1,720,981 research outputs found
Urban sprawl and regional growth: empirical evidence from Italian Regions
No full textUrban sprawl may affect economic growth through its negative effects on a number of relevant aspects of the economic activity. We test the negative impact of urban sprawl on regional economic growth using Italian data. Our results confirm such negative impact and suggest policies aimed to incentivate urban development in the main cities instead of the provincial territory
Immigration and PAYGO pension systems in the presence of increasing life expectancy
No full textThrough an Overlapping Generations Model, this paper studies the e ects
of migratory ows on a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) pension system in the presence
of linear increase in life expectancy over time.
As a result, we obtain that immigration is likely to induce distributional con-
ict between di erent groups in society. The increasing number of contributors
due to immigration will result in higher pension bene ts for both retirees and
older workers. Future immigrant's pension claims imply that younger workers
will either gain or lose from immigration depending on the immigrants' labour
productivity.
In case of small increase in life expectancy immigration increases the welfare
of the majority of population, given by retirees and older workers. On the other
hand, in the presence of high increase in life expectancy immigration may a ect
negatively the welfare of the majority of population in the absence of further
parametric reforms of the pension system
Are local agreements on equalization grants possible? A bargaining model with quasi-linear local preferences on local public goods
No full textThe art. 13 of the Italian law n. 42/2009 theoretically allows for local negotiations between municipalities on the allocation of equalization funds. However, in the subsequent practice and legislation, such form of local negotiation has never been adopted. A question arises from the Italian experience: in the presence of a predetermined equalization scheme decided by the central government, are local agreements on equalization transfers possible? In this paper we show that, in the presence of quasi-linear local preferences on public goods, there is no space for alternative local agreements on the allocation of equalizing transfers in the presence of predetermined schemes decided by the central government. Our results suggest that similar practices, when allowed, are destined to have scarce success. We also show that, if the central government does not provide a predetermined scheme, local agreement on equalization funds are viable
Asymmetric yardstick competition: traditional procurement versus public-private partnerships
Full text linkWe consider local jurisdictions where rent-seeking administrators undertake identical infrastructure projects, choosing between two contractual arrangements: traditional procurement (TP) and public-private partnership (PPP). A yardstick competition mechanism is triggered through retrospective voters’ electoral decisions. A regime with TP in one jurisdiction and PPP in the other is likely to arise when projects are mildly lucrative and/or jurisdictions have moderate fiscal capacity. In this equilibrium, incumbents provide different levels of public services, face different re-election probabilities, and obtain different rents. By differentiating the project governance, incumbents specialize in rent extraction over time, thus hindering yardstick competition although jurisdictions are otherwise identical
Life-cycle Consumption in the Presence of a Term Life Insurance, Voluntary, AltruisticBequest, and Uncertain Life Span
No full textCo-Production in Local Public Service Delivery: The Case of Waste Management
No full textIn a simple model of waste management, we analyse the basic aspects of co-production in local public service delivery. Our results suggest that citizen involvement may lead to an expansion of the production possibility frontier, if waste sorting is made sufficiently convenient, relative to work, through an appropriate tax policy. However, by diverting time away from work, this policy
may trigger a tax base erosion phenomenon. We find that the incentive power of the tax should be high (low) when local preferences for the service are very high (low) relative to local incomes. In the intermediate situation, two cases arise. First,
when preferences are (not very) low relative to incomes, taxation should pursue resource collection purposes and be deprived of its incentive effects. Second, when preferences are middle-to-high relative to incomes, the trade-off between incentive
provision and tax base erosion causes the optimal tax rate to first increase, then decrease
Quality of institutions, rent-seeking, and inter-jurisdictional cooperation
Full text linkThe differing fiscal needs of municipalities introduce bias into yardstick competition among local administrators driven by pure rent-seeking motives. The influence of institutional quality on this bias varies across cases, sometimes alleviating it, while in other instances exacerbating it. Inter-municipal cooperation provides incumbents with control over political yardstick competition. However, this alliance compromises the quality of public services when rent extraction is a priority. To address the issue of collusion and enhance accountability, the central government may find it counterproductive to uniformly improve institutional quality across all districts. Instead, a more effective approach may involve targeted policy interventions in specific districts, considering the varying levels of fiscal and institutional disparities. By doing so, the central government can disrupt the incentive for collusion and rent extraction among local incumbents
Yardstick competition and fiscal disparities: an experimental study
Full text linkRecent theoretical research suggest that yardstick competition may be biased by the presence of fiscal
disparities between local governments and that fiscal equalization may help in correcting this bias. This
paper provides an empirical test of these theoretical predictions by means of a laboratory experiment
Empirical Analysis on the USD/all Exchange Rate Volatility in Albanian Market: Preliminary Results
No full textThis paper aims to forecast the USD/ALL exchange rate volatility in short term period in Albanian market, being that the American dollar is considered a safe currency independently to the political context in the rest of the world. Furthermore, U
SD is the second foreign currency after Euro (according to financial and commercial transactions) and it is characterized by a
peculiar probabilistic volatility distribution. In particular, USD volatility represents a continuous concern for economic ag
ents exposed to the exchange risk. It follows that the measurement of the USD/ALL exchange rate volatility may help in the assessment and maintenance of capital needed for coverage purposes. The common financial time series dynamic models such as ARMA (1;1), ARCH (1) an d GARCH (1;1) can be used to estimate the USD/ALL exchange rate volatility in short term period. Our results suggest that, in the presence of political factors as well as external shocks derived from country’s main
trade partners, the best way to estimate and forecast the USD/ALL exchange rate volatility in the short term is the use of the
MS - GARCH model
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