We study attitude toward redistribution by local policy-makers in the context of public childcare in Italy. Within a substantially homogeneous legislative framework, different municipalities autonomously define how participation fees vary with a compound indicator of income and wealth (ISEE), thus redistributing resources across households using the service. The nearly one hundred municipalities we take into account exhibit wide heterogeneity in redistributive attitudes. We find statistically significant correlations with a number of individual characteristics of policy-makers and municipalities, but not with those of the ex ante distribution of income, which should be central according to both normative and positive theory. Since the price of public childcare is subsidized, resources are also redistributed from taxpayers to users. The evidence we find is consistent with the hypothesis that this type of redistribution is a public good.

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Redistribution at the local level: the case of public childcare in Italy

Redistribution at the Local Level: The Case of Public Childcare in Italy. University of Verona Department of Economics Working Paper 21/2013 (ISSN 2036-2919)

When analyzing migration policies, second best redistribution be- comes a local public good subject to congestion. The remedial policy consists of a kind of second best finance for that good.

/pdf/redistribution-as-a-local-public-good-subject-to-congestion-2umkkn0x4n.pdf

Redistribution as a Local Public Good Subject to Congestion

In this paper optimal tax formulae are computed when con- sumption of a commodity produces poUution. Then a test of the double dividend hypothesis based on the shadow pnces of those formulae is pro- posed.

/pdf/optimal-tax-rules-pigou-taxation-and-the-double-dividend-152xm5s170.pdf

Jaume Sempere

Papers

Redistribution as a Local Public Good Subject to Congestion

Optimal Tax Rules, Pigou Taxation, and the "Double Dividend"