THE PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS IN ITALY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

In this paper we attempt to shed some light on the way the regulation of public transit systems has been approached in the past and is presently addressed in Italy. The reduction of x-inefficiency represents a great challenge for the local authorities, given the high operating costs faced by the transportation companies and the moderate tariffs level that do not allow the operators to balance costs and revenues. Throughout the 1980’s and the first half of the 1990’s, the problem was essentially met by means of stopgap measures taken mainly for emergency, to curb the deficit build-up. In the past five years it has been turning the efforts towards a radical reorganization of the whole local public transportation (LPT) industry, with the law 549/95, completed with the Decreti Legge 422/97 and 400/99. The reform process includes among its goals the attribution of financial responsibility to the sector operators and the start of privatization of the public transit systems. The introduction of more competitive environment, mainly by the resort to tendering for the allotment of concessions, represents the challenge for the future. A complete evaluation of the achieved results is probably still premature. Nevertheless, as the first goal is concerned, the reform appears suitable to yield some positive result. On the contrary, the liberalization and privatization of the LPT sector is progressing very slowly, due to the protection still given to the public-owned companies. It is then expected that in the future a decisive action with regard to such important aspects of the regulatory reform will be undertaken.

Does Fiscal Discipline towards Sub-national Governments Affect Citizens’ Well-being? Evidence on Health

This paper aims at assessing the impact of fiscal discipline towards sub-national governments on citizens’ well-being. We model fiscal discipline by considering the expectations of deficit bailouts by Central Government, and focus on a particular dimension of well-being, namely health outcomes at the regional level. We study then how bailout expectations affect the expenditure for health care policies carried out by Regional Governments: in the presence of opportunistic behaviours by local governments – induced by soft budget constraints – bailout expectations should affect only spending inefficiency, and should not have any real effects on citizens’ health. To investigate this issue, we model the efficient use of public resources for health care delivery as an input requirement frontier, and assess the effects of bailout expectations on both the structural component of health spending and its deviations from the best practice. The evidence from a sample of 15 Italian Regions observed from 1993 to 2006 highlights that bailout expectations do not significantly influence the position of the frontier, thus do not affect citizens’ health. However, they appear to exert a remarkable impact on excess spending.Intergovernmental relationships, Soft budget constraint, Bailout expectations, Health care policy, Spending efficiency

Costs and Technology of Public Transit Systems in Italy:Some Insights to Face Inefficiency

This study provides fresh evidence about the characteristics of technology and cost structure of public transit systems in Italy. The aim is to suggest useful guidelines for facing detected inefficiencies. The analysis is carried out through the estimation of a translog variable cost function. The sample includes 45 Italian public companies. Firms are observed in the years 1996, 1997 and 1998, and operate both in the urban and extra-urban compartments. Results support previous evidence on the existence of natural monopoly at local level and stress the importance of the average speed of vehicles in explaining cost differences between companies. We conclude that cost benefits can be achieved by promoting mergers between firms (whenever possible), introducing some forms of "competition-for-the-market" (e.g., competitive tendering for the single license) and taking more care of the local traffic regulation.

Decentralization and Local Governments’ Performance: How Does Fiscal Autonomy Affect Spending Efficiency?

In Italy, as in other countries around the world, recent reforms share the goal of increasing the fiscal autonomy of lower tiers of governments, from Regions to Municipalities, in order to align spending with funding responsibilities and increase the efficiency in the provision of essential public services. The purpose of this paper is to assess spending efficiency of local governments and to investigate the effects of tax decentralization, focusing on the role played by incumbent politicians’ accountability. The analysis relies on a sample of Italian municipalities and exploits both parametric (SFA) and nonparametric (DEA) techniques to study spending inefficiency and its main determinants. Consistently with modern fiscal federalism theories, our results show that more fiscally autonomous municipalities exhibit less inefficient behaviours. We also find that the shorter is the distance from new elections, the higher is excess spending, thus giving further support to the traditional “electoral budget cycle” agument. Other political features of governing coalition, such as age and gender of the mayor, do not seem to exert any significant impact on inefficiency levels.Local governments, Fiscal autonomy, Political accountability, Spending efficiency, Parametric and nonparametric frontiers

