Suchergebnisse

Abstract:In this paper, I propose an empirical test of the main prediction of the theoretical literature on the firm as an incentive structure using data on the Italian markets, where two types of co-operative banks co-exist together with stock banks. I estimate a standard translog cost frontier and I derive cost efficiency scores. Kruskall–Wallis tests indicate that mean efficiency scores are statistically different among the three types of banks, providing empirical support to the theoretical prediction that different organizations represent different incentive structures. Moreover, co-operatives banks appear more efficient than stock banks. These results are robust also after controlling for the size of banks and the quality of their credit policies in a second-stage analysis. Hence, the efficiency gains stemming from the presence of scale economies seem to be dominated by the efficiency losses caused by the agency relationships within the bank in a more complex organization.

Besides sharing a common cultural background, Italy and Spain also share a similar institutional framework. Both are unitary states in the European Union that have devolved responsibilities of mandatory services to be provided nationwide at the sub-national level within rules set at the Constitutional level. Both assign to the regional level - the Regioni and the two Province Autonome in Italy (Regions from now on), the Comunidades Autonomas (ACs) in Spain - the ability to legislate via own laws on specific matters within the rules defined by the Constitution. As for Italy, it is art. 117 of the 1948 Constitution, reformed in 2001, that defines matters on which the central government has the exclusive right to legislate, and matters on which it shares instead a joint right with regional governments. As for Spain, the art. 148 in the 1978 Constitution lists functions on which only the ACs can legislate, leaving to art. 149 those on which only the State can exercise this right.

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequalities in educational scores in European Union member states, by decomposing them into their determinin factors. Using PISA data from the 2000 and 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequalities emerge in all countries and in both period, but decreased in Germany, whilst they increased in France and Italy. Decomposition shows that educational inequalities do not only reflect background related inequality, but especially schools' characteristics. The findings allow policy makers to target areas that may make a contribution in reducing educational inequalities. ; Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition

This paper aims at assessing the impact on citizens' well-being of fiscal discipline imposed by Central Government to sub-national governments. Since health care policies involve strategic interactions between different layers of governments in many different countries, we focus on a particular dimension of well-being, namely citizens' health. We model fiscal discipline by considering sub-national governments expectations of future deficit bailouts from the Central Government. We then study how these bailout expectations affect the expenditure for health care policies carried out by decentralized governments. To investigate this issue, we separate eficient health spending from inefficiencies by estimating an input requirement frontier. This allow us to assess the effects of bailout expectations on both the structural component of health expenditure and its deviations from the 'best practice'. The evidence from the 15 Italian Ordinary Statute Regions (observed from 1993 to 2006) points out 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.

In this paper we consider the institutional arrangements needed in a decentralised framework to cope with the potential adverse welfare effects caused by localized negative shocks, that impact on the provision of public services and that can be limited by precautionary investments. We model the role of a public mutual fund to cover these "collective risks". We first study the under-investment problem stemming from the moral hazard of Local administrations, when investments are defined at the local level and are not observable by the Central government that manages the mutual fund. We then examine the potential role of private insurers in solving the underinvestment problem. Our analysis shows that the public fund is almost always superior to the private insurance solution.

Abstract In this paper we study the determinants of volunteering. We depart from previous literature that considers only economic incentives and investigate the role that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations play in shaping the supply of voluntary labour. We build on previous theoretical research and derive a framework for interpreting results from our econometric analysis. We consider a sample of Italian workers of which we can observe proxies of motivations and volunteering choices in three different sectors: social services, political activism and union activism. We make due allowance for the endogeneity of motivations and show that both types of motivations have an effect on volunteering. Consistently with theoretical models, we find extrinsic motivations to lower voluntary labour supply, whereas the opposite holds for intrinsic motivations.

In this paper we propose a simple model of bailing out that closely describes the intergovernmental relationships between the Central government and the regional governments in the Italian public health care sector. The theoretical model suggests that bail out expectations by regions can be thought as the missing variable emphasised by Culyer (1988) in empirical models explaining health expenditure. We test this prediction by using data on regional health expenditure during the years 1990-1999. We show that financing by regions is influenced by political variables that capture changes in bail out expectations. This "expected" funding has a positive relationship with expenditure, even when Central government decreased financing to regions. Moreover, the "alignment effect" shows that "friendly" regional governments receive more money and support Central government by reducing expenditure.

We investigate the existence of an "electoral cycle bias" in the timing of media coverage of news with high political value. In particular, we analyze how the electoral cycles at the regional level influence the coverage of news about corruption scandals in the Italian Regional Health Systems by two important national newspapers having opposite ideology, La Repubblica (left-wing oriented) and Il Giornale (right-wing oriented). Our findings show that Il Giornale produces more articles about corruption scandals involving left-wing politicians in the days right before the elections, while it reduces the number of those about right episodes of corruption and without any political connection. Instead, for La Repubblica we do not find any evidence of the existence of neither an electoral cycle, nor an ideological bias in the coverage of corruption. These results are robust to different model specifications, the potential endogeneity of some elections, and different measures of the time to the elections.