Federalismo e políticas sociais: conexões a partir da Teoria da Agência

Abstract

This paper deals with the inherent gains on conditional transfers of grants from the Union to sub-national governments, which would explain its diffusion by several government sectors, mainly social policies, in recent decades. The federal programs with higher sum on three government areas – health, education and social assistance – are analyzed mobilizing findings of the Agency Theory and its application on intergovernmental relations. We concluded that, in present formats, federal programs reduce agency costs by standardizing and specifying the actions to be performed by sub-national governments, conditioning transfers of grants and admitting a multiplicity of "controllers", including those of a societal nature. At the end we highlight the role of transfers to overcome the effects of territorial fragmentation of subnational governments on the implementation of public policies, although strengthening the vertical integration of intergovernmental relations and making more complex the intersectoral coordination at the local level.