IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cns/cnscwp/201212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Origins of the Sovereign Debt of Italy: a Common Pool Issue?

Author

Listed:
  • L. Mauro
  • C. Buiatti
  • G. Carmeci

Abstract

Italy has the third largest public debt of the World in absolute terms and the eighth when it is GDP weighted. In addition, Italy presents the largest and most persistent development gap among its regional economies in the group of the advanced countries. Is there a link between these two facts? We present evidence in favor of a relationship between these two empirical facts by reconstructing the entire dynamics of national public deficit as a weighted sum of four macro regional deficits (Northeast, Northwest, Centre and South) . We show that the ultimate cause of the accumulation of public debt in Italy lies in the extraordinary fiscal imbalance of the Southern regions. We then focus on the determinants of the regional public deficits and their persistence. Thanks to the reconstruction of the regional deficit time series we are able to test empirically many of the several theoretical approaches suggested in the literature, including the geographically dispersed interest approach not yet considered for the Italian case. This approach turns out to be one of the best candidates to account for the size and persistence of Southern regional deficits. The whole evidence suggests the existence of a pork barrel mechanism coupled with a complex geo-political equilibrium that has allowed the Southern regions of Italy to generate deficits so large and persistent that they hoard the entire Italian National debt.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Mauro & C. Buiatti & G. Carmeci, 2012. "The Origins of the Sovereign Debt of Italy: a Common Pool Issue?," Working Paper CRENoS 201212, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    • Handle: RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/node/3622
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://crenos.unica.it/crenos/sites/default/files/WP12-12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    2. Massimiliano Landi & Antonio Merlo & Vincenzo Galasso & Andrea Mattozzi, 2008. "The Labor Market of Italian Politicians," Labor Economics Working Papers 22461, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    3. Galli, Emma & Padovano, Fabio, 2002. "A Comparative Test of Alternative Theories of the Determinants of Italian Public Deficits (1950-1998)," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(1-2), pages 37-58, October.
    4. repec:bla:obuest:v:63:y:2001:i:5:p:535-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Vittorio Daniele & Paolo Malanima, 2007. "Il prodotto delle regioni e il divario Nord-Sud in Italia (1861-2004)," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 97(2), pages 267-316, March-Apr.
    6. Francesco Pigliaru & Luciano Mauro, 2011. "Social Capital, Institutions and Growth: Further Lessons from the Italian Regional Divide," ERSA conference papers ersa11p1866, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Emma Galli & Fabio Padovano, 2005. "Sustainability and Determinants of Italian Public Deficits before and after Maastricht," CESifo Working Paper Series 1391, CESifo.
    8. Mr. Guiseppe Pisauro, 2001. "Intergovernmental Relations and Fiscal Discipline: Between Commons and Soft Budget Constraints," IMF Working Papers 2001/065, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2003. "Minimum Lagrange Multiplier Unit Root Test with Two Structural Breaks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1082-1089, November.
    10. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2001. "Break Point Estimation and Spurious Rejections With Endogenous Unit Root Tests," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(5), pages 535-558, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Buiatti, Cesare & Carmeci, Gaetano & Mauro, Luciano, 2014. "The origins of the public debt of Italy: Geographically dispersed interests?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 43-62.
    2. Galasso, Vincenzo & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2011. "Competing on Good Politicians," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 79-99, February.
    3. Craig A. Depken & Peter A. Groothuis & Mark C. Strazicich, 2020. "Evolution Of Community Deterrence: Evidence From The National Hockey League," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 289-303, April.
    4. Pami Dua & Divya Tuteja, 2015. "Global Recession and Eurozone Debt Crisis: Impact on Exports of China and India," Working Papers id:7386, eSocialSciences.
    5. Herrerias, M.J. & Orts, Vicente, 2013. "Capital goods imports and long-run growth: Is the Chinese experience relevant to developing countries?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 781-797.
    6. Bilgili, Faik, 1999. "Yeni Klasik kurama göre bütçe politikalarının değerlendirilmesi [An evaluation of New Classical arguments on budget policies]," MPRA Paper 80771, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Arghyrou, Michael G. & Gregoriou, Andros & Kontonikas, Alexandros, 2009. "Do real interest rates converge? Evidence from the European union," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 447-460, July.
    8. Paresh Kumar Narayan, 2006. "Are Australia's tourism markets converging?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1153-1162.
    9. David Greasley & Les Oxley, 2010. "Cliometrics And Time Series Econometrics: Some Theory And Applications," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 970-1042, December.
    10. Cunado, J. & Perez de Gracia, F., 2006. "Real convergence in Africa in the second-half of the 20th century," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 153-167.
    11. Cerqueira, Vinícius Dos Santos & Ribeiro, Márcio Bruno & Martinez, Thiago Sevilhano, 2014. "Propagação Assimétrica de Choques Monetários na Economia Brasileira: Evidências com base em um modelo vetorial não-linear de transição suave," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 68(1), April.
    12. repec:bdi:workqs:qse_6 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lean, Hooi Hooi & Smyth, Russell, 2013. "Are fluctuations in US production of renewable energy permanent or transitory?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 483-488.
    14. Uäžur Sivri, 2017. "Is Inflation Rate Of Turkey Stationary? Evidence From Unit Root Tests With And Without Structural Breaks," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 20, pages 29-52, December.
    15. Qingfeng “Wilson” Liu & Hui Sono & Wei Zhang, 2021. "The Price Discovery Processes in China, India, and Russia’s Stock Index Futures Markets," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(03), pages 1-28, September.
    16. Olivier Darné & Amélie Charles, 2011. "Large shocks in U.S. macroeconomic time series: 1860-1988," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 5(1), pages 79-100, January.
    17. James E. Payne & Stephanie Miller & Junsoo Lee & Myeong Hyeon Cho, 2014. "Convergence of per capita sulphur dioxide emissions across US states," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(11), pages 1202-1211, April.
    18. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Smyth, Russell, 2007. "Mean reversion versus random walk in G7 stock prices evidence from multiple trend break unit root tests," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 152-166, April.
    19. Mohitosh Kejriwal & Claude Lopez, 2013. "Unit Roots, Level Shifts, and Trend Breaks in Per Capita Output: A Robust Evaluation," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 892-927, November.
    20. Solarin, Sakiru Adebola & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2015. "Natural gas consumption and economic growth: The role of foreign direct investment, capital formation and trade openness in Malaysia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 835-845.
    21. Kim, Dukpa & Perron, Pierre, 2009. "Unit root tests allowing for a break in the trend function at an unknown time under both the null and alternative hypotheses," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 1-13, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    italian public deficit; italian public debt; common pool;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    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:cns:cnscwp:201212. 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: CRENoS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crenoit.html .

    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.