Financing Local Governments: The Spanish Experience

Abstract

Summarizing twenty five years of Spanish local public finance is not an easy task. In 1978, the new democratic Constitution completely changed the face of public administration in Spain . Until then, and apart from some minor, unsuccessful attempts at decentralization during the Second Republic in the early thirties of the last century, the model of governance was based on a pure version of Napoleonic centralism. Nevertheless, the decentralization process initiated by the Constitution gave the regional governments (that is, created ex novo) a leading role. The aim of this process was to provide the regions with growing competences and responsibilities in relation to expenditure assignments, and to a lesser extent, in revenue assignments. This new tier of government received major political and administrative support while local jurisdictions remained in the background from which they are, however, presently showing signs of emerging.