Papers by Carmelo Petraglia
Il Sud è spesso etichettato come dipendente, sprecone, piagnone. Stereotipi che dominano la scena... more Il Sud è spesso etichettato come dipendente, sprecone, piagnone. Stereotipi che dominano la scena da anni, semplificazioni e scorciatoie di analisi che alimentano la narrazione di un Mezzogiorno descritto come «sistema a parte» all'interno del quale andrebbero ricercate le cause principali del suo ritardo di sviluppo e le forze endogene sulle quali puntare per risollevarne le sorti. Uno storytelling riproposto da molti osservatori nel dibattito estivo seguito alla pubblicazione delle anticipazioni dell'ultimo Rapporto SVIMEZ (30 luglio 2015). Una «visione» avallata dal policy maker nazionale nel «Masterplan per il Mezzogiorno» (4 novembre 2015).
This paper carries out a long-run reconstruction of a discontinuous time series of net fiscal flo... more This paper carries out a long-run reconstruction of a discontinuous time series of net fiscal flows for Italian regions and macro-regions from 1951 to 2010. This evidence is the basis to put forward an assessment on the intensity of interregional redistribution operated by public sector. The main result of the paper is that even if the amount of resources transferred to Southern Italy from the rest of the country has been significant and increasing over time (at least up to the end of the 1990s), redistribution cannot be judged disproportionately large, in the light of income differences among regions, the public commitment in regional policies and the constitutional principles of equal access of citizens to the basic public services. Secondly, historical analysis of data and inspection of facts indicate that the relationship between the intensity of interregional redistribution and the financial effort of regional policies is weak. This supports the view that increasing NFFs have little served the purpose of regional convergence; rather, the rise of imbalances seems to be mainly connected to the overall escalation of public expenditure, following the institutional break occurred in mid-1970s with the establishment of Regional Governments.
L'attuale architettura dei vincoli esterni alle politiche di bilancio dell'Eurozona trae origine ... more L'attuale architettura dei vincoli esterni alle politiche di bilancio dell'Eurozona trae origine dalla fase di disciplina fiscale inaugurata con l'introduzione dei criteri di convergenza di finanza pubblica nel Trattato di Maastricht del 1992, che emendava sia il Trattato sull'Unione europea (TUE) che il Trattato sul funzionamento dell'Unione europea (TFUE) 1 . Allora, il principio del risanamento dei bilanci pubblici veniva concepito con i tratti della transitorietà, venendo fissato il termine del 1997 per verificarne l'effettivo rispetto da parte dei paesi candidati all'ingresso nell'Unio ne economica e monetaria (UEM).
This study provides an answer to the question of how much cash deposited via a financial institut... more This study provides an answer to the question of how much cash deposited via a financial institution can be traced back to criminal activities, by developing a new approach to measure money laundering and proposing an application to Italy. We define a model of cash in-flows on current accounts considering, besides "dirty money" to be laundered, also the legal motivations to deposit cash and the role of the shadow economy. We find that the average amount of cash laundered in Italy is around 6% of GDP. These findings are coherent with estimates of the nonobserved economy obtained in previous studies.
In his 1971 Nobel lecture Simon Kuznets (AER, 1973, n. 5) defined “modern economic growth” a proc... more In his 1971 Nobel lecture Simon Kuznets (AER, 1973, n. 5) defined “modern economic growth” a process based both on technological progress and related institutional change. He then identified six main “stylized facts” which characterise quantitatively modern economic growth. Two of these features relate to aggregate rates, that is, the growth rate of income and the rise in productivity; two relate to structural transformation, that is, sectoral and societal change; and two relate to international diffusion, that is, the improvements in ...
Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, 2007
Il problema di affrontare il persistente dualismo economico e sociale che ha sempre accompagnato ... more Il problema di affrontare il persistente dualismo economico e sociale che ha sempre accompagnato in tutte le fasi della sua evoluzione il sistema italiano vede–dal più stretto punto di vista dell'economista–interventi che si propongono non solo di superare ma di innestare meccanismi virtuosi di convergenza, attraverso politiche che a seconda dei casi puntano–per così dire–a incentivare l'offerta o la domanda. Con indubbia approssimazione, si considerano politiche dell'offerta quelle più immediatamente tese a rimuovere i vincoli, ...
Abstract: In this paper we assess the relevance of both knowledge creation and diffusion processe... more Abstract: In this paper we assess the relevance of both knowledge creation and diffusion processes in affecting Italian SMEs' propensity to innovate. In doing so a knowledge production function (KPF) is estimated for a representative sample of small and medium manufacturing firms over the period 1998-2003. To account for endogeneity of R&D effort in the KPF, we estimate a Heckman selection model on R&D decisions and obtain two main results. First, we do not find the probability of being engaged in intramural R&D activities ...
Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, 2011
Il tema della dipendenza finanziaria del Mezzogiorno, da lungo tempo al centro del dibattito spec... more Il tema della dipendenza finanziaria del Mezzogiorno, da lungo tempo al centro del dibattito specialistico1, ha guadagnato negli ultimi 15 anni una crescente attenzione, con il progressivo affermarsi delle proposte di riorganizzazione in senso decentrato del sistema fiscale italiano. Nel contesto di tali proposte, infatti, un peso rilevante ha acquisito un indicatore fondamentale della dipendenza, denominato «residuo fiscale» e definito come il saldo tra le entrate e le spese delle amministrazioni pubbliche riconducibili a un certo ...
Anti–money laundering regulations have been centred on the “Know-Your-Customer” rule so far, over... more Anti–money laundering regulations have been centred on the “Know-Your-Customer” rule so far, overlooking the fact that criminal proceedings that need to be laundered are usually represented by cash. This is the first study aimed at providing an answer to the question of how much of cash deposited via an official financial institution can be traced back to criminal activities. The paper develops a new approach to measure money laundering and then proposes an application to Italy, a country where cash is still widely ...
Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, 2007
Demand versus supply oriented policies have always been confronting each other in the long story ... more Demand versus supply oriented policies have always been confronting each other in the long story of the public intervention for the economic and social development of Southern Italy. Many years after 1992, when the" intervento straordinario" has been dismanteld, the so-called" nuova programmazione" tried (and still tries) to reconcile the parochial ideology of local endogenous development, with the realistic recognition of the essential role of external intervention in the South. Such an approach, while has provided ...
This paper deals with the asymmetric regional effects of austerity policies in Italy in the curre... more This paper deals with the asymmetric regional effects of austerity policies in Italy in the current crisis. We discuss how austerity has caused a substantial downsizing of interregional redistribution, thus amplifying the economic downturn in Southern regions. First, we look at the regional distribution of the cost of austerity in terms of both higher tax burden and cuts in public expenditure. Then, we focus on the declining pattern experienced by both public investment and industrial policy.
Journal of Regulatory Economics, 2007
The aim of this paper is to account for the impact of statistical noise and exogenous regulatory ... more The aim of this paper is to account for the impact of statistical noise and exogenous regulatory and environmental factors on the efficiency of public transit systems in a DEA-based framework. To this end, we implement a three-stage DEA-SFA mixed approach based on using a 1993-1999 panel of 42 Italian public transit companies. This allows us to decompose input-specific DEA inefficiency measures into three components: exogenous effects, pure managerial inefficiency, and statistical noise. First, the initial evaluation of producer performance is carried out using conventional variable returns to scale DEA . Second, a SFA approach (Battese and Coelli, 1992) is used to regress single input slacks on subsidies regulation (cost-plus versus fixed-price contracts) and a set of environmental variables including network speed and user density. Finally, third stage re-runs DEA on inputs purged of both exogenous effects and statistical noise. Results are such that adjusting for the type of regulatory scheme, environmental conditions, and statistical noise increases average efficiency in the industry and reduces dispersion among firms. Furthermore, the implementation of fixedprice subsidies is found to enhance efficiency in the usage of "drivers" and "materials and services" inputs. Such a result sheds some light on the determinants of input-specific efficiency differentials in the industry, improving the existing evidence on mean overall cost efficiency (e.g. Gagnepain e Ivaldi, 2002; Piacenza, 2006). As a policy implication, it is confirmed the relevance of regula tion aimed at replacing cost-plus subsidization mechanisms with high-powered incentive contracts as well as improving operating conditions of public transport networks.
Abstract In this paper we discuss the validity of the arguments of those who look to the federali... more Abstract In this paper we discuss the validity of the arguments of those who look to the federalist reform as a tool to return to the central and northern regions resources drained by the waste of the Mezzogiorno, highlighting how the confusion between problems of public administration efficiency and legitimacy and intensity of political and regional redistribution might endanger the inter-regional equalization deriving from the progressivity of tax system and the public commitment to territorial rebalancing.
