We study the role of age, re-election, gender, education, profession, party affiliation, area of election and different electoral systems on the political survival of 7127 members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Senate, observed from 1946 to 2013. Our results suggest that theories...

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...

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...

The literature on corruption makes unclear predictions on the relations between subsidiarity principle, according to which public decisions should be done at the lower level government possible, and corruption of public officials. In this paper, we compare two alternative regimes, centralised...

According to J.M Buchanan, Laffer effects, increases in revenues produced by tax cuts that offset the fall in tax revenues the reduction caused, are delayed through time. This occurs because the demand for goods and factors of production affected by the reduction of tax rates tend to increase...