The purpose of this paper is to introduce and adopt a generalised version of Roemer's (1998) Equality of Opportunity (EOp) framework, which we call extended EOp, for analysing second-best optimal income taxation. Unlike the pure EOp criterion of Roemer (1998) the extended EOp criterion allows...

The current Italian income support policies are defective with respect to both efficiency and equity. A more effective design must face five crucial choices: universal vs. categorical policies; transfers vs. subsidies; unconditional vs. means-tested policies; coverage; flat vs. progressive tax...

In this paper we aim to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the fiscal consolidation package adopted recently by the Italian Government in order to achieve a balanced budget by 2013. Revenues are forecasted to increase by more than 3.3 GDP percentage points; these stem mostly from indirect...

This paper reviews capital taxation issues in Italy based on a comprehensive definition encompassing taxes on income, transactions, and ownership. It discusses options to enhance the neutrality of the capital income tax system, followed by a detailed analysis of the property tax, the inheritance...

In this paper we analyze the new personal income tax 1998 reform (IRPEF). We consider the effects that the reform has with respect to households with children where income earners are employees. The first part of the paper analyzes how income available after taxation changes due to the reform,...

This paper adopts a “piece-meal” approach to empirically identify, on a sample of Italian households, a collective model where both nonparticipation and non-convex budget sets are allowed for. Two tax reforms, i.e. the 2002 tax changes recently introduced in Italy and a revenue neutral...

We develop and estimate a microeconometric model of household labour supply in four European countries representative of different economies and welfare policy regimes: Denmark, Italy, Portugal and United Kingdom. We then simulate, under the constraint of constant total net tax revenue, the...