Socioeconomic variables and public environmental expenditures of brazilian municipalities: an analysis in the period 2005-2015

Abstract

The objective of this article was to analyze the relation between some socioeconomic variables and the public environmental expenditures of Brazilian municipalities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants, between 2005 and 2015. To this end, multiple linear regression was used with public environmental expenditures and socioeconomic data of the 303 municipalities with population greater than 100 thousand inhabitants. In addition to the Environmental Expenditure, the following variables were also analyzed: Total Expenditures, Income per capita, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Expenditure per capita, Green Expenditure Performance, Environmental Performance of GDP, Environmental Expenditure per Territorial Area and Environmental Expenditure per Inhabitant. The analysis indicated that socioeconomic issues seem to determine, to a greater extent, municipal environmental expenditures since regression confirmed that 8 variables were significant (Environmental Performance of GDP was not significant). The results suggest that these socioeconomic variables present a strong influence of about 85% on the environmental expenditure performed by Brazilian municipalities in the investigated period. This research is an additional contribution related to the theme, presenting a quantitative analysis of environmental spending in the municipal context, and may become an important tool to public managers that contributes to debate, planning and execution of environmental public policy.