A ascensão cearense: o FUNDEB impulsiona os efeitos positivos do ICMS-Educação no ensino básico da região?

Abstract

The reform of the ICMS (Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services) in Ceará and its redistribution among the municipalities of the region based on results is pointed out as one of the main explanatory factors for the excellent educational results of the state's public education network, making Ceará a reference in education in the country. The educational impacts of Results-Based Financing (RBF) are already consolidated in the empirical literature; however, it is possible to investigate whether there are heterogeneities in the effect of this policy associated with regular transfers from FUNDEB. In this sense, this research investigates whether FUNDEB contributed, jointly or in isolation, to enhancing educational performance in Ceará municipalities based on RBF. For this, the Difference-in-Differences (DD) methodology is adopted, expanding equations similar to those estimated in Lautharte, Oliveira and Loureiro (2021) to take into account the impacts of FUNDEB. The results indicate that the ICMS Education generated positive and significant effects on the IDEB (Basic Education Development Index) regardless of the stage of basic education considered. On the other hand, FUNDEB transfers do not appear to be relevant in explaining the improvements in IDEB scores in Ceará municipalities during the study period. These results remain even after conducting robustness tests with a reduced number of municipalities in the sample.