Romanian counties: does public financial decentralization help equity access to public goods and services?

Abstract

This article analyses aspects of public financial decentralization in Romania, enlightening major problems in public money allocation at county’s administrative level. Actual public finance law and state budget law allow inefficiency and inequity in local public money spending. This happens, in our point of view, because of many rules, criteria and computations missing economic fundamentals and which skip state’s principal objective: to insure citizens’ welfare by providing public goods and services. Our research finds which Romanian counties have difficulties to satisfy local public needs, by confronting financial decentralization level, economic development and public expenditures.