Local government and finance in Colombia: the case of the Treasury Office in Medellin

Fiscal decentralization process in Colombia has led to significant achievements in the financial management of municipalities, which can be followed using some main indicators. This article presents the fiscal performance of the municipality of Medellin through aggregated fiscal indicators and the estimation of two econometric models of sensitivity for investment expenditure and tax income. It is concluded that, although the municipality presents a healthy fiscal state, there is evidence for fiscal laziness and relaxation phenomena between 1998 and 2009 that can be justified by the increasing dependency of non-tax revenues. (C) 2012 Universidad ICESI. Publicado por Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.