Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal decentralization, the duration of fiscal consolidation episodes, and their success for 17OECDcountries between 1978 and 2009. The consolidation of the general government budget appears to be of longer durationwhen expenditure decisions are more decentralized.We also find that transfers from higher levels of government are

In this paper we document the fiscal multipliers for the Italian economy and show how their size impinges on the degree of success of a fiscal consolidation. To this aim, we use the econometric model of the Italian Treasury (ITEM). By simulating a number of alternative fiscal policy impulses on both the public expenditure and the revenue side, we derive the corresponding dynamic fiscal multipliers and ascertain the impact of these measures on the primary indicator of public finance performance, namely the debt-to-GDP ratio.