Italy is characterised by the combination of political and fiscal crises, in the context of the broader euro zone crisis. The goal of this chapter is to investigate the impact on the budgetary process of the peculiar form of crisis (combined political and fiscal) faced by Italy. The budgetary process has been subjected to an intense reform activity, combining long-standing calls for modernisation (which had already resulted in a series of interventions since the 1990s) with fiscal discipline, so as to meet ever increasing fiscal requirements imposed by the membership of the European Monetary Union. By applying an historical institutional approach (Pierson 2004), our research addresses the interaction between the legacy of budgetary reform and the pressures of the sovereign debt crisis in the context of the EU framework for fiscal surveillance. Our findings reveal that the response to the crisis has reinforced the legacy of previous budgetary reforms: while the control of the fiscal aggregates by the executive has been further strengthened, the capacity to identify priorities and implement efficiency gains has remained rather weak.
Italy: Centralization of budgetary institutions as a response to the financial crisis
NATALINI, Alessandro;
2017-01-01
Abstract
Italy is characterised by the combination of political and fiscal crises, in the context of the broader euro zone crisis. The goal of this chapter is to investigate the impact on the budgetary process of the peculiar form of crisis (combined political and fiscal) faced by Italy. The budgetary process has been subjected to an intense reform activity, combining long-standing calls for modernisation (which had already resulted in a series of interventions since the 1990s) with fiscal discipline, so as to meet ever increasing fiscal requirements imposed by the membership of the European Monetary Union. By applying an historical institutional approach (Pierson 2004), our research addresses the interaction between the legacy of budgetary reform and the pressures of the sovereign debt crisis in the context of the EU framework for fiscal surveillance. Our findings reveal that the response to the crisis has reinforced the legacy of previous budgetary reforms: while the control of the fiscal aggregates by the executive has been further strengthened, the capacity to identify priorities and implement efficiency gains has remained rather weak.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
