Decentralization, politics and political legislation cycles: a test on Italian regions

Fabio Padovano () and Youssoufa Sy
Additional contact information
Fabio Padovano: UR - Université de Rennes, ROMA TRE - Università degli Studi Roma Tre = Roma Tre University, CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Youssoufa Sy: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This study tests the implications of the Political Legislation Cycles (PLC) theory in the legislative production of Italian Regions from 2000 to 2024. PLCs represent a dynamic distortion in policy decisions driven by electoral incentives, which prompts legislators to concentrate the approval of laws near the end of the legislature; as such, PLC can be interpreted as a quantitative measure of lack of political accountability. Focusing on Italian Regions, whose set of legislative competencies is more clearly defined than those of national governments, this research analyzes how decentralization, fiscal autonomy and political factors affect legislative behavior. Our findings reveal legislative cycles primarily in Regions with an Ordinary Statute, characterized by fewer competencies and higher transfer dependency than Special Statute Regions. Furthermore, the magnitude of the cycles is greater in Central and Southern regions compared to Northern ones. Controlling for the personal characteristics of "governors", we find evidence that Regions governed by left wing coalitions are associated with cycles of greater magnitude; stability of regional coalitions and their ideological alignment with the central government also appears to positively impact the size of the legislative cycles. A battery of robustness tests confirms the reliability of the results.

Keywords: Negative binomial regression; Economic theory of legislation; Political legislation cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in European Journal of Law and Economics, 2025, ⟨10.1007/s10657-025-09861-z⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:hal:journl:hal-05419337

DOI: 10.1007/s10657-025-09861-z

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().