Targeting welfare in Italy: old problems and perspectives on reform

This paper has two principal objectives. Using a tax‐benefit microsimulation model and the 1998 micro data of the Bank of Italy survey of household income and wealth, we first study the distributional effects of the current Italian income maintenance system and highlight its main defects and limitations, concerning in particular its unequal coverage of the population and its low efficiency in fighting poverty. The second aim is to describe and analyse the reforms recently implemented in this field; in particular, the Italian government has reformed the targeting criteria and introduced three new cash transfers. We describe these reforms both in their institutional characteristics and in their likely distributional consequences, and examine whether and to what extent they are able to overcome the shortcomings of the current system.     

The market price of fiscal uncertainty

Recent fiscal interventions have raised concerns about US public debt, future distortionary tax pressure, and long-run growth potential. We explore the long-run implications of public financing policies aimed at short-run stabilization when: (i) agents are sensitive to model uncertainty, as in Hansen and Sargent (2007), and (ii) growth is endogenous, as in Romer (1990). We find that countercyclical deficit policies promoting short-run stabilization reduce the price of model uncertainty at the cost of significantly increasing the amount of long-run risk. Ultimately these tax policies depress innovation and long-run growth and may produce welfare losses.     

Altruism, incomplete markets, and tax reform

We compute the welfare effects of different revenue-neutral tax reforms that eliminate capital income taxation in two general equilibrium models calibrated to the U.S. economy. In our dynastic model, the reform with the largest welfare gain is the one that eliminates all income taxation and increases the consumption tax to 35%; 75% of the population alive at the time of the reform benefit from it. Individuals use intervivos transfers and bequests to redistribute the long-run benefits. In a pure life-cycle economy that lacks this redistribution technology, we find that the same reform would benefit only 9% of the population.     

Long-run performance of an industry after broader reforms including privatization

Research on the impacts of broader reforms, including privatization on firms’ long-run financial and operational performance, is extremely important but only occasionally performed. This study evaluates the long-run financial performance, total factor productivity, efficiency and technology of Pakistani cement manufacturing firms. We conclude that privatized firms have in fact achieved significant productivity growth in the long run due to technological progress compared to no growth in the pre-reform period. Interestingly, however, better productive performance has not contributed to long-run profitability and income efficiency gains, thereby casting serious doubt on the long-run financial benefits of reforms, including privatization.     

Rentenversicherung zwischen Nachhaltigkeit und Gerechtigkeit

Compared to other Western European countries, Germany has taken considerable steps to improve the sustainability of financing its public pension system. However, more recently we have observed attempts to revoke some of the enacted reforms before their implementation. If the positive correlation between income and life expectancy is taken into account, one can indeed diagnose a discrimination against low-income earners in the present retirement benefit schedule, and this very group will suffer disproportionately from the increase in legal retirement age enacted in 2007. Therefore, to protect the sustainability of the pension system in the political sphere, it may be necessary to modify the schedule in favor of this group. In other words, sustainability and equity of the pension system must go hand in hand.     

Fiscal policy reforms and dynamic Laffer effects

This paper looks at the conditions under which a dynamic Laffer effect occurs. Using a basic model, we explain and reconcile selected findings in the literature. We numerically show that a lower tax rate on capital income is the best candidate for obtaining a dynamic Laffer effect—here defined as an improvement in the long-run budget balance of the government. Moreover, ignoring the stock of initial debt and changes in labor supply lead to an overestimation and underestimation of the effect, respectively. Finally, we show that when lower taxes on factor income are financed by higher taxes on consumption, there exists a wide array of combinations for which there is an improvement in both the long-run government budget balance and lifetime welfare. These combinations, however, differ in their implications for labor supply and immediate welfare effects.     

The Effects of Tort Reform on Medical Malpractice Insurers' Ultimate Losses

Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on the impact of reforms on insurers' reported incurred losses, this article examines the ultimate effects of reforms using the developed losses from a comprehensive sample of insurers writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984 to 2003. Noneconomic damages caps are particularly influential in reducing medical malpractice losses and increasing insurer profitability. The long-run effects of these reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects; for example, 5- and 7-year developed loss ratios are below the initially reported incurred loss ratios for those years following the enactment of noneconomic damages caps. Analyses of reported losses consequently understate the ultimate effects of tort reforms. The quantile regressions show that reforms have the greatest effects for the firms that are at the high end of the loss distribution.     

