With the new European fiscal compact, fiscal rules of budget balance over the cycle have been introduced to limit the growth of the debt ratio to GDP. The objection may arise that they would have an adverse effect, especially in the long run on employment and growth. We test the proposition...

We study the determinants of governments and legislatures’ survival in Italy from the unification to the end of the I Republic (1861-1994) - excluding the fascist period and the subsequent transitory institutional period, "Constituente" (1946-1948). We test whether institutional features...

The paper analyzes the VAT frauds issues in the European Union after the abolition of the internal customs.All the suggested solutions based on the origin principle create distortions in the “one market†and have a doubtful efficiency. The reverse-charge regime for all business to...

Drawing on Alchian‟s and Schumpeter‟s theories about the market selection of entrepreneurs and on theories of the political class, we focus on the features characterizing the Italian post-war democratic Parliament, from 1946 to 2010. We analyse the survival of the members of the...

On the basis of a unique dataset referring to all 8,100 Italian municipalities and providing details of their balance-sheets, local governments’ features, socio-demographic and economic indicators, we analyze the determinants of the local cultural expenditures. We exploit the panel nature...

The EU market’s free circulation principle severs the VAT chain at the EU States’ borders, thus, enticing VAT frauds. The increased “transit traffic†from outside EU with final destination in EU also contribute to VAT fraud. To examine this issue, we model some different...

We consider a set-up where two governments have either conflicting or matching preferences on the provision of differentiated (local) goods supplied by a common monopoly bureau. We develop a two-stage game. At stage-1, the two governments decide whether or not to merge into a single institution....

This article focuses on the carousel of VAT fraud consisting in multiple undue VAT rebates for goods exported and re-exported between EU countries. This fraud has been developed as a form of border VAT adjustment since the abolition of the borders within the EU countries. The carousel is...

The Italian health care expenditures, HCE, have been basically explained with two main groups of theories. (1) Those explaining the peculiarity of the HCE growth as depending on demand and supply factors, such as ageing population, public finance share of health care, number of practising...