LA FINANZA PUBBLICA IATLIANA. RAPPORTO 2008

The Report on the Italian Public Finance is an annual publication with a twofold aim: review and evaluation of the main public finance measures adopted during the year in the first part, and a monographic in-depth analysis of a structural policy issue in the second part. The seven papers in the first part review the following areas: budgetary policies, taxation, social security, contrast to poverty and family aid, health, fiscal federalism, public utilities and liberalization policies. This year, a specific contribution is devoted to the spending review on civil justice. All together these papers make a picture and offer an evaluation of the whole activity of the Prodi Government. Among the most important issues: the deep improvement of fiscal stance largely due to tax policies; the persistent unbalance between pensions and poverty policies in the Italian welfare state, only partially compensated by specific measures in favour of the very poor; the growth target, pursued more by tax cuts than by liberalizations policies; the proposed design for fiscal federalism. The six papers of the second part of the Report examine the difficulties to combine fiscal federalism with the realization of national standards in social policies. The interrelations between financing aspects, quality issues, monitoring of results and coordination between government levels are examined from a general point of view and with particular reference to long term care and health policies. Two papers are also devoted to the specific definition of standards in the expenditures of Local governments and to the experience of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment in England. The last paper concerns the financing of national standards in social policies through tax expenditures given the interactions between vertical and horizontal subsidiarity.