MUNICIPAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND EFFICIENCY IN PUBLIC EXPENSES: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF PUBLIC POLICIES AND THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX (HDI) IN MUNICIPALITIES OF THE SÃO PAULO STATE

Abstract

Taking into consideration that a country’s public policies derive from the goals established by the UN (Organization of the United Nations) world conferences and the public power acts in such essential sectors as health, education, housing, among others, this research has as an objective to diagnose and analyze the conditioning variables of the relationship between the public policies and the level of human development (IDH) of the municipalities in the State of São Paulo. Using techniques of a multi-variable analysis, it was discovered that the relationship between the public investments and the IDH are not linear. Following the same logics, it was also established that not necessarily the municipalities which accomplished larger investments are in the cluster of the ones that possess better IDHs. However, economical variables (accomplished investments) and the socioeconomic characteristics of the municipalities have proven a significant discriminatory power, because the model of logistic regression classified from 85% to 91% of the cases correctly, when considering the total volume of the accomplished investments or the annual volume of investments by the municipalities, respectively. The obtained results have demonstrated the sensibility of the model, which makes the analysis of the impacts of the public policies on the level of social development of the municipalities possible. Key-Words: Public municipal management. Public expense. Human development index.