The impact of decoupling revenue in education spending of the Union: an analysis between the years 1994-2012

The creation of the Emergency Social Fund, in 1994, introduced a number of mechanisms used by the Brazilian federal government to decouple tax revenues and contributions. Considering this situation, this paper tried to identify the possible impact of decoupling revenue over expenditure on education of the Union, conducted during the years1994-2012. Besides the verification of the expenses undertaken by the federal government on education, they were computed the minimum spending limits, considering in a series, the original text of the Constitution of1988 and in another series, the text modified by the insertion/modification of decoupling mechanisms. According to the analysis, there is no evidence that decoupling has affected education spending, which were higher than the limits, on average and in the years analyzed.