The impact of royalties on municipal public investment: Concentrated deconcentration

Abstract

This article is the product of a research on royalties and territorial disparities within the line of investigation “Territorial Dynamics and Management” at the Faculty of Political Science and Government of the University of Rosario. It shows how resources from royalties are distributed and applied among Colombian municipalities, in order to establish whether the distribution and destination of such incomes are helping to boost territorial development, and with this, to close the interregional gap in Colombia. Research results show that although the distribution of resources has been “democratized” given that many of them are going, for the first time, to municipalities of fifth and sixth categories, the projects are concentrated in the central departments of the country, which does not help to solve the imbalance between central and peripheral territories in Colombia.