Financing Autonomus Governments in Spain: Two Alternative Visions

Abstract

The evolution of the Spanish "State of Autonomies" has been strongly marked from the outset by the problems posed by the financing of the Autonomous Communities (henceforth, ACs). To some extent, this is only to be expected. All political systems built around different levels of government, in which political power is shared between a central government and intermediate governments, inevitably generate two types of tension. On the one hand, there is the tension that exists between the central government and the whole ACs and which is generated by the distribution of this political power as it relates to all financial matters.[...]