Mezzogiorno, 2008 Finance Act and State budget reform

By passing 2008 Finance Act (Law 24 December 2007, n. 244), a new structure of State budget has been introduced. It provides for a functional item referred to the interventions for territorial development and re-balancing, and this is a positive fact for the Mezzogiorno. The organization into missions, though it does not solve the problem raised many times in the past related to the quantification of resources as a whole set aside for underutilised areas, allows so indepth studies that the margin of underestimation of data is strongly limited. The first part of this paper focuses on such issues, analyzed in the perspective of the resources and their quantification. On the contrary, the second part focuses on the specific interventions provided for those areas underutilised by the Finance Act, with reference both to the interventions already introduced previously by the 2007 Finance Act, and to new interventions. Among the first ones, we can include tax credit for new investments carried out in the period 2007-2013, and "urban tax-free zones" - all measures never been enforced in 2007. The second ones concern tax credit for those employed in 2008 and a project intended for young graduates of the Mezzogiorno, aimed at favouring their job placement. The analysis of such interventions tends to highlight some critical sides related to their implementation and to evaluate their importance, also according to all the facilitations provided for the Mezzogiorno. The likely abolition of the facilitations provided for by law 488/1992 could leave a big gap, that cannot be filled - both for the amount of the resources that can be invested and for the aim - by none of the main interventions, whether they're old or new, in favour of this area.