Fiscal Decentralization and Cyclicality in Latin America: Evidence from a New Regional Budget Database
IMF Working Papers, May 8, 2026
Source details
- Canonical URL
- Fiscal Decentralization and Cyclicality in Latin America: Evidence from a New Regional Budget Database
Other formats
Bibliographic details
- Authors: Davi Bhering Buarque de Gusmao, Hector Perez-Saiz, Joe Ue, Valeria Visser
- Published: May 8, 2026
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229046909.001
Main findings
- Regional governments in Latin America have grown in relevance over the past three decades, based on a newly constructed database of highly granular regional-level budgets.
- Regional governments exhibit lower revenue elasticity to national GDP than central governments, primarily due to the limited cyclicality of transfers.
- On the expenditure side, overall elasticity of regional governments is comparable to central governments, but fiscal adjustment occurs through capital expenditures.
- Transfers appear to operate primarily as redistribution mechanisms across regions rather than as instruments to offset differences in tax capacity.
Data and scope
- New regional-level budget database covering regional governments in Latin America with high granularity.
- Time horizon referenced as "the past three decades."
Themes and subject coverage
- Current spending
- Economic and financial statistics
- Expenditure
- Fiscal federalism
- Fiscal policy
- Government finance statistics
- Revenue administration
Keywords
- budget
- Caribbean
- Central America
- Current spending
- Decentralization
- expenditure elasticity
- Fiscal federalism
- GDP series
- Global
- Government finance statistics
- IMF working papers
- Latin America
- South America
- Subnational database
- Subnational government
- transfers
Content in this bundle
- Working Paper