We compare health system responses to the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Spain. In both countries, healthcare is managed at the regional level, but the central government behaved differently in the uncertainty surrounding the first wave, leaving more autonomy to regional...

The upward trend in the incidence of caesarean deliveries is a widespread stylised fact in many countries. Several studies have argued that it does not reflect, at least in part, patients' needs but that it is also influenced by other factors, such as providers/physicians incentives. Not...

The presence of extensive housing subsidies characterises the current tax systems as inefficient. In this paper, we study whether inefficiency is the price to be paid to improve equity, by assessing the actual distributive impact of housing taxation on Italian households. We concentrate on the...

Anti-money laundering regulations have been centred on the "Know-Your-Customer" rule so far, overlooking the fact that criminal proceedings that need to be laundered are usually represented by cash. This is the first study which tries to provide an answer to the question of how much of cash...

Recent theories on fiscal decentralization support the view that sub-national governments who finance a larger share of their spending with taxes raised locally by themselves are more accountable towards their citizens. Whilst evidence on improvements in spending efficiency is relatively common,...