Can Local Policies Reduce the Gap between ‘Centers’ and ‘Inner Areas’? The Case of Italian Municipalities’ Expenditure

Economies

Luigi Mastronardi¹  Luca Romagnoli¹ 

[1] Department of Economics, University of Molise, Via Francesco De Sanctis, 1, 86100 Campobasso CB, Italy;

关键词: local public expenditures;    per capita incomes;    Italian inner areas;    spatial error model;    panel regression model;   

DOI  :  10.3390/economies8020033

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This study analyzes the links between Italian inner area municipalities’ expenditure and per capita incomes, considered as a proxy of well-being. Inner areas are territorial contexts characterized by a significant distance from the centers, the main supply poles of essential services. Following a top-down approach, the paper at first demonstrates the existence of a global convergence process in per capita incomes, with a faster rate of convergence in inner areas with respect to centers; then, attention is focused on local administrations’ policies and their impact on incomes in Italian inner areas. The paper gives a twofold contribution to the debate about the implementation of territorial cohesion policies: (a) on one side, public expenditure data are considered for the first time in an econometric model regarding Italian inner areas; (b) on the other side, the reference territorial subdivision is the lowest possible, giving the opportunity to investigate the changes in well-being at the finest scale.

【 授权许可】

Unknown