Federalismo brasileiro e guerra fiscal: concorrência em prol do desenvolvimento regional.

Abstract

The so-called fiscal war – that is, the competitive disputes between federative entities for the attraction of private investments – may appear to be unconstitutional and inconvenient for the country; however, it has positive points for the regional development of low-income or stagnant localities. The theme will be discussed in four chapters, in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter is dedicated to the study of federalism and the Brazilian federative pact in the current Federal Constitution of 1988, whose content is eminently theoretical and bibliographical. The second chapter is dedicated to the economic analysis of law and the new institutional economy in the face of the fiscal war, using a bibliographical and critical approach. The third chapter, in turn, is dedicated to the fiscal war itself, in addition to the theoretical foundations of competition; this being a theoretical-bibliographic and also an empirical study, linked to interviews with open answers. The fourth and last chapter deals with regional development and its correlation with tax incentives, a theoretical and statistical study, with the description of data from the HDI (Human Development Index) of Brazilian states and municipalities in Paraná. From a methodological point of view, there is a theoretical-conceptual work and, at the same time, an empirical-statistical approach. In conclusion, the results demonstrate that the way to balance the principles of the Federal Constitution of cooperative federalism and the reduction of regional inequalities is to allow the granting of tax incentives only to locations considered low-income or stagnant, removing the possibility that high-income or dynamic, with regard to economic development, can compete in the federative scenario by attracting private investments. A solution that, in this way, favors the idea of autonomy of federative entities laid down in the Federal Constitution, without giving up the benefits of promoting competition and, in this way, minimizing any externalities arising from the waiver of tax revenues.