Developing a static microsimulation model for the analysis of housing taxation in Italy

In this paper we develop the first (static) microsimulation model aimed at studying the distributive impact of housing taxation on Italian households. We use as input data those provided by the Bank of Italy from its Survey on Households Income and Wealth, and discuss specific problems arising in the evaluation of cadastral income and of the Property Tax base. Our estimates of the distribution of taxpayers are very close to the Ministry of Finance official statistics; hence, our model can be seen as a reliable tool to evaluate the current distribution of housing taxation and the impact of potential tax reforms. Our simulations suggest that both Property Tax and Waste Management Tax show a moderate regressive impact with respect to household gross income, whilst the Personal Income Tax on dwellings other than the main residence is progressive. We then provide an application of our model, to study the Property Tax reform in 2008. Our findings show that all households owning the main residence gain from the 2008 reform, but tax cuts are mostly concentrated on the top three deciles of household equivalent gross income, so that the richest benefit most.Housing taxation, Microsimulation Models

The Runaway Taxpayer or: Is Prior Tax Notice Effective against Scofflaws?

In this paper we study how prior tax notice (following audit and detection of tax fraud by Tax Authorities) affects individual behaviour in terms of tax compliance. We start with a very stylised theoretical framework, considering a situation in which an individual has been already audited and caught as tax evader, and knows that the Tax Authorities are looking for her to cash the due amount of taxes. We concentrate on the decision to move in order to avoid paying the bill, and derive the optimal number of times an individual should move equalising marginal costs and benefits of the decision. We then carry out an empirical analysis based on real data provided by an Italian collection agency for the period 2004-2007. Our results show that previous notice reduces the probability to move, but its cost is not large enough to correct the individual incentive to escape Tax Authorities.tax-enforcement, individual compliance decisions, prior notice

Fiscal decentralisation, private school funding, and students’ achievements. A tale from two roman catholic countries

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 Roman Catholic Church, and the role of regional governments financing education) created different institutions in terms of both dimensions, private funds and regional governments funds. We take advantage of these institutional diversities to estimate the disciplining role of different sources of funds in the context of educational production function using PISA data. Our results provide support to these accountability drivers. Moreover, we find evidence on the role played by a national standardised test in providing adequate incentives to improve schools’ performance.Public and private schools, accountability, fiscal federalism

Hospital Industry Restructuring and Input Substitutability: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Hospitals

In this paper we investigate the economic rationality of the bed downsizing process characterising the hospital industry worldwide in the last decades, providing new evidence on the factor substitutability in the production of hospital services. We consider a sample of Italian regional producers and – differently from other studies – estimate a general cost function model, namely the Generalised Composite, firstly introduced by Pulley & Braunstein (1992). Alternative cost function specifications (included Translog) are estimated jointly with their associated input cost-share equations. For all models we derive Allen, Morishima and Shadow elasticities of substitution between input pairs, obtaining a fairly consistent picture across all specifications and elasticity concepts. More precisely, our results suggest a very limited degree of substitutability between factors in the production of hospital services (in particular, between beds and medical staff). These findings, consistent with previous evidence in the literature, suggest that a restructuring policy of the hospital industry which is confined to limiting the number of beds could not be a viable strategy for controlling the increase in public health care expenditure.Public health care expenditure, Hospital industry downsizing, Input substitutability

Assessing the Distributional Effects of Housing Taxation in Italy: From the Actual Tax Code to Imputed Rent

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 personal income tax on the main residence, and compare provisions of the Tax Code with an alternative approach, by considering the imputed rent from owner-occupied dwelling as a component of the Personal Income Tax gross income. Our results suggest that current tax system is just as inefficient as it is inequitable.housing taxation, imputed rents, microsimulation models