Using time-series techniques and panels data, the paper analyses for the EU countries in the period 1970-2009 the existence and shape of the “BARS curve” (Barro, Armey, Rahn, and Scully), connecting the size of Government (measured by the share of public expenditure on GDP) to the rate of...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it presents a very concise way of measuring fiscal stance. This procedure is based on the assumption that the ‘neutral change’ in the government budget can best be simulated with a long-term approximation of the underlying trend of total output....

In the last decade, Italy has experienced a considerable decentralization of functions to the regions. This transformation has been especially relevant for the National Health System that has de facto assumed a federal system design. The federal reform aimed at disciplining public health...

This paper uses data contained in the Regional Public Accounts database to investigate the heterogeneity of the impact of public infrastructure across Italian regions basing the analysis also on institutional and political ground. The issue is here addressed linking the analysis of the impact of...

We assess whether and how differences in productive public expenditure impacts on industrial location. Since productive public expenditure and taxation affect in opposite direction industrial location, it is not straightforward that following an increase in productive public expenditure in a...

The relationship between public expenditure and aggregate income has long been debated in economic literature. According to Wagner, expenditure is an endogenous factor or an outcome. On the other hand, Keynes considered public expenditure as an exogenous factor to be used as a policy instrument...

This paper explores the extent to which differences in the resources allocated to education explain differences in educational access and performance across countries. Cross-country regression analysis shows that the link between educational access and performance and public education...

The paper advances the idea that although at a regional and global level education is considered to be a promoter of progress and development the investments in this field differ very much. A comparative analysis of education expenses of different countries form all over the world is done in...

This paper examines social security increases in Ireland as a case study of the existence of political budget cycles in European countries. Ireland is an appropriate country to examine, first because it has a system of proportional representation and some studies suggest that proportional...

The paper reviews studies analysing the relationship between infrastructures and economic performance. Four different approaches are separately considered along an ideal path from theory-based to data-oriented models: the production function approach, the cost function approach, growth-models,...