Uma proposta de avaliação da gestão dos recursos próprios das Unidades Federativas do Brasil

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the relative efficiency of Brazilian states in converting financial autonomy and investment effort into accumulated growth of own-source revenue in the period from 2021 to 2024. The study is grounded in the context of Brazilian fiscal federalism, characterized by subnational borrowing restrictions, budget rigidity, and high dependence on intergovernmental transfers, in which the main state taxes — ICMS, IPVA and ITCMD — play a central role in fiscal sustainability. Two indicators are constructed: accumulated growth of own-source revenue and financial autonomy, defined as the ratio between own taxes and current expenditures. The descriptive analysis reveals significant heterogeneity among states and a distinction between cyclical revenue growth and structural capacity to finance public spending. Subsequently, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), BCC model oriented to output, is applied, considering financial autonomy and the share of investment in own revenue as inputs, and accumulated revenue growth as output. The results indicate that six states lie on the efficiency frontier in both estimated specifications, while the remaining states show varying degrees of distance from the frontier, suggesting potential room for revenue expansion given their structural conditions. The findings demonstrate that revenue growth alone does not characterize efficiency, requiring joint analysis of structural fiscal conditions and the ability to convert them into revenue performance.