Interacción espacial en el gasto en servicios públicos de las entidades locales. Un enfoque panel mediante modelos SUR /Spatial Interaction in Spending on Public Services by Local Governments. A Panel Approach Using SUR Models

Las entidades locales son la principal fuente de financiación de actividades culturales, deportivas y medioambientales. Aunque hay consenso generalizado sobre la presencia de dependencia espacial en los modelos que explican el gasto en estas partidas, el signo de la dependencia espacial es ambiguo. Algunos autores muestran evidencias de interrelaciones de signo negativo y otros encuentran evidencias de dependencia espacial positiva. En este artículo, utilizando la base de datos de la liquidación de presupuestos de los municipios españoles, se analiza el gasto en actividades culturales, deportivas y medioambientales de todos los municipios de España para el periodo 2010-2012 mediante la metodología SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regression) en un entorno panel. Nuestros resultados muestran que ambas hipótesis son compatibles y que los dos efectos, positivos y negativos, pueden presentarse de forma simultánea. The main funding source of cultural, sports and recreational activities comes from local governments. The supply of these services creates spillovers between neighboring municipalities. Literature has shown many examples of spatial dependence in spending levels in these budgetary items at small local governments. Although there is general agreement on the presence of spatial dependence in models that explain spending on these items, the sign of the spatial dependence is ambiguous. Some authors show evidence of negative correlation and justify it because the services provided by a municipality are used by their neighbors due to mobility among inhabitants of nearby localities. Other authors find proofs of positive spatial dependence and justify it due to a strong similarity in the behavior of the inhabitants from neighboring municipalities who demand similar expenses for such services. In this paper, using database of the settlement of the Spanish municipalities? budgets, spending is analyzed in cultural, sports and envi¬ronmental activities of all municipalities in Spain for the period 2010-2012 by SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regression) methodology. Our results show that both hypotheses are compatible and that the two effects, positive and negative, can occur simultaneously.