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

Adriano Giannola, Domenico Scalera and Carmelo Petraglia

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: By providing a long run reconstruction of regional Net Fiscal Flows (NFFs) in Italy throughout the last six decades (1951-2010), this paper documents the substantial rise of fiscal transfers to Mezzogiorno (i.e. Southern Italy) from the rest of the country. Besides, three further arguments are presented. First, we find that the prominent upsurge of NFFs in 1980s and 1990s has exerted a scarce impact on the North-South gap, mainly because it has not been connected to a stronger commitment in supply-side regional and development policies, and the needed rise of capital expenditure in Mezzogiorno. Second, we ascribe most of the increase in NFFs to the generalized escalation in current primary expenditure related to the “decentralization without accountability” design of fiscal reforms implemented in the 1970s. Third, we evaluate the size of interregional redistribution in the light of regional income differences and the burden imposed to contributing regions. By making use of several indexes and analytical procedures intensively used in the literature, we reach the conclusion that interregional redistribution in Italy has been moderate, considering the severity of initial differences in economic and social conditions.

Keywords: Italian Mezzogiorno; net fiscal flows; regional redistribution; regional disparities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H50 H70 H72 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/57371/1/MPRA_paper_57371.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62427/1/MPRA_paper_62427.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62426/1/MPRA_paper_57371.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Net fiscal flows and interregional redistribution in Italy: A long-run perspective (1951–2010) (2016)
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:pra:mprapa:57371

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().