IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gde/journl/gde_v70_n1_p97-122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Rules and Window Dressing: The Case of Italian Municipalities

Author

Listed:
  • Paolo Balduzzi
  • Veronica Grembi

    (IEF and CIFREL Catholic University of Milan
    IEF and CIFREL Catholic University of Milan)

Abstract

One of the measure of the effectiveness of fiscal rules is their level of compliance, especially when sub-national fiscal rules are considered. However, the compliance level can be a misleading proxy for the impact of the rules, given the possibilities that fiscal rules trigger window dressing and creative finance. We use evidence from the Italian municipalities budgets, to test the presence of creative accounting as the consequence of subnational fiscal rules, in a context in which the levels of compliance are generally very high but the status of local finance is very poor. A quasi experimental approach is allowed by the special regulation of the Italian Internal Stability Pact between 1999 and 2004.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Balduzzi & Veronica Grembi, 2011. "Fiscal Rules and Window Dressing: The Case of Italian Municipalities," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 70(1), pages 97-122, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gde:journl:gde_v70_n1_p97-122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2020. "Fiscal rules and budget forecast errors of Italian municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Wildmer Daniel Gregori, 2018. "To what extent do fiscal spending rules affect budget composition?," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 42(3), pages 325-345.
    3. Paolo Chiades & Luciano Greco & Vanni Mengotto & Luigi Moretti & Paola Valbonesi, 2016. "Intergovernmental transfers and expenditure arrears," Working Papers hal-01442684, HAL.
    4. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2017. "The effects of the new fiscal rule and creative accounting: Empirical evidence from Japanese municipalities," MPRA Paper 79812, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Federico Revelli, 2013. "Tax limits and local democracy," Working Papers 2013/29, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    6. Heiko T. Burret & Lars P. Feld, 2018. "Vertical effects of fiscal rules: the Swiss experience," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(3), pages 673-721, June.
    7. Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Hirota, Haruaki, 2023. "Do public account financial statements matter? Evidence from Japanese municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Banaszewska Monika, 2018. "Side Effects of Fiscal Rules: A Case of Polish Local Self‑Government," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 4(1), pages 86-106, April.
    9. Goto, Tsuyoshi & Yamamoto, Genki, 2023. "Debt issuance incentives and creative accounting: Evidence from municipal mergers in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Veronica Grembi & Alvaro Manoel, 2012. "Fiscal rules for subnational governments? Evidence from Latin America," Chapters, in: Giorgio Brosio & Juan P. Jiménez (ed.), Decentralization and Reform in Latin America, chapter 12, pages iii-iii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Federico Revelli, 2016. "Tax limits and local elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 53-68, January.
    12. Revelli, Federico, 2013. "Tax Limits and Local Democracy," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201336, University of Turin.
    13. Mancini, Anna Laura & Tommasino, Pietro, 2023. "Fiscal rules and the reliability of public investment plans: Evidence from local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2022. "Fiscal rules and creative accounting: Evidence from Japanese municipalities," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Maria Flavia Ambrosanio & Paolo Balduzzi & Massimo Bordignon, 2014. "Economic crisis and fiscal federalism in Italy," Working papers 8, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Rules; Municipalities; Local Finance; Difference in Difference; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    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:gde:journl:gde_v70_n1_p97-122. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Erika Somma (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gde.unibocconi.it/ .

    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.