Maria Cadaval participates in the XIII RIFDE Conference in Valencia

Professor Maria Cadaval Sampedro, from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and a researcher at IDEAGOV, participated in the XIII Conference of the Network of Researchers in Regional Financing and Financial Decentralization in Spain (RIFDE), held in Valencia.

Within the session “What about the rest of expenditure needs?”, Cadaval presented, together with Xoaquín Fernández Leiceaga and Santiago Lago-Peñas, an analysis focused on regional government spending on non-essential services such as housing, transport, culture, and economic promotion.

The presentation highlighted that this type of expenditure accounts for around 26% of total regional spending and plays a key role both in the autonomy of regional governments and in adapting public policies to territorial preferences. It also emphasized the significant heterogeneity across regions, influenced by fiscal, institutional, and political factors.

The authors stressed that this diversity should not be seen as a weakness of the system, but rather as an expression of the decentralized model, provided that equity in access to essential services is guaranteed. In this regard, they advocated for advancing reforms to the regional financing system to ensure the sustainability of these policies.

The conference, organized by RIFDE in collaboration with the IVIE and the Generalitat Valenciana, concluded with the closing session, in which Maria Cadaval also took part in her role as Deputy Director of the network.