Royalties da mineração, eficiência dos gastos públicos e desenvolvimento social: uma investigação empírica dos maiores municípios mineradores do Brasil

Abstract

The way that the taxes transferred by mining companies to local governments through royalties is used has been pointed out in the literature as being essential to foster social transformation in the municipalities where the mining takes place. Thus, this study seeks to assess the relative efficiency of public financial management in the largest mining municipalities in Brazil and how this has been reflected in their respective social performance. To fulfill the proposed objective, we used a quantitative approach through the technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist index. The results showed that there was an evolution in improving the technical efficiency of public spending management between the years 2013 and 2016. However, the absolute majority of the largest mining municipalities in the country still show a lack of efficiency: In 2016, out of 55 municipalities of the sample, only seven of them showed technical efficiency and nine showed improvement in the productivity index. The efficiency calculated by the Malmquist index showed an improvement in productivity (TFP) over the period analyzed, but even so, the overall average was below expectations. In addition, it was found that despite the sample in this study being composed of municipalities that collect the highest amounts of royalties in Brazil, only 23.3% have a value above 0.8 of the FIRJAN index, which means high development. This study contributes to filling discussions in the literature that address the relationship between mining and social development, in addition to expanding the theme of efficiency in public spending through robust empirical evidence.