This paper surveys some of recent theoretical developments in the Ricardian equivalence debate.

In this paper we re-examine the contribution of the Italian tradition of public finance to the issue of differential incidence of tax and debt financing. The protracted controversy, now restated as whether government bonds are considered as net wealth, goes back to Ricardo's proposition that the...

We illustrate a proposal to reform the personal income tax and the family allowance in Italy which aims at attaining a fair tax treatment of the family, laying emphasis on the redistributive processes in favour of large and poor households. Our proposal is based on a simplification of the tax...

Means-tested social assistance programs have acquired, in the last two decades, an increasing role in the majority of industrialised countries. Although the issue of whether social assistance should be targeted or universally granted remains a main subject of dispute (Harding et al. 1994; Mitchell 1995;...

The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where the subsidiary role of the State in matters of family policy has implied that programmes of public assistance to poor families with children are often meagre or not available at all. The paper examines the...

The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where the subsidiary role of the State in matters of family policy has implied that programmes of public assistance to poor families with children are often meagre or not available at all. The paper examines the...

This paper aims to analyse the social assistance systems in five South European countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. After reviewing the existing system of social assistance in each country, we apply a consistent methodology in order to estimate its impact on income...