Outsourcing can be defi ned as the delivery of public services by the private sector. The sign of the effect of outsourcing on public spending is ambiguous ex-ante. While outsourcing may reduce public spending through higher competition in the private sector, it may also increase public spending due to the presence of transaction costs or the so-called "hold-up" problem among others. Using a panel of Spanish regions over the 2002-2018 period, this paper explores the association between outsourcing and public spending empirically. Spain offers an interesting case study from a broad perspective, as the degree of decentralization of public health and education is almost complete, and the different regions have adopted quite distinct approaches as regards the public-private mix in the provision of these public services.In line with previous cross-country evidence [e.g. Alonso et al. (2017); Potrafke (2018)] our estimates point to a positive relationship between public spending and outsourcing. The result holds when a number of robustness exercises are carried out. By components, we fi nd that outsourcing is associated with higher public consumption and health spending, while there is no statistical association with investment and education expenditure. In any case, it is worth mentioning that the impact of outsourcing on the effi ciency of public spending cannot be ascertained with our approach, due to data limitations.

The lack of a standardized framework to report fiscal multipliers limits comparisons across studies, budgetary items, or countries. Within a unified analytical framework (using a panel of 177 countries), we study how key methodological details affect the size and persistence of fiscal multipliers' estimates. Our baseline results are in line with the existing literature with average cumulative medium-term multipliers of -2.1 (-2.5) for taxes on personal income, 0.3 (1.7) for investment and, -0.5 (1.9) for consumption for advanced (emerging market) economies. However, we show that slight changes in the identification of shocks, based on forecast errors or in the definition of the fiscal multiplier, can artificially increase both the size and decrease the precision of estimates. We also emphasize the importance of accounting for the endogenous dynamic responses of fiscal variables to fiscal innovations by showing that multipliers calculated simply as the output response to fiscal shocks, as it is common in the literature, can potentially bias the results.

Recent history has shown the inherent instability of the Spanish Regional Financing System. This system is key to the design of a fiscal framework aimed at ensuring budgetary stability, debt sustainability and transparency. In this paper we examine issues related to moral hazard and deficit bias from a game theory perspective. We combine classical concepts from game theory (Nash equilibrium, subgame perfection) with concepts derived from refinements (theory of moves) aimed at introducing dynamic elements in the normal-form game, rendering it more suitable for the study of repeated, recurrent interactions. Cómo citarGeli, José Federico y Quilis, Enrique M. (2019). «Un análisis de teoría de juegos del sistema español de financiación regional».