Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide a new and simple approach to the empirical assessment of the internal efficiency of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) based on outcomes on regulated markets. Moreover, in order to illustrate this approach, the authors apply the proposed methodology to telecommunications. Design/methodology/approach: First, this paper defines the production process of a NRA to identify correctly the inputs and the outputs of regulatory activity. Second, with reference to the telecommunications sector this paper provides estimates for the inputs and output identified. Third, by treating each NRA as a decision making unit (DMU) this paper carries out a data envelopment analysis (DEA) used in conjunction with a smoothed bootstrap technique. Findings: This paper provides evidences that NRAs operating in new accession countries look more efficient in pursuing dynamic efficiency goals than (more experienced) NRAs operating in other European countries, while they are less efficient when the regulatory outcomes are measured in terms of retail efficiency. Research limitations/implications: The lack of data on NRAs' personnel and budget requires a cautious discussion of the results. Practical implications: This paper enables one to get a better understanding of the effectiveness of different regulatory measures. Social implications: Once a measure of productive (internal) efficiency of a regulatory body has been obtained, it is then possible to embed this information in a more general analysis aimed at disentangling the effectiveness of regulatory measures from the ability (efficiency) of NRAs in putting them into force. Originality/value: The evaluation of regulators' productive efficiency, as well as the identification of its determinants, has been almost completely neglected in the literature. With this paper we start to fill this gap
This paper aims at analyzing the distributional (and revenue) effects of the deviations of the personal income tax (PIT) base in Italy from the taxpayer’s total income that was proposed as tax base by the Commission for the Study of Tax Reform in 1964 (which was inspired by the Schanz-Haig-Simons concept of income). It is clear in both the Report of the Commission and Cosciani’s writings that an equitable tax system requires that all income items are taxed within the PIT. However, financial income in Italy is excluded from the PIT since its introduction in 1974, and the erosion of the PIT base has continued to date. In the second part of the paper the contribution of the different types of income to the PIT base in Italy with respect to GDP between 1980 and 2012 is analyzed, and an assessment of the redistributive effect of the hypothetical inclusion of financial income in the PIT base is provided, using data from tax returns for 2010
The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of economic openness on the vertical structure of the public sector within a country. To tackle this issue we set up a simple theoretical model of fiscal federalism, where both central and local public spending enter the objective functions of both a central government and an aggregate local public sector, accommodating a wide range of behaviours. The degree of economic openness is assumed to erode central tax revenues and through this channel to affect the size of central spending, the size of grants paid to local governments and the optimal amount of local public spending. Consequences on the degree of decentralization are investigated. The main findings are that for a large subset of parameters an increase in economic openness leads to: a) a lower level of central government expenditures; b) a lower level of general government expenditures; c) a higher level of local taxation; d) a higher degree of public sector decentralization.
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