Desempenho e eficiência do gasto público: Uma análise comparativa entre o Brasil e um conjunto de países da América Latina

This paper attempts to evaluate public sector expenditure efficiency comparing Brazil with other Latin American countries for the period 1998-2002. We first computed a composite index, comprising economic and social indicators, to measure public sector performance. Efficiency of expenditure was then evaluated by comparing the composite index with the general government final consumption using a semi parametric model of a two-stage procedure (DEA in the first stage and truncated regression in the second stage). Our results showed that Brazil had a mean score in public sector performance and a low score in expenditure efficiency. Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile had the best scores on both public sector performance and expenditure efficiency.