IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jcmkts/v53y2015i6p1301-1318.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Embedded Macroeconomic Institutions: Italy's Fiscal U-Turn in the 1990s and Beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Benedicta Marzinotto

Abstract

Short-term theories on the determinants of fiscal consolidation underestimate that fiscal regimes are as entrenched as any other institution of a political economy. The case of Italy's fiscal adjustment in the run-up to EMU is used to show that external constraints and well-functioning institutions may well be just auxiliary. The success factor in the country's macroeconomic stabilization was that competing socio-economic interests, while all in favour of disinflation, could eventually agree on the size and composition of the adjustment thanks to side-payments in the form of a devalued currency. These are unavailable under EMU, which explains why the fiscal reform momentum slowed down, notwithstanding EU fiscal rules. Domestic preference formation goes back a long way: it is associated with an incremental process of institutional change that started in 1981 with the enhanced independence of the Bank of Italy and continued with labour market and budget reform in the late 1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • Benedicta Marzinotto, 2015. "Embedded Macroeconomic Institutions: Italy's Fiscal U-Turn in the 1990s and Beyond," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1301-1318, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:53:y:2015:i:6:p:1301-1318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jcms.12253
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Buti & Paul Van Den Noord, 2004. "Fiscal Discretion and Elections in the Early Years of EMU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 737-756, November.
    2. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Luis Garicano & Tano Santos, 2013. "Political Credit Cycles: The Case of the Eurozone," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 145-166, Summer.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 1998. "Tales of fiscal adjustment," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 13(27), pages 488-545.
    4. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    5. Paul De Grauwe, 2014. "The Governance of a Fragile Eurozone," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and Global Financial Policies, chapter 12, pages 297-320, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Bernardin Akitoby & Thomas Stratmann, 2008. "Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 1971-1985, November.
    7. Mr. Ashoka Mody & Ms. Stefania Fabrizio, 2006. "Can Budget Institutions Counteract Political Indiscipline?," IMF Working Papers 2006/123, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Carlos Mulas-Granados, 2006. "Economics, Politics and Budgets," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-50163-8.
    9. Mr. Andrea Pescatori & Mr. Daniel Leigh & Mr. Jaime Guajardo & Mr. Pete Devries, 2011. "A New Action-Based Dataset of Fiscal Consolidation," IMF Working Papers 2011/128, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    11. Ardagna, Silvia, 2004. "Financial markets' behavior around episodes of large changes in the fiscal stance," Working Paper Series 390, European Central Bank.
    12. Frieden, Jeffry A., 1991. "Invested interests: the politics of national economic policies in a world of global finance," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(4), pages 425-451, October.
    13. Perotti, Roberto & Kontopoulos, Yianos, 2002. "Fragmented fiscal policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 191-222, November.
    14. Nouriel Roubini & Jeffrey Sachs, 1989. "Government Spending and Budget Deficits in the Industrial Economies," NBER Working Papers 2919, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haffert, Lukas, 2016. "Permanent budget surpluses as a fiscal regime," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ziogas, Thanasis & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2021. "Revisiting the political economy of fiscal adjustments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    2. Abel Bojar, 2015. "Intra-governmental bargaining and political budget cycles in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 90-115, March.
    3. Alesina, A. & Passalacqua, A., 2016. "The Political Economy of Government Debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2599-2651, Elsevier.
    4. Oliver Pamp, 2004. "Partisan Preferences and Political Institutions: Explaining Fiscal Retrenchment in the European Union," Eastward Enlargement of the Euro-zone Working Papers wp24, Free University Berlin, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, revised 15 Oct 2004.
    5. Kausik Chaudhuri & Sugato Dasgupta, 2006. "The political determinants of fiscal policies in the states of India: An empirical investigation," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 640-661.
    6. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Sebastian Dellepiane & Niamh Hardiman, 2012. "Fiscal Politics In Time: Pathways to Fiscal Consolidation, 1980-2012," Working Papers 201228, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    8. Beate Jochimsen & Robert Lehmann, 2017. "On the political economy of national tax revenue forecasts: evidence from OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 211-230, March.
    9. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Martin Weder, 2014. "Fiscal adjustment and the costs of public debt service: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(22), pages 2593-2610, August.
    10. Tjaša Bjedov & Simon Lapointe & Thierry Madiès, 2014. "The impact of within-party and between-party ideological dispersion on fiscal outcomes: evidence from Swiss cantonal parliaments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 209-232, October.
    11. Helmut Herwartz & Bernd Theilen, 2021. "Government ideology and fiscal consolidation: Where and when do government parties adjust public spending?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 187(3), pages 375-401, June.
    12. Jochen Mierau & Richard Jong-A-Pin & Jakob de Haan, 2007. "Do political variables affect fiscal policy adjustment decisions? New empirical evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 297-319, December.
    13. Andrea Ceron & Luigi Curini & Fedra Negri, 2019. "Intra-party politics and interest groups: missing links in explaining government effectiveness," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 407-427, September.
    14. Eric Dubois & Matthieu Leprince & Sonia Paty, 2007. "The Effects of Politics on Local Tax Setting: Evidence from France," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(8), pages 1603-1618, July.
    15. Reuter, Wolf Heinrich, 2015. "National numerical fiscal rules: Not complied with, but still effective?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 67-81.
    16. Ellegård, Lina Maria, 2013. "Divided We Fall. Conflicts of Interests Regarding Fiscal Discipline in Municipal Hierarchies," Working Papers 2013:42, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    17. João Tovar Jalles, 2021. "Promised Fiscal Expansions and Politics: A European Union Assessment," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(1), pages 84-116, March.
    18. Karin Mayr, 2006. "Optimal budget deficits and immigration," Economics working papers 2006-19, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    19. Stefanie Vanneste & Stijn Goeminne, 2020. "The role of the past in public policy: empirical evidence of the long-term effect of past policy and politics on the local budget balance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 75-99, March.
    20. Margarita Katsimi & Vassilis Sarantides, 2015. "Public investment and reelection prospects in developed countries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 471-500, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:53:y:2015:i:6:p:1301-1318. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-9886 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.