Set up by the Italian central government and implemented in the areas of the country that are lagging behind, Obiettivi di Servizio is an innovative scheme designed to encourage local authorities to reach given targets for public service provision in the areas of education, childcare and elderly...

Local governments spend roughly $1.6 trillion per year to provide a variety of public services ranging from police and fire protection to public schools and public transit. However, we know little about public sector's productivity in delivering key services. To understand the productivity both...

This paper studies how fiscal decentralization affects local services. It explores a 1993 reform that increased the fiscal autonomy of Italian municipalities by replacing government transfers with revenues from a local property tax. Our identifica- tion leverages cross-municipal variation in the...

Just like any other employer, the municipalities can engage participants in active labor market programs in their activities. Does this possibility affect the output of municipal services? In order to answer this question a measure for output of locally provided schooling is created using factor...