This article evaluates whether the State Participation Fund (FPE) achieves the redistributive goals established by the Federal Constitution, as well as its impact on public administration efficiency. We use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in order to estimate the relative efficiency of the 27 Brazilian states in three steps. First, we build an optimal public service supply frontier in order to evaluate the distributive equity among states. Then, we use a cost function to obtain a public expenditure efficiency index. Third, we estimate a frontier that describes tax revenue efficiency. Integrating these three analyses, we obtain the optimal level of transfers from the FPE. The results show that the Southern region presented the best public service supply and the most efficient resource use. In the opposite side, there is the Northeastern region, where there is strong lack of public good provision and great resource waste. In what concerns tax revenue effort, there is no evidence of relevant tributary losses. We conclude that all states need some federal transfer supplement, but we find distortions in the current criterion.
equity; efficiency and DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis); PCA (Principal Component Analysis)
