Is Catalonia being fiscally mistreated?

• Authors: Angel de la Fuente.
• BSE Working Paper: 110249 | September 15
• Keywords: Catalonia , net fiscal balance , fiscal mistreatment
• JEL codes: H70
• Catalonia
• net fiscal balance
• fiscal mistreatment

This note critically appraises the claim that Catalonia is being fiscally mistreated, both in terms of the financing of its regional government and in terms of its net fiscal balance with the Spanish Central Government. Its conclusion is that nationalist complaints regarding these matters are not well founded. Looking at the available data, Catalonia’s fiscal situation is similar to that of other regions with similar levels of income per capita relative to the national average, both within Spain and abroad. This does not mean that all is well with Spain’s system of regional financing or with the distribution of Central Government expenditure across the country’s regions, but there are no traces of an anti-Catalan bias in either area.