IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipu/wpaper/49.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Antonio De Viti de Marco, political competition, and the principle of minimum means

Author

Listed:
  • Amedeo Fossati

    (Università di Genova)

  • Marcello Montefiori

    (Università di Genova)

Abstract

De Viti de Marco is generally regarded as one of the most eminent scholars of the early Italian public finance tradition. This paper presents a new interpretation of his thought with respect to the prevailing literature. In particular, an original perspective is provided for three main themes. The first is the consistency of De Viti’s theory of the state, that is presented as a coherent but naïf structure founded on the principle of minimum means and on political competition. The second suggests that his reflections on concrete problems are clearly independent from his theoretical framework, which still presents some features that may have application in modern democratic states. Finally, it is argued that, even if De Viti’s role in spreading the marginal analysis in Italy remains unquestioned, he seldom employed marginal tools in his analysis, and that he was more closely related with classical economics, rather than with the real approach of marginal analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Amedeo Fossati & Marcello Montefiori, 2016. "Antonio De Viti de Marco, political competition, and the principle of minimum means," Working papers 49, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:49
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.siepweb.it/siep/wp/wp-content/uploads/repec/1476090260Fossati_Montefiori_WP_SIEP_715.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amedeo Fossati, 2014. "Luigi Einaudi e Mauro Fasiani: il dibattito epistemologico dal 1941 al 1943 (The debate between Luigi Einaudi and Mauro Fasiani (1941-1943))," Il Pensiero Economico Italiano, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 22(1), pages 91-153.
    2. Fossati, Amedeo, 2006. "Needs, the Principle of Minimum Means, and Public Goods in de Viti de Marco," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 427-438, December.
    3. Besley, Timothy, 2007. "Principled Agents?: The Political Economy of Good Government," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283910.
    4. Giuseppe Eusepi & Richard E. Wagner, 2013. "Tax Prices in a Democratic Polity: The Continuing Relevance of Antonio de Viti de Marco," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 99-121, Spring.
    5. Amedeo Fossati, 2013. "The Double Taxation of Savings: The Italian Debate Revisited," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 123-148, Spring.
    6. Amedeo Fossati & Paolo Silvestri, 2012. "Un inedito dissidio epistemologico sui miti e paradossi della giustizia tributaria di einaudi: le lettere perdute di Mauro Fasiani," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2012(108), pages 5-80.
    7. Giuseppe Eusepi & Richard Wagner, 2012. "Indebted state versus intermediary state: who owes what to whom?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 199-212, September.
    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. Amedeo Fossati, 2016. "The First Principles of Public Finance by Antonio de Viti de Marco: Is There Any Disparity between the Assessments of the Italian and the English Speaking Scholars?," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(118-119-1), pages 88-110.

    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. Amedeo Fossati, 2016. "The First Principles of Public Finance by Antonio de Viti de Marco: Is There Any Disparity between the Assessments of the Italian and the English Speaking Scholars?," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(118-119-1), pages 88-110.
    2. Fossati, Amedeo, 2022. "Of Public Choice and Antonio De Viti de Marco," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 75(4), pages 519-544.
    3. Paolo Silvestri, 2016. "Disputed (Disciplinary) Boundaries: Philosophy, Economics and Value Judgments," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 24(3), pages 187-221.
    4. Silvestri, Paolo, 2015. "Disputed (Disciplinary) Boundaries. Philosophy, Economics, Value Judgments," CESMEP Working Papers 201504, University of Turin.
    5. Michele G. Giuranno & Manuela Mosca, 2018. "Political realism and models of the state: Antonio de Viti de Marco and the origins of public choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 325-345, June.
    6. Mosca, Manuela, 2013. "The daily battles of Antonio de Viti de Marco," MPRA Paper 47963, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Luca Tedesco & Roberto Ricciuti, 2023. "“Monopolistic” vs. “Cooperative” State in the Institutional and Economic Modelling of Antonio De Viti De Marco," Working Papers 07/2023, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    8. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Vincent Rollet, 2022. "Electoral Turnovers," NBER Working Papers 29766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Monica Martinez-Bravo, 2017. "The Local Political Economy Effects of School Construction in Indonesia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 256-289, April.
    10. Atonu Rabbani, 2017. "Can Leaders Promote Better Health Behavior? Learning from a Sanitation and Hygiene Communication Experiment in Rural Bangladesh," Working Papers id:11904, eSocialSciences.
    11. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    12. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2013. "Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy Advice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 173-192, Spring.
    14. Cavalcanti, Francisco & Daniele, Gianmarco & Galletta, Sergio, 2018. "Popularity shocks and political selection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 201-216.
    15. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2023. "Standing on the shoulders of giants or science? Lessons from ordoliberalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 197-211, June.
    16. Bo Rothstein, 2011. "Can markets be expected to prevent themselves from self‐destruction?," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 387-404, December.
    17. Nicolas GAVOILLE & Jean-Michel JOSSELIN & Fabio PADOVANO, 2014. "What do you know about your mayor? Voters’ information and jurisdiction size," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2014-01-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy, revised Aug 2015.
    18. Andrea Filippetti & Agnese Sacchi, 2016. "Decentralization and economic growth reconsidered: The role of regional authority," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1793-1824, December.
    19. Manuela Mosca, 2016. "Antonio de Viti de Marco as a Political Commentator in the Daily Press," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(1), pages 43-63.
    20. Fernando Aragón & Ricardo Pique, 2020. "Better the devil you know? Reelected politicians and policy outcomes under no term limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 1-16, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Italian tradition in public finance; De Viti de Marco; economic theory of state intervention;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B13 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Wicksellian)
    • B2 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ipu:wpaper:49. 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: Monica Bozzano (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.