We analyze the determinants of caesarean sections and the role that regional policies and institutions can play in controlling for inappropriateness in healthcare. We consider Italy as a case study, given that: at the national level caesarean sections are above OECD average but regional...

As an answer to soaring oil prices, stabilization mechanisms based on specific taxes, such as the French Tipp flottante, have been discussed and introduced in some countries in early 2000s, but then soon abandoned. Our contribution aims at analysing the excise pass-through and the cost shifting...

ABSTRACT This paper aims to assess the impact on citizens' well‐being of fiscal discipline imposed by the central government on subnational governments. Because healthcare policies involve strategic interactions between different layers of governments in many different countries, we focus on a...

This study provides an answer to the question of how much cash deposited via a financial institution can be traced back to criminal activities, by developing a new approach to measure money laundering and proposing an application to Italy. We define a model of cash in‐flows on current accounts...

type="main" <p>We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of the value...</p>

We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground or shadow economy with a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) � la Tanzi. We introduce three main innovations. First, we take as dependent variable in the money demand equation a direct...

This paper analyses the incidence of specific taxes in fuel markets, and exploits the findings to simulate the effects of government interventions aimed at mitigating oil price fluctuations. Several reduced-form model specifications are estimated to study tax incidence, using wholesale...

The objective of the paper is to study the disciplining role of both market forces and regional governments own resources in the provision of educational services. The historical evolution of school regulation in Italy and Spain (in particular regarding the funding of private schools run by...

The presence of extensive housing subsidies characterizes the current Italian tax system as inefficient. In this article, we study whether inefficiency is the price to be paid to improve equity, by assessing the distributive impact of housing taxation on households' well-being. We concentrate on...

The quality of the institutional environment is a crucial issue in understanding the effective outcome of fiscal decentralization initiatives. However, there has been so far very little work on the subject. In this paper we contribute to fill this gap by considering the municipalities belonging...