The Role of Omitted Variables in Identifying a Long-run Equilibrium Relationship for the Italian Government Growth

We discuss the role of omitted variables in the long run empirical modeling of the Italian government growth based on a Wagner's Law framework. We identify a non-spurious long-run relationship between general government expenditure and domestic product only when our Wagner's Law model is enhanced by a measure of bureaucratic power, as a supply-side variable, and by the ratio of local to state expenditure, as an institutional factor that captures the division of competencies between local and central government in allocating public expenditure. This result is independent from the Wagner's Law specification chosen. The persistence profile analysis shows a slow adjustment to equilibrium for the estimated government growth relationship following system-wide shocks, pointing to rigidities and complex functioning of the public sector.     

Public service motivation and public sector employment preference: Comparing Italian and British students

ABSTRACT

Previous research has suggested that an individual’s public service motivation (PSM) is positively linked to a preference for public sector employment. The authors explore this link using a sample of British and Italian undergraduate students. They found a positive relationship between PSM and public sector job preferences among Italian students but not with the British students. The UK has implemented more NPM-style reforms than Italy and this could be impacting on public sector recruitment. Implications for recruitment and retention the public sector are discussed.     

Consumption Taxation and Endogenous Growth in a Model with New Generations

This article studies the implications of consumption taxation on capital accumulation in a one-sector endogenous growth model with finite horizons. A tax on consumption, when tax revenues are lump-sum rebated to consumers, redistributes income between living generations and future, still unborn, generations, and therefore depresses aggregate consumption and raises saving, stimulating capital accumulation and economic growth. If however the resources from taxation are used for financing unproductive public spending, the effect of the consumption tax on the endogenous growth rate disappears as no intergenerational redistribution of income occurs. Finally, a consumption tax hike accompanied by a compensatory reduction of public debt increases long-run economic growth and reduces the consumption-output ratio. Our results on consumption taxation differ substantially from those obtained within the endogenous growth literature.     

Bank ownership,privatization, and performance: Evidence from a transition country

This paper combines the static effect of ownership and the dynamic effect of privatization on bank performance in China over 1995–2010, reporting a significantly higher performance by private intermediaries – joint stock commercial banks and city commercial banks – relative to state-owned commercial banks. However, publicly traded banks, subject to multiple monitoring and vetting in capital markets, perform better regardless of ownership status. The privatization of banks has improved performance with respect to revenue inflow and efficiency gains in the short- or long-run (initial public offerings). The positive long-run effect is more relevant and significant for banking institutions with minority foreign ownership. Moreover, this paper innovatively estimates interest income efficiency and non-interest income efficiency at the same time. The results suggest that Chinese banks are much more efficient in generating interest income than raising non-interest revenue, although the latter aspect has improved significantly during the sample period.     

Government investment and fiscal stimulus

Effects of government investment are studied in an estimated neoclassical growth model. The analysis focuses on two dimensions that are critical for understanding government investment as a fiscal stimulus: implementation delays for building public capital and expected fiscal adjustments to deficit-financed spending. Implementation delays can produce small or even negative labor and output responses to increases in government investment in the short run. Anticipated fiscal adjustments matter both quantitatively and qualitatively for long-run growth effects. When public capital is insufficiently productive, distorting financing can make government investment contractionary at longer horizons.     

Reforming the Direct–Indirect Tax Mix

This paper provides a new framework for evaluating the welfare effects of commodity tax reforms. It is shown that tax reforms are welfare improving if and only if they satisfy the following intuitive property: on average, consumer prices fall for commodities with high marginal excess burdens. The rule is then applied to analyze a shift from differentiated commodity taxation to direct flat-rate taxation of labour income. The welfare impact of such reforms can be decomposed into two effects: (i) the increase in welfare associated with substitution among taxed commodities, and (ii) the loss in welfare associated with substitution between commodities and leisure. On balance, a shift towards direct taxation is desirable when inter-commodity substitution effects are large relative to commodity–leisure substitution effects. The analysis allows us to reconcile the apparently conflicting results of the tax reform and optimal taxation literatures.     

