Análisis de la eficiencia del gasto de inversión de los gobiernos autónomos descentralizados municipales del Ecuador para el año 2014: estimación de una frontera estocástica

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the efficiency of the municipal governments of Ecuador during the 2014 period, using the parametric technique Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), through the microeconomic theory of cost minimization. Simultaneously, this paper considered the effect of important factors such as the transfers the central government, the population’s income, the secondary educational level, the population density, and the political affiliation of the city’s mayor over the efficiency levels found. The mentioned efficiency analysis was perform in a global manner, and for four municipal typologies, which defined through a conglomerates analysis. Afterwards, the results of empirical analysis demonstrated that municipal governments they can reach an important reduction of their investment expenditures, and at the same time, provide the same amount of goods and services to the population. Likewise, the results indicated that, on a national scale, the income generated by the municipal governments and their population influence positively on the efficiency levels; however, these results vary for each municipal typology.