meeting the principle of adequate fiscal correspondence between expenditures and funding sources, leading to the phenomenon of "fiscal illusion". This is connected to the absence of substantially self-sustaining territorial units. In other words, the recommended tax policy autonomy is not satisfied.According to our work, the most serious problem of the presence of the phenomenon of fiscal illusion, for its durability and effects, are the long-term effects. Against the desired "matching", the evidence points in the opposite direction as a result of the "Paradox of transfer "; or, if you will, as a consequence of the impact of this transfer, the creation of a "Fiscal Dutch disease" is given, with consequences on the production structure.The hypothesis that we have discussed in previous works was that the larger the state sector, arising from a free-rider effect by sharing system, impair growth (by operating through various mechanisms, for example by the labor market as a transmission belt "higher costs").In our empirical studies, the results find persistent regional differences and a lack of economic development in the less development areas. However, these results are based on gross transfers data; but some comments received made us to redefine our work in a new direction: the question now point to the same phenomenon, but working from the net transfers.Then, the new idea was to investigate whether the net fiscal transfers, with a strongly redistributive impact on the level of the regional aggregate demand, damage the growth prospects in most provinces which were benefited from the interjurisdictional distribution; and exacerbate, rather than diminish, the Regional External Restriction (or chronic negative balance of the balance of payments), while avoiding an adjustment or recession in the short term.Our purpose in this essay is to explore this regional phenomenon in particular not only about the effect from the "gross transfers", but also about the effect of net transfers (or net fiscal balances), defined these as the difference between the amount contributed and received from the nation for the time period considered. This leads to the presence of net receiving provinces (positive net fiscal balances) and, in return, to the presence of the provinces with net contributions of funds (negative net fiscal balances).Our idea is that in the regions is present, on the one hand, the fact that the export growth is constrained by the limited allocation of resources to the tradable sector (because most of gross transfers received are applied to public spending, and almost nothing to non-tradable goods); and on the other hand, imports grow with increasing in regional transfers (especially with the presence of positive net budgetary balances).Theoretically it is possible to differentiate the mechanisms of impact: (a) gross transfers predominantly affect through the labor market, because of the loss competitiveness of wages, pushing to the misallocation of resources due to wrong incentives in public wages (fixed above the productivity) ; (B) On the other hand, the net fiscal balances affect, but not exclusively, imports. These increase as an effect the presence of a higher level of aggregate demand; and therefore, this creates imbalance in regional "balances" and situations. All of this affects the path of growth, as noted by the famous Law Thirlwall.In the empirical treatment of the issue, there are strong limitations due to: (a) the deadlines for data (v.gr. interrupted series); (B) the low reliability of such data; (C) the presence of the Problem of Gerschenkron, which is usually present in an unstable country like ours.In short, given the above limitations in studies by our team in testing the hypothesis of the Fiscal Dutch Disease, it was concluded that in the period of the nineties there was insufficient evidence to reject the hypothesis for the presence of interjurisdictional transfers (working with "gross transfers"). In turn, the research with the net fiscal balances, although with methodological limitations, we could be noted that the presence of positive net budgetary balances are a burden on net recipient jurisdictions.In this particular work, the period 2001-2008 is studied from an empirical point of view, finding that you can not make any conclusive statements. The variables used to analyze the relationship between transfers and fiscal balances in relation to the gross provincial product, usually, do not have a stable relationship (no change of sign) and not always the coefficients are significant. This means that, strictly speaking, there is no irrefutable evidence of the presence of Dutch Disease, due to the transfers, for all Argentine jurisdictions. However, it is not possible to conclude his absence, also.