Federico Quaresima - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
articles by Federico Quaresima
SSRN Working Paper, 2021
Despite the burgeoning literature concerning national cabinets stability , municipal governments'... more Despite the burgeoning literature concerning national cabinets stability , municipal governments' early terminations have received little attention. Since recently there has been a surge of public services assigned to municipalities in countries throughout the world the question appears worthwhile. The present work aims to fill the gap with the state-level literature, researching the political and socio-economical factors that could make city councils prematurely collapses more likely. Specifically, after a brief review of the literature, I investigate towns' cabinets tenure based on an original data set of 6235 Italian local administrations from 1999 until 2012. Being the issue at the municipal level rather uncharted, I will make use of the previous research verifying the hypotheses developed until now and proposing new possible explanatory characteristics which can contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon. JEL: H11, H83
German Economic Review, 2020
It has long been recognized that the presence of politicians on the boards of directors of public... more It has long been recognized that the presence of politicians on the boards of directors of public firms may create inefficiencies. Nevertheless, research has so far neglected the effect of political affiliation on the appointment of Members of Parliament to the boards of public firms. This article intends to fill this gap by conducting an empirical analysis on a sample of 945 deputies of the Italian Parliament elected over the period 1996-2001. Regression discontinuity estimates show that the center-left coalition is about 25 percentage points more likely to appoint its Members of Parliament to the board of public enterprises than the center-right coalition. Political appointments become more pronounced when the center-left forms a governing coalition.
Economics of Governance, 2019
This article investigates patronage in the Second Italian Republic by considering patronage a fun... more This article investigates patronage in the Second Italian Republic by considering patronage a fundamental device able to guarantee a party presence in the governance of public bodies. The study sheds light on a particular area of party patronage, namely political appointments concerning legislators; it analyzes the factors which could determine whether a member of Parliament will be appointed to a state-owned enterprise’s board of directors after a legislature, seeking to gain a better understanding of how political actors exploit this opportunity. Direct political connections can be conceptualized as instruments to control and reward politicians and/or strategies to enhance political control over the bureaucracy. The empirical investigation suggests that legislators’ efforts in Parliament play a role in the likelihood of patronage appointments. Education does not seem to significantly increase the probability of receiving a nomination for a seat on public firms’ boards, moreover, our result casts doubt on the merits or competencies of the appointed politicians.
SIE Conference Paper, 2019
In 2008 the incoming Berlusconi's government cancels the taxation on main houses (ICI), substitut... more In 2008 the incoming Berlusconi's government cancels the taxation on main houses (ICI), substituting it with an intergovernmental grant of equal amount. The balance sheet representation changes consequently, but the balance sheets of many municipalities do not register the compensating grants in the correct line: about the 38% (ordinary statute regions) do not register compensating grants in the right budget line, this share reduces in 2009 and 2010, but it remains high, a quarter of municipalities still register such grants in a line different from the correct one. Statistical analysis reveals that such misrepresentation sometimes is done underrating the entrance from ICI (and overrating general entrance) sometimes writing the compensating transfers in the budget line devoted to tax on main houses (the tax that was canceled). In our opinion such misrepresentation is too high to describe it as a pure random error. Our research question is to investigate if such errors depends on lack in competencies of municipalities or are somehow intentional: municipalities misrepresents the grants they received recording them in another line and summing them with other elements, because of they will to signal themselves to stake-holders. Thus we want to investigate if a windows dressing activity is applied by municipality and which kind of activity it is.
MPRA Working Paper, 2019
The present work reviews how scholars of different disciplines have examined political appointmen... more The present work reviews how scholars of different disciplines have examined political appointments in recent years, in particular, those regarding public and semi-public organizations. First of all, I show how political economy research has shed light on several reform processes, arguing how economic and managerial policies have been implemented also considering political rationales, such as, for instance, the preservation of parties’ control of privatized firms. This enduring power of political parties primarily results from their preserved appointment authority over semi-public firms (beyond public agencies), one of the tools by which the political class continues to govern the enterprises in question. In particular, this appointment authority has been exploited by parties in order to reward their members and control bureaucracies, among other purposes. The phenomenon naturally resulted in a widespread surviving politicization of the state, which presents several consequences, especially in terms of public-private politically connected firms’ performance. In the conclusions, I suggest some further research trajectories which could enhance the literature.
Rivista Italiana di Economia, Statistica e Demografia, 2019
Nel 2008, l’entrante governo Berlusconi realizzò la promessa elettorale di cancellare l’imposta c... more Nel 2008, l’entrante governo Berlusconi realizzò la promessa elettorale di cancellare l’imposta che gravava sull’abitazione principale (ICI). Per compensare i Comuni della perdita di gettito furono previsti dei trasferimenti compensativi di pari ammontare.
Conseguentemente si modificò anche la rappresentazione del bilancio comunale, in aggiunta alle righe del TITOLO I (Entrate Tributarie) che permettevano di registrare l’ICI sull’abitazione principale (dopo il 2008 riservata alla sola registrazione dell’ICI sulle abitazioni di lusso) e altra ICI (o ICI secondaria) compariva una riga nel TITOLO II (trasferimenti) dove registrare i trasferimenti compensativi per L’ICI. Nonostante questo, oltre il 25% dei Comuni (il 38% nel 2008), non registrarono correttamente i trasferimenti ricevuti. Tale scorretta rappresentazione ha una rilevanza statistica troppo elevata per essere considerata un puro errore casuale. È nostra opinione che questo comportamento derivi dalla volontà di segnalare agli stakeholder alcune
informazioni in maniera non corretta. Nella prossima sezione riassumeremo la
letteratura sul bilancio creativo e sulla trasparenza dello stesso. Nella sezione 3
descriveremo il fenomeno dal punto di vista statistico. Nella sezione 4 indicheremo
alcuni risultati che permettono di approfondire le dinamiche di scorretta rappresentazione. La sezione 5 