La Teoria della tassazione ottima del reddito: una rassegna critica

La tassazione del reddito costituisce lo strumento fiscale più utilizzato nella maggior parte dei paesi sviluppati, ma è anche uno degli aspetti dei sistemi tributari maggiormente in discussione. Da un lato, essa rappresenta il mezzo più diretto per perseguire le finalità redistributive e soddisfare le esigenze di equità. Dall’altro lato, si ritiene che l’applicazione di tale imposta generi forti disincentivi allo sforzo e all’iniziativa individuali. La teoria della tassazione ottima del reddito mostra come questo trade off influenza la definizione della struttura ottimale di imposta e si propone di individuare lo schema di aliquote sul reddito che consente di soddisfare gli obiettivi equitativi, al costo minimo in termini di perdita di effcienza. In questa sede,viene proposta una rassegna critica dei principali contributi alla letteratura sul tema, iniziando dal lavoro di Mirrlees del 1971, che segna l’avvio della moderna teoria della tassazione ottima del reddito. La ricerca successiva è proceduta mantenendo la stessa struttura concettuale ed espandendo il modello originario, al fine di analizzare come la forma della tax schedule ottima può essere modificata dall’adozione di assunzioni diverse. Di alcune di queste assunzioni si è dato conto all’interno della rassegna, nella quale, dopo aver messo in luce gli elementi di maggiore criticità e le differenti soluzioni prospettate, si evidenziano i risultati più rilevanti ottenuti

A Multidimensional poverty analysis: evidence from Italian data

Conventional poverty measures, showing that poverty and inequality have increased in Italy over the past fifteen years, are based on household income. The main drawback of this method is that it does not include other non-monetary variables relevant for defining households’ necessities. It is now widely agreed that poverty should be conceptualised as a multidimensional phenomenon, more related to the standard of living of the person or household than to the simple inability of satisfying basic subsistence needs. In this paper we propose to measure poverty in Italy by complementing income information with non-monetary indicators. To this end a multidimensional poverty analysis is performed by using a representative sample based on the first wave (2004) of the Italian component of the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Starting from the concept of deprivation, a non linear principal component analysis is applied to selected items in order to reveal underlying latent dimensions to be interpreted as deprivation indicators. We then examine how such measures can be combined with income measures in order to obtain a better identification of the poor. Finally we examine the overlapping between the income poor and the deprived and provide an analysis of deprivation profiles. Our results show that a more comprehensive poverty measure, combining deprivation criteria and income poverty, leads to a different identification of poor people, compared to analyses based only on income measures

Financial barriers and environmental innovations: evidence from EU manufacturing firms

Environmental innovations (EI) are essential to achieve economic growth and environmental protection goals. Technological development is one of the key factors that can counterbalance the growth and population emission-augmenting effects. EI are a priority in major EU policy strategies and a prerequisite for the development of a ‘Resource efficient Europe’, one of the flagship initiatives of Europe 2020. The existence of financial barriers can constitute a serious deterrent for the eco-innovative capacity of firms, even more than for ‘traditional’ innovations, as EI are characterized by high technical risk, long payback period and uncertainty on the appropriability of private rents. This article analyses in depth whether barriers related to external financing affect EI investments and whether the stringency of financial constraints to investments in EI is affected by factors related to EI specificities. We show that when both direct and indirect effects on EI investments are considered, the role of the policy framework appears to be as particularly crucial in order to reverse the risk/return trade-off of eco-innovative investments. Targeting policy interventions to facilitate access to credit and to mitigate capital markets’ imperfections is essential to mitigate the apparent contradiction between EU industrial policies and climate abatement scenarios

Date Marks, Valuation, and Food Waste: Three In-Store ‘Eggsperiments’

We provide causal evidence on how date marking policies influence consumers' valuation of perishable food products through three consecutive research steps. In a preparatory in-store survey (n = 100), we identify perishable food items that can be experimentally manipulated to overcome core challenges for causal identification. A modified in-store multiple price list (MPL) experiment (n = 200) then tests consumers' valuation of perishable food of varying shelf-life (expiry date) in a two-by-two design that varies date mark type(use-by versus best-before) and information status while preventing free disposal censoring. We find that expiry dates affect consumer valuation, but not differences in date mark type. Educating consumers about date mark meaning turns out to be conducive to discarding potentially unsafe food, but not to preventing food waste. An attentiveness experiment (n = 160) tests whether these treatment effects plausibly result from the nature of consumers' knowledge and finds that the existing asymmetry in consumers' understanding of current date marks can explain the evidence from the modified MPL experiment

Techno-economic assessment of the conditions for the development of a potential unconventional gas and oil industry: Review of experiences outside Europe and analysis of the European potential

