Determinates do investimento público no Brasil: uma abordagem em painel dinâmico para os estado brasileiros

Abstract

The study aims to contribute with the debate concerning the fiscal adjustment proposed in the last decades and consists in an empirical investigation about the determinants of public investment in of the Brazilian states from a panel of data spanning the period from 2005 to 2008. Dynamic panel econometric models by Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) are developed and estimated for three variables considered as routes for public investment: investment, payroll and costing expenses. The robustness of the estimates allow us to infer that: i) fiscal adjustment of Brazilian states was based upon expansion of the tax burden and the reduction of public investment, ii) the last year before new elections, the public investment and the primary result of the last periods and, mainly, credit revenues contribute to the expansion of public investment, iii) adjustments in the tax instruments used to keep public finances stable can help in order to reverse the downward trend of investment without compromising the states’ fiscal balance.