1,721,019 research outputs found
Direct and Indirect Effects of Corporatism on Economic Growth
No full textWe investigate whether corporatist governance negatively affect growth a) directly through higher transaction costs involved in the policy decision-making process; b) indirectly, yielding growth retarding policy decisions in 18 OECD countries for the period 1960-1993. We find that corporatist governance and left wing governments do not directly reduce growth but there are robust correlations between growth, union pervasiveness and other policy regressors
Italian Institutional Reforms: A Public Choice Perspective
No full textDeals with numerous areas of change including the switch from centralized to federal government Using a public choice perspective, this book explains the evolution and political and economic impact of recent changes to the Italian institutional framework. Because these changes are so numerous and broad, their implementation serves as a case study for other Western governments. Particular attention is paid to the introduction of the EURO, the reform of voting from proportional to majoritarian rule, the impact of corporatism, constraints imposed by the Maastricht Treaty, and the switch from a highly centralized government to a federal organization
STRATEGIC DELEGATION AND JUDICIAL COUPLES IN THE ITALIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT
No full textWe analyze the selection of the Justice Reporter by the Justice President of the Italian Constitutional Court, the most important form of agenda setting power and act of delegation in decisions of constitutional (il)legitimacy. We estimate an econometric model that evaluates the relative importance of the determinants of the creation of these “judicial couples”, namely, professional background, political affiliation, age etc. Professional background is shown to be an important determinant of the creation of the couples, more so with time, although the onset of the Second Republic has reduced its importance. This analysis sheds light into the inner workings of the Italian Constitutional Court and the actual processes through which its jurisprudence is generated
Perception vs. experience: Explaining differences in corruption measures using microdata
No full textMost corruption research suffers from one common problem: There is no objective measure of public-sector corruption for a cross-section of countries. Studies on the determinants or the effects of corruption typically rely on indicators of corruption perception. In recent years, a second type of indicator reflecting experience with bribery has become available. If corruption perception is primarily informed by experience with corruption, these two types of indicators should be very highly correlated, which they are not. This study examines the variation in individual corruption perception that cannot be explained by individual corruption experience alone. We find that both respondent characteristics and country characteristics affect corruption perception beyond what can be explained by individuals’ first-hand experience of corruption. Some of these biases may force us to reevaluate results of corruption research that is based on perception data, as well as the anti-corruption policies designed in response to these results
How do governments actually use environmental taxes?
No full textThis paper empirically examines how governments actually use environmental taxes, by looking to what extent their resort to this type of taxation is consistent with three alternative interpretations of environmental taxes proposed by the welfare economics theoretical literature: the strict and the broad Pigouvian and the double dividend hypotheses. We also extend our analysis to an alternative vision of politics, the Leviathan model, to verify how governments that are imperfectly accountable use environmental taxes. Each theory leads to alternative testable hypotheses, which we verify on a sample that minimizes the analysts’ discretionary evaluations, the EU-28 countries that committed themselves to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The estimates lend support to the strict Pigouvian hypothesis and, to a lesser extent, to a version of the double dividend hypothesis, where personal income taxes are ‘recycled’ by environmental ones. The other interpretations do not appear consistent with the data
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