The aim of this report is to provide a review of the key factors that have influenced the development of the unconventional hydrocarbon industry in selected countries outside the EU. The study extends the analysis to investigate the potential unconventional hydrocarbon industry development in Europe.JRC.C.3-Energy Security, Distribution and Market

Exploring Environmentally Significant Behaviors in a Multidimensional Perspective

This paper contributes to the recent literature exploring the determinants of individual environmental behaviors. Contrary to many previous studies, which consider single items as proxies of individuals' overall environmental responsibility, we adopt a multidimensional perspective and derive composite indicators measuring individual performance on a set of distinct environmental dimensions. These indicators are then used to provide a more comprehensive picture of the complex mechanisms behind the formation of environmentally responsible behaviors. In addition to commonly investigated variables, we consider a richer set of determinants of green behaviors, nding that the level of pub- lic environmental protection expenditure, lifestyle satisfaction, individual worldviews and participation of di erent types of social actors all signi cantly a ect the degree of environmental responsibility. Our empirical analysis is based on data from the British \Survey of Public Attitudes and Behaviours toward the Environment" for 2009.JEL Classification: A130; H130; Q530; Z130

Poverty alleviation in a welfarist framework of optimal linear income taxation

This paper develops a framework that allows to treat the typically ”non welfarist” goal of poverty alleviation as a ”welfarist” one. Such result is obtained by adopting a censored social welfare function, in which only variations in incomes below the poverty line affect social welfare. Optimal linear income tax structures derived assuming different social objective functions are then explicitly compared. Under quite general conditions, we show that the poverty-minimising income taxation is more redistributive than the standard welfare-maximising one. Under more restrictive assumptions on the income distribution, however, we find that the opposite result may occur. Specifically, when the poor are close enough to the poverty line, a smaller redistribution may be required to minimise poverty rather than maximise welfare

Ordinal maximization principle vs Pareto’s optimum conditions in policy decision making: the case of hydrogen technologies

The concept of Ordinality takes origin from the formalization process of Emergy Algebra under dynamic conditions and the subsequent mathematical formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle (2001). Such a new concept enabled us to reinterpret the traditional concept of Externality (in Economics) as an “excess” of Quality (Giannantoni 2007, Giannantoni & Zoli, 2008), that is an “extra” Benefit of superior Ordinality, never ever reducible to the sole action of one subject or the other of the transaction, or to their “sum”. Such a new concept can be thus referred to as Ordinal Externality. An appropriate evaluation method, termed as Four-Sector Diagram of Benefits, was developed to account for Ordinal Externalities generated by the interaction of the four main Sectors usually involved in any productive process: Firm, Society, the Environment as a Source and the Environment as a Sink. The advantages of a Decision Making Process based on Ordinal Benefits (with respect to traditional economic benefits) has already been shown, under steady state conditions, with reference to the evaluation of well-calibrated Incentives concerning both Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Buses (ib.), for electricity supply and public transportation respectively. The same case studies will now be reconsidered in order to show that, on the basis of the Ordinal Maximization Principle, the optimum economic conditions (usually assumed as being corresponding to Pareto’s General Equilibrium) can directly be obtained as an adherent reflex of the maximum level of Ordinality achieved by the System. Consequently, the Ordinal Maximization Principle represents a valid reference guide for a Policy Maker precisely because, being preferentially based on the external Benefits to be “remunerated” rather than on possible damages to be internalized, it is always orientated toward the genesis of the Maximum Ordinality Excess

The Four-Sector Diagram of Benefits (FSDOB) as a method for evaluating strategic interactions between humans and the environment: The case study of hydrogen fuel cell buses

In this paper we propose to adopt a new multi-criteria methodology, termed as the Four Sector Diagram of Benefits (FSDOB), to evaluate potential benefits generated by new energy options. This method allows us to account for a multiplicity of economic, social and environmental indicators, but especially for a particular form of benefits, termed as Ordinal Benefits. These Benefits can never be reduced to a monetary value, nonetheless they can be estimated in Emergy terms, albeit such estimations only represent simple "ciphers" of their real values. On the basis of the FSDOB Method we evaluate all the various forms of benefits provided by the introduction of hydrogen fuel cell buses. The case-study shows that our benefit-oriented approach tends to favor the adoption of environment-friendly technologies, as a consequence of the huge amount of social and environmental benefits they provide. The same solutions would result as non profitable from a traditional financial point of view. In such a perspective, they would never be realized, by loosing, in actual fact, the opportunity of taking advantage of all the associated benefits.Fuel cell buses Environmental benefits Emergy Analysis Ordinal Benefits