This paper presents a 3-region footloose-entrepreneur new economic geography model. Two symmetric... more This paper presents a 3-region footloose-entrepreneur new economic geography model. Two symmetric regions are part of an economically integrated area (the Union), while the third region represents an outside trade partner. We explore how the spatial allocation of industrial production and employment within the Union is affected by changes in two aspects of trade liberalisation, regional integration and globalisation, conditional to the skill endowment and the market size of the outside region. Our main contribution pertains to the analysis of the local and global dynamics of the specified factor mobility process. We show that significant parameter ranges exist for which an asymmetric distribution of economic activities is one of the possible long-run outcomes which may allow a smooth transition to agglomeration (in contrast to the NEG typical catastrophic scenario). In addition, we show that multistability is pervasive and that some attractors are Milnor attractors. Both results reinforce the NEG narrative on the importance of initial conditions for the long-run location of industrial activity.
By providing a long run reconstruction of regional Net Fiscal Flows (NFFs) in Italy throughout th... more By providing a long run reconstruction of regional Net Fiscal Flows (NFFs) in Italy throughout the last six decades , this paper documents the substantial rise of fiscal transfers to Mezzogiorno (i.e. Southern Italy) from the rest of the country. Besides, three further arguments are presented. First, we find that the prominent upsurge of NFFs in 1980s and 1990s has exerted a scarce impact on the North-South gap, mainly because it has not been connected to a stronger commitment in supply-side regional and development policies, and the needed rise of capital expenditure in Mezzogiorno. Second, we ascribe most of the increase in NFFs to the generalized escalation in current primary expenditure related to the "decentralization without accountability" design of fiscal reforms implemented in the 1970s. Third, we evaluate the size of interregional redistribution in the light of regional income differences and the burden imposed to contributing regions. By making use of several indexes and analytical procedures intensively used in the literature, we reach the conclusion that interregional redistribution in Italy has been moderate, considering the severity of initial differences in economic and social conditions. JEL classification: H50, H70, H72, R10.
Journal of Money Credit and Banking, forthcoming
Anti-money laundering regulations have been focused on the "Know-Your-Customer" rule so far, over... more Anti-money laundering regulations have been focused on the "Know-Your-Customer" rule so far, overlooking the fact that criminal proceeds that need to be laundered are usually represented by cash. This is the first study aimed at providing an answer to the question of how much cash deposited via an official financial institution can be traced back to criminal activities. The paper develops a new approach to measure money laundering and then proposes an application to Italy, where cash is still widely used in transactions and criminal activities generate significant proceeds to be laundered. In particular, we define a model of cash in-flows on current accounts and capture the presence of "dirty money" to be laundered with two indicators for the diffusion of crimes related to both illegal trafficking and extortions, considering also the structural (legal) motivations to deposit cash, as well as the need to conceal proceeds from shadow economy. Using a panel of 91 Italian provinces observed over the period 2005-2008, we find that the amount of cash laundered is sizable, around 6% of GDP (5% illegal trafficking and 1% extortions). Furthermore, the incidence of money laundering by illegal trafficking is higher in the North than in the South, while the reverse is true for extortions. These estimates are robust to several robustness checks, and -more importantly -are coherent with estimates of the non-observed economy obtained in previous studies. JEL classification: K42, H26, G28
Review of Income and Wealth, forthcoming
We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by p... more We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of the value of cash transactions—the flow of cash withdrawn from bank accounts relative to total non-cash payments—as the dependent variable in the money demand equation. This allows us to avoid unrealistic assumptions on the velocity of money and the absence of any irregular transaction in a given year, overcoming two severe critiques to the traditional CDA. Second, in place of the tax burden level, usually intended as the main motivation for non-compliance, we include among the covariates two direct indicators of detected tax evasion. Finally, we control also for the role of illegal production considering crimes like drug dealing and prostitution, which—jointly with the shadow economy—contributes to the larger aggregate of the non-observed economy and represents a significant component of total cash payments. We propose then an application of this “modified CDA” to a panel of 91 Italian provinces for the years 2005–08.
We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground or shadow economy with a... more We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground or shadow economy with a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. We introduce three main innovations. First, we take as dependent variable in the money demand equation a direct measure of the value of cash transactions: the flow of cash withdrawn from current accounts relative to total non-cash payments. This avoids use of the Fisher equation and so overcomes two severe criticisms of the traditional CDA. Second, instead of the tax burden, usually taken as the main motive for non-compliance, we include among the covariates two direct indicators of detected tax evasion. Finally, we also control for the role of illegal economic activity, such as drug dealing and prostitution, whichjointly with the shadow economy -contributes to the larger aggregate of the unobserved economy and represents a significant component of total cash payments. We then propose an application of this "modified CDA" to a panel of 91 Italian provinces for the years 2005-2008.
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Papers by Carmelo Petraglia