THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESPONSIBILITY IN FISCAL MANAGEMENT AND THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN THE MOST POPULAR BRAZILIAN MUNICIPALITIES
Fiscal Management; Education; City.
The Federal Constitution of 1988 transferred to municipal governments responsibility for provision a significant portion of public services, especially educational services related to Elementary Education. With the approval of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, a lnew standard in fiscal management was established in the Public Sector of the Country, including in the municipal scope. The main objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between the quality of fiscal management of municipalities, represented by the indicators of the FIRJAN Fiscal Management Index (IFGF), and the quality of education in municipal education systems, through the result in the Index of Basic Education Development (IDEB). To reach the proposed objective, a quantitative methodological approach was used, based on a regression with panel data, comprising 227 municipalities, in the period from 2006 to 2015. The statistical model considers as dependent variable the IDEB – Initial Years and, as independent variables, the five indicators that make up the IFGF. In addition to these, the model used as control variables, the percentage of taxes and transfers linked to education applied in MDE, as well as two qualitative variables to capture the regional effects on the educational result of the municipal entity. The results of the research showed that, regarding the fiscal management variables, the indicator of own revenue generation and the indicator of cost of debt are statistically relevant, with positive effects, to explain the results achieved by the municipalities in the IDEB. The indicator of application in MDE was statistically indifferent to the results of the municipalities in the IDEB. Finally, the qualitative variables of regional location also revealed statistical significance in the results of the educational indicator, indicating a significant negative influence in relation to the municipalities belonging to the North and Northeast regions. On the other hand, for the municipalities belonging to the South and Southeast regions, the indications indicate a significant and positive influence on the IDEB – Initial Years, observed by the education systems of municipalities with a population above 100 thousand inhabitants.