The purpose of this article is to make an initial theoretical review on one of several strategies being pursued the central government to promote economic growth and social development among different regions of the national territory, mainly those related to resource transfers and responsibilities, thereby driving, processes of economic efficiency and distributional equity Therefore, this revision specifies the types of transfers that are studied in the literature on economics, trying to recognize how they are applied and that results are achieved in terms of social impacts and equitable; in the same sense, when you think of policies Targeting subsidies and grants for similar purposes In addition, it has the pretension to identify in the context of fiscal federalism, decentralization processes performed at the Latin American level, and specifically in Colombia.