Las reglas de responsabilidad fiscal federal y sus implicaciones en los niveles de gobierno en Argentina 2004 - 2014

Abstract

Relations between different levels of government are the object of study in federal government organizations, where they acquire unique characteristics. In the case of border or emerging countries such as Argentina, mentioned relations are described by latent social conflicts, internal historical contradictions and political disputes, rooted in the very constitutive genesis of the nation-state, in its economic models, in its accumulation patterns and, fundamentally, in its fiscal relations. The effects of these relations are reflected in jurisdictions' tax performance profile. Recent history shows attempts to implement policies intended to turn the system to be rational. One of these policies, named Federal Fiscal Responsibility System, is framed in what is called the second generation of fiscal federalism in international literature. It registers different results in each experience - countries or federation of countries, such as the EU. This research analyzes, with a post-disciplinary approach, the expectations, effects and results that were observed in this System's application in Argentina, from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Its guidelines, which are referred to as fiscal rules systems, seek to induce the units that make up an interrelated and inter-influenced group to adapt their fiscal behavior in order to parameters, indicators and performance standards that stimulate a general improvement of the system. The purpose of the fiscal rules system, approved by Law 25,917 of 2004, was to recover the fiscal performance of the federal system through coordination and integration processes. This study describes and analyzes the instances of formulation and the results of its implementation, in order to assess its implications, almost a decade after its application. A qualitative analysis phase, applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methods, allows us to understand the processes of parliamentary debate on the law, the political context of its formulation and thus find explanations to central structural problems that revolve around the system's operation. Resistance or support, expectations or discredit, mistrust and criticism, express latent conflicts and are also outlining the models that lie in dispute and their logic or rationalities. The quantitative analysis phase, applying Data Envelopment Analysis methods (DEA), allows evaluating the performance of jurisdictional units through synthetic indicators that manage to capture the essential factors concerning fiscal performance of units under evaluation. The process admits that this evaluation is feasible by virtue of the fact that, among other aspects, the public policy this investigation is about moves ahead strongly with publicization . This improves citizen access to sensitive information, which in some way anticipates the positive assessment of an aspect that has been observed. The application of these two perspectives responds to a post-disciplinary conception or approach that allows complementing results, understanding and explaining a complex and structural problem, still pending on the agenda of many countries such as Argentina. On the one hand, understanding and explaining the formulation processes and the contexts in which these instruments arose. On the other hand, quantitatively contrasting the effects of the application of fiscal rules materialized in the units' performance and in the fiscal behavior of the federal system as a whole. All of this contributes to getting to know whether or not these processes represent effective political and fiscal transformations for the entire population.