The recent reforms of the Italian personal income tax: distributive and efficiency effects

The aim of this paper is the study of three reforms of the Italian personal income tax that have been implemented over the past six years. The analysis is carried out in three stages. In the first stage we study their distributive effects using a static microsimulation model. In the second stage we focus on the labour supply effects by means of a structural microeconometric model of household labour supply; finally, we analyze the distributive effects of the reforms accounting for labour supply reactions. Our findings confirm that the extension of the no-tax area had positive effects in terms of both redistribution and work incentives, while greater benefits for households with children improved income distribution but with negative effects on the labour supply of married women.