We present a model for measuring spillovers resulting from local expenditure policies. We identify and test for three different types of budget spillovers: (i) benefit spillovers from the production of local public goods, (ii) externalities in crowding, caused by non-resident users of public facilities, and (iii) externalities from expenditure competition effects. In order to account for these types of spillovers, we specify a demand of public goods with interactions among local governments. The model is tested for different expenditure categories with a cross-section of data from municipalities of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. We find positive benefit spillovers in spending in Cultural and Sports facilities, and in Parks and Streets maintenance. Externalities in crowding appear in spending on Police, Cultural and Sports facilities, Parks and Streets maintenance, and Street cleaning, Water delivery and Sanitation. Spending on Social services seems to be affected by competition externalities, while there is no evidence of spillovers in the expenditure on General Administration.

The aim of this article is to analyse the technical efficiency and cost- efficiency of the refuse collection services in 73 municipalities located in Catalonia, Spain. The analysis has been carried out using a modification of the DEA model in three stages developed by Fried and Lovell (1996), that allows to take into account the influence of those factors that the producer cannot control (non-controllable variables). The results seem to back the hypothesis that non-controllable variables do not affect very much the ease of provision of the service, with the exception of few municipalities.

Este trabajo analiza la problemática que plantea la prestación de las políticas sociales propias del Estado del bienestar en un contexto de federalismo fiscal. Mientras que tanto el Estado del bienestar como los procesos de descentralización han merecido, por separado, una gran atención por parte de la literatura, las implicaciones mutuas de ambas cuestiones han recibido, en cambio, sólo un escaso interés. Sin embargo, la realidad muestra que algunos de los gastos típicos del Estado del bienestar (como la sanidad y la educación) están fuertemente descentralizados. Este trabajo aborda en primer lugar los argumentos a favor y en contra de la descentralización de estas políticas. A continuación se examina el grado de descentralización del gasto en las principales políticas sociales: sanidad, educación y seguridad y servicios sociales. Es importante destacar la confluencia de los distintos niveles de gobierno en la prestación y financiación de estas políticas. En este sentido, el grado de descentralización del gasto no tiene porqué coincidir con el grado de descentralización en la definición de las políticas públicas. Finalmente, se realiza un examen detallado de la problemática que plantea la descentralización de las principales funciones en la experiencia comparada.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the redistributive effects of the European Union budget between 1995 and 1997 on the countries and regions of the EU. This analysis focuses on the main items of revenue, expenditure and net fiscal balance. The method adopted consists of two stages. First, we estimate the income elasticity of European Union revenues, expenditures and fiscal balance in order to examine the progressive degree of each instrument considered. Secondly, we analyse the impact of each of these instruments on regional and national income in order to evaluate their capacity to reduce differences in per capita income levels.

We analyse the redistributive power of the Spanish central government budget to diminish regional disparities in per capita income in the 1991-1996 period. It firstly makes a brief overview of the most relevant empirical studies carried out on this subject, analysing their methodologies and results. Secondly, it estimates the redistributive power of the budgetary policies of the Spanish central government. Its principal interest lies in the fact that the data base used allows the redistributive effect of the main items of revenue and expenditure to be analysed, whereas the majority of studies carried out limit the categories of expenditure to the case of transfers. The results obtained are in line with those from other studies. The redistributive power of the central budget is around 40%, expenditure being much more redistributive than revenue, with the exception of individual income tax.

En este trabajo se cuantifica la importancia relativa de las necesidades de gasto y de la capacidad fiscal como factores explicativos de la desigualdad observada en los niveles de gasto público local por habitante con datos de los municipios de la provincia de Barcelona con más de 5.000 habitantes para 1996. La metodología utilizada consiste en la estimación de ecuaciones de demanda para siete categorías de gasto. Las necesidades de gasto son introducidas en el modelo a partir de una especificación detallada de la relación entre actividad y resultados de los servicios, en la que se incluyen distintos grupos de usuarios y variables de coste.