Pobreza y descentralización fiscal. Un análisis empírico mediante panel de datos de países / Poverty and Fiscal Decentralization. An Empirical Analysis Using Country Panel Data

Background: Poverty remains one of the major international challenges as reflected in the commitments adopted by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda. In order to fight against it, international development agencies have fostered decentralization reforms that have been applied throughout the world. This means that, the analysis of the effects of fiscal decentralization on poverty has become a research area of extraordinary academic interest, but one that has produced conflicting findings. This paper aims to analyse the effect on poverty of fiscal decentralization of spending in education, health, housing, and social protection. Methods: We estimate a fixed effect model by Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) using unbalanced panel data of countries. Results: The decentralization of spending has a differentiated effect on poverty: the decentralization of health and housing policies contributes to reduce poverty, while the decentralization of social protection spending stimulates an increase in poverty. Conclusions: The hypothesis of the classical theory on decentralization is endorsed in the areas of health and housing. On the other hand, the prediction of the normative theory of the public economy is ratified in the area of the social protection. So, for each country, which social policies to decentralize and the allocation of resources among jurisdictions should be analysed with great detail to avoid problems of targeting strategy, accountability and responsibility assignments. Antecedentes: La pobreza continúa siendo uno de los grandes retos internacionales como constatan los compromisos asumidos por las Naciones Unidas en la Agenda 2030. Para luchar contra ella, las agencias de desarrollo han impulsado procesos de descentralización por todo el mundo. De esta forma, el análisis del impacto de la descentralización fiscal en la pobreza se ha convertido en un área de extraordinario interés académico pero con hallazgos contradictorios. Este artículo analiza los efectos sobre la pobreza de la descentralización fiscal del gasto en educación, salud, vivienda y protección social. Métodos: Estimamos un modelo de efectos fijos mediante Mínimos Cuadrados Generalizados Factibles usando un panel de datos no-balanceado de países. Resultados: La descentralización del gasto tiene un efecto diferenciado sobre la pobreza. La descentralización de las políticas sanitaria y de vivienda contribuye a reducir la pobreza; mientras que la de la protección social estimula el