According to the ‘Ricardian’ equivalence hypothesis, consumption is dependent on permanent disposable income and current deficits are equivalent to future tax payments. This hypothesis is tested on 14 European countries in the 1990s. The relationships between private sector savings...

According to the ‘Ricardian’ equivalence hypothesis, consumption is dependent on permanent disposable income and current deficits are equivalent to future tax payments. This hypothesis is tested on 14 European countries in the 1990s. The relationships between private sector savings...

This paper describes the rebirth of the utilitarian approach, with the social welfare function a là Bentham, after the crisis due to the emergence of the ordinalist microeconomic analysis. It is shown that Vickrey in 1945 had already anticipated the themes developed earlier by Harsanyi and...

The growth in top incomes occurring in most Oecd countries as from the closing decades of the 20th century is by now well documented, while hard thinking in terms of evaluating the phenomenon appears overdue. Prompted by Franzini Ricchi e poveri. L’Italia e le disuguaglianze (in)accettabili...

The Italian system of economic support for those on low incomes and for families is among the least effective in Europe. Its incoherent nature is shown by very large jumps in implicit marginal tax rates (taxation + family benefits). Italy needs a comprehensive reform of the treatment of income...

IRPEF - the Italian personal income tax - is the leading tax in terms of share of total government revenue in Italy. After a decade of reforms, the tax-benefit structure still exhibits several critical issues that need to be addressed. The paper presents a tax-benefit design proposal for Italy...

Mirrlees essay on optimal taxation has been a path breaking work, improving on the old theory of Edgeworth and Pigou. In this paper it is shown how it was possible to resume the old problem of progressivity, and in particular of the structure of the marginal rates. The problem of progressivity...