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Starting from the observation that levels of expenditure and resources vary greatly from one French department to another, the aim of this article is to shed light on the origins of the disparities in departments’ expenditure in order to examine the effectiveness of equalization mechanisms intended to reduce them. For that purpose, we identify the explanatory variables of departmental expenditure and then we measure the contribution of each of them to the explanation of disparities in departmental expenditure. Based on data from the Directorate General of Local Authorities (DGCL), our study covers the period 2006–2016 and distinguishes, in terms of total expenditure, current expenditure from investment expenditure. We then show that the disparities in expenditure are explained above all by disparities in resources, whether these come from state endowments or from taxes, which raises questions as to the role played by social expenditure, often considered the major factor explaining departments’ expenditure behavior. In addition, our results allow us to clarify the relative weight of vertical and horizontal equalization mechanisms in explaining the disparities in departmental expenditure, while raising questions about their relative effectiveness. JEL classification codes: H50, H71