Fundo de participação dos Municípios e equidade de serviços públicos: um estudo para os municípios brasileiros

Abstract

The Fund for Municipal Participation - FPM is a major source of municipal resources in Brazil and has the constitutional purpose of promoting the socio-economic equilibrium between the municipalities of the country. This study evaluates whether there is a trend toward local equityin Brazil, that is, if there is convergence in the coverage of municipal public services over time. To this end, we constructed a frontier of best availability of services, through DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), for which 2677 municipalities were considered in two time periods: 1991 and 2000. Then, using the Markov s transition matrices, the probability of convergence in the coverage of services has been estimated. The results showed a higher level of coverage in municipalities with less than 5 thousand inhabitants and for those with more than 50 thousand.There was a reduction in the average deficit on services from 0.72 to 0.81.Moreover, there was a better level of achieving local needs in the municipalities of Rio de Janeiroand São PauloStates. Regionally, the South was the one with, on average, greater coverage of services.Finally, there was a trendfor convergence in the provision of services.