This paper provides an overview of full and partial allowance for corporate equity (ACE) tax systems in practice. In the recent past, ACE systems have been used in Austria, Croatia, and Italy. Brazil still applies a variant of such a system and Belgium introduced one this year. This paper...

This paper examines the regional distribution of public employment in Italy and documents two sets of facts. The first is the use of public employment as a subsidy from the North to the less wealthy South. We calculate that about half of the wage bill in the South of Italy can be identified as a...

This paper provides a synthesis of existing and new empirical perspectives on the structure of the Italian labor market, using data at different levels of disaggregation. The analysis indicates that aggregate data mask considerable disparities in labor market outcomes across regions and...

This paper surveys the main theoretical approaches for analyzing movements in the current account of the balance of payments, from the Mundell-Fleming paradigm to modern intertemporal approaches. It discusses the main implications of these analyses for policymaking, highlighting that modern...

This paper investigates income redistribution and risk sharing among Italy’s regions and the implications for public policy. Using a richer data set than in previous works, this study allows for an assessment of public consumption’s and investment’s roles. The findings suggest that...

This paper assesses the proposal, publicly debated in recent years in Italy, to reduce public debt by selling public assets, especially nonfinancial tangible assets. The main findings indicate that, although selling public assets has some merit if done to make more productive use of them,...

Italy’s deep-rooted structural problems resulted in an unsatisfactory productivity performance and a dismal growth over the last 15 years. The global financial crisis has exacerbated these long-standing weaknesses, taking a heavy toll on Italy’s economy. With output back to its end-2001...

There is broad agreement on the appropriateness of the budget deficit target. The government aims to strengthen expenditure control and efficiency, at the national and at subnational levels, to achieve a reduction in the tax burden while cutting the fiscal deficit. The IMF staff suggested...

In Italy, health care budget ceilings are not effective. The poor control by the central government results in excessive use of expensive inputs, in long waiting lines for medical procedures, and in the emergence of large arrears to suppliers and commercial banks. To fully gain the benefits of...

This paper explains why EMU countries seem unable or unwilling to undertake structural reforms of public expenditure. One of the reasons is political. What public expenditure reforms might be pursued without changing the political system? Without political reforms, technical improvements made to...