Tamaulipas: endeudamiento y gasto público (2003-2013)

The phenomena of the size and the growth rate of the public debt in federative entities in Mexico has taken high importance during the last years. Since 2006, the public debt of Tamaulipas started to have an accelerated growth and, between 2009 and 2011, its growth has been exponential. The objective of this paper is to analyze the public indebtedness of Tamaulipas and compare to the evolution of public expenditure, pointing out which budget segments and where has been oriented the public expenditure in the period of 2003-2013. Initially, it is explored the conditions that have an effect on over the public indebtedness in the states, as low fiscal pressure, absence of fiscal sovereignty (as centralized fiscal collection), elevated public expenditure due to the commitments of the governing parties, limited transparency over the financial information, among others. In the second part, it is studied the process of growth of the state public debt in relation to the federal transfers and it is analyzed the application of the transferred economic resources according to the expenditure budgets during the indicated period. Lastly, several conclusions are presented as well as a valorization of the current situation that Tamaulipas maintains in terms of public debt. It was possible to determine that in despite of the fast-paced growth of the public debt and the public expenditure of Tamaulipas during the period 2003-2013, this conditions has not been translated into similar economic growth rates, au contraire Tamaulipas have lost several positions in the public safety and competitive rankings.