The fiscal disadvantage of young Italians: a new view on consolidation and fairness

Paolo Pertile, Veronica Polin, Pietro Rizza () and Marzia Romanelli

The Journal of Economic Inequality, 2015, vol. 13, issue 1, 27-51

Abstract: This paper explores the inequality related to the lifetime redistributive impact of public sector intervention across living generations. While fiscal policies are typically assessed with respect to the inter-personal dimension of inequality, they may well have heterogeneous impacts across different cohorts, thus raising the issue of intergenerational fairness. We take the case of Italy over the period 1990-2008 to show how such possibly unfair effects can be measured by adapting the methods developed in the context of the generational accounting literature. Importantly, we aim to work on a comprehensive approach, so that reforms involving several taxation and spending programmes, possibly implemented over several years, can be assessed. We find that a significant improvement in public finance sustainability came at the price of an unequal distribution of sacrifices across living generations, with younger cohorts contributing far more over their residual life-cycle. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Generational fairness; Public policies; Redistribution; Generational accounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/s10888-014-9288-5

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