Net fiscal flows and interregional redistribution in Italy: A long-run perspective (1951–2010)

Adriano Giannola, Carmelo Petraglia and Domenico Scalera

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2016, vol. 39, issue C, 1-16

Abstract: This paper carries out a long-run reconstruction of a discontinuous time series of net fiscal flows for Italian regions and macro-regions from 1951 to 2010. This evidence is the basis to put forward an assessment on the intensity of interregional redistribution operated by public sector. The main result of the paper is that even if the amount of resources transferred to Southern Italy from the rest of the country has been significant and increasing over time (at least up to the end of the 1990s), redistribution cannot be judged disproportionately large, in the light of income differences among regions, the public commitment in regional policies and the constitutional principles of equal access of citizens to the basic public services. Secondly, historical analysis of data and inspection of facts indicate that the relationship between the intensity of interregional redistribution and the financial effort of regional policies is weak. This supports the view that increasing NFFs have little served the purpose of regional convergence; rather, the rise of imbalances seems to be mainly connected to the overall escalation of public expenditure, following the institutional break occurred in mid-1970s with the establishment of Regional Governments.

Keywords: Regional redistribution; Regional convergence; Net fiscal flows; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H50 H70 H72 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X16300066
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Net fiscal flows and interregional redistribution in Italy: a long run perspective (1951-2010) (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:39:y:2016:i:c:p:1-16

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2016.04.005

Access Statistics for this article

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen

More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().