The Economy of Catalonia

penditure made in health, education and culture. In this case it is considered
that these are competences which have already been fully transferred
to the Generalitat, so there is no reason to allocate the expenditure that the
Spanish State currently makes in these fields and these expenses are not
taken into consideration, except in two instances. Firstly, within the field
of education, the programme of scholarships and student grants is considered,
since it is a competence that has not yet been transferred to the Autonomous
Regions and continues to be held by the Spanish State. To estimate
the value of this expenditure, we consider directly the amount of the
scholarships and grants that the Spanish State awards to Catalan students.
The second exception involves health, a field in which the main spending
programme is hospital care for the armed forces. To be consistent with the
treatment given to the rest of the programmes relating to national defence,
it has been considered appropriate to estimate the additional expense that
this service would entail for the Generalitat in the same way that the other
defence-related programmes have been estimated.
A fourth group of spending policies specific to a State and which are currently
being carried out for Catalonia by the Spanish State, are those of an
economic nature. Within this category there are actions relating to the various
economic sectors, to infrastructures and to transport, and actions linked
to research, development and innovation. In this case, the expense made directly
by the Spanish State in Catalan territory, which is consequently that
derived from a territorial assignment by the flow criterion, has been considered
an additional expense for the Generalitat.
Lastly, there is the group of spending policies classified as general actions,
which includes programmes for senior management, services of a general
nature, financial and tax administration, transfers to other public administrations
and public debt.
Under the heading of «senior management» there are programmes such as
those involving the function of Head of the Spanish State, legislative activity,
external control of the public sector, and the Function of Head of the Spanish
Government, among others. No additional expense has been allocated
for these programmes since the Generalitat already has in place the organisation
specific to a government possessing executive, legislative and control
powers. As for «services of a general nature», the programme with the largest
volume of spending is the «peripheral administration of the Spanish State».
Obviously, there is no reason to assess any amount for this service since, once
again, the Generalitat already has its own offices throughout the Catalan ter-
Tax revenue and public spending 137