How does fiscal decentralization affect within-regional disparities in well-being? Evidence from health inequalities in Italy

Cinzia Di Novi, Massimiliano Piacenza, Silvana Robone and Gilberto Turati ()

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: This paper aims at investigating empirically the impact of fiscal decentralization reforms on inequality in well-being. In particular, we look at the effects on health inequalities following the assignment of larger tax power to the Italian Regions for financing their health expenditure, starting from the end of the Nineties. Exploiting large differences in the size of the tax base across Regions, we find that fiscal decentralization processes that attribute a greater tax power to lower government tiers, besides reducing inefficiencies of healthcare policies, seem to be effective in reducing also within-regional disparities in health outcomes. However, thedegree of economic development – on which depends the actual fiscal autonomy from Central government – significantly affects the effectiveness of these reforms and highlights the importance to take properly into account the specific features of the context where the decentralization of power is implemented.

Keywords: fiscal decentralization; regional governments; healthcare policy; health inequalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I1 I14 R50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hap, nep-hea, nep-pbe and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Working Paper: How does fiscal decentralization affect within-regional disparities in well-being? Evidence from health inequalities in Italy (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:15/23

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