Eficiencia del gasto público en educación y salud en América Latina.

Abstract

The reporting and quantification of public resources used for the provision of social protection programs constitutes a relevant tool for the execution of comparative analyzes at the national, subnational, regional, or global level, however, there are at least two additional components that are Equally important: i) the impact of these programs on the well-being of groups undergoing treatment; and, ii) efficiency in the use of these resources. Although governments must redistribute resources by targeting their public policies, at the same time they must establish how efficient the management of social spending is being so that the most vulnerable population improves their quality of life and increases human capital at the social level. Given the importance of the implementation of efficiency indicators to guarantee the achievement of objectives in an increasingly reduced fiscal space, the objective of the research proposes to evaluate the efficiency in the use of resources within the education and health sectors, for several countries of Latin America, through the methodological application of the Data Envelopment Analysis to specific indicators of these sectors, as well as showing the simplicity of the application of this method to develop proposals for evaluating public policy. The main results highlight that the effects are better as soon as there is a defined and stable public policy, as in the case of Chile, due to the implementation of the structural balance, which blocks the adverse effects of economic cycles on public finances.