How green is my budget? Public environmental expenditures in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyses Brazilian spending on environmental protection, including federal, state and municipal levels, in the 2003-2010 period. Results confirmed previous studies that suggested a declining trend of public expenditures (in % terms) on environmental expenditures at the federal level, but an increasing trend at the state level. This shows that (a) the federal government is perceiving an “anti-green” growth strategy, increasing activities that pressure the environment (especially infrastructure investment), while the spending on environmental protection remains relatively stagnated, and (b) there is an important change in political distribution of environmental protection, with growing participation of state and municipal governments. It was also shown that increasing expenditures on environmental protection do not harm social and economic development, confirming the main “green economy” hypothesis.