Business models in the search for efficiency: the case of public financial intermediaries

This paper presents an optimal business model configuration for public financial intermediaries (PFIs). Using nonparametric techniques on Italian public financial corporations, the most efficient business models combined asset diversification and income specialization. These business models were unaffected by external financial turmoil, due to weak connections between PFIs and the traditional financial circuit; and public–private ownership is more efficient than purely public ownership, regardless of the business model adopted.     

Order flow,dealer profitability,and price formation

We analyze the dynamics of the S&P 500 futures price, finding both short- and long-run effects of order flow on price. While price moves strongly with the order flow in the short-run, the long-run impact is slightly negative, attributable to costly slippage from a hedging propensity in futures markets. We find strong evidence of a state dependence in the relation between price and order flow, using both volume and floor trader income measures as states. We also find that both the long- and short-run impacts of order flow are greater when dealer income is higher.     

财政分权与经济增长可持续性——基于情势转换与聚类视角的分析

经济增长可持续性不仅取决于增长速度还取决于增长稳定性。本文利用我国245个地级市1978—2014年间面板数据和马尔科夫情势转换聚类面板模型,从情势转换与聚类视角考察了地级市经济增长动态特征,识别出不同的动态增长模式及其可持续性,进而剖析了财政分权的影响。研究表明,地级市经济增长呈现出三种动态增长模式,这三种模式在平均增速、增长状态及其持续期、增长波动性进而在增长可持续性方面存在明显差异。支出分权显著增加了地级市归属为低增长、高波动模式的概率,不利于经济可持续增长,而在1994年分税制改革后则产生了较积极的作用。收入分权总体有利于增强经济增长可持续性,1994年分税制改革后,受地方纵向财政失衡加剧的不利影响,这一积极作用有所减弱。增加地方财政自给度(即增加地方收支分权匹配度、减小地方纵向财政失衡)有利于增强经济增长可持续性,这一作用在1994年分税制改革后表现得更为突出。本文研究结论对优化完善财税体制以有效促进经济可持续增长具有良好启示。     

财政改革要与经济发展同步——“十四五”时期中国财政前瞻与2021积极财政政策解读

我国“十四五”时期财政收入基础和税源分布将发生持续性的重大变化,经济增长的有利因素包括居民收入增加、消费扩大、服务业上升、数字经济成长等,但风险因素更加不容忽视,财政将面临收入增长减速、支出需要增加、债务进一步扩张的多重压力,可持续性将明显承压。本文指出财税体制的改革速度亟待与经济发展的趋势与速度同步,提出财政可持续的若干建议,并就2021年财政政策进行解读。     

Public Debt,Human Capital Formation,and Dynamic Inefficiency

The present paper considers public debt in an economy where human capital formation sustains long-run per capita income growth. It shows that contrary to what has been obtained in other types of endogenous growth economies public debt may benefit current and future generations by removing dynamic inefficiency.     

The public sector and health care

This paper specifies a model of the determinans of total expenditure on health care. The model shows how this expenditure is divided between the public and private sectors when public expenditures are chosen by majority rule.From the theoretical model I derive two equations determining the private and public expenditures on health care as shares of GDP. The equations are estimated using OECD panel data with two-way fixed effects and with simultaneous correction for heteroeskedasticity and serial correlation. The results include estimates of the price and income elasticities of public and private demands for health care as well as estimates of the crowdingout effects of public on private expenditures.Paper presented at the 51st Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance.     

Public Pension Reform in the United Kingdom: What Effect on the Financial Well‐Being of Current and Future Pensioners?*

Unlike many tax and benefit changes, reforms to public pension programmes take many years to have their full effect. This paper examines the effect of reforms to the public pension programme in the United Kingdom on the state retirement incomes of current generations of pensioners and on the prospective state incomes of future generations of pensioners. We show that, for an individual with lifetime earnings close to male average earnings, the UK pension system is at its most generous to those reaching the state pension age around the year 2000, but that the introduction of the state second pension and the pension credit postpones this peak for individuals on lower incomes and for those with substantial periods out of paid employment spent with caring responsibilities. We also consider how the ‘mix’ of benefits, particularly between the contributory and income‐tested sectors, could change over time, and the impact that this would have on incentives to save for retirement.