Redistribution at the local level: the case of public childcare in Italy

Alessandro Bucciol, Laura Cavalli, Paolo Pertile, Veronica Polin and Alessandro Sommacal
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Alessandro Sommacal: University of Verona

International Review of Economics, 2016, vol. 63, issue 4, No 3, 359-378

Abstract: Abstract We study attitude toward redistribution by local policy-makers in the context of public childcare in Italy. Within a substantially homogeneous legislative framework, different municipalities autonomously define how participation fees vary with a compound indicator of income and wealth (ISEE), thus redistributing resources across households using the service. The nearly one hundred municipalities we take into account exhibit wide heterogeneity in redistributive attitudes. We find statistically significant correlations with a number of individual characteristics of policy-makers and municipalities, but not with those of the ex ante distribution of income, which should be central according to both normative and positive theory. Since the price of public childcare is subsidized, resources are also redistributed from taxpayers to users. The evidence we find is consistent with the hypothesis that this type of redistribution is a public good.

Keywords: Redistribution; Progressivity; Childcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H42 H71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Redistribution at the Local Level: The Case of Public Childcare in Italy (2013)
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DOI: 10.1007/s12232-016-0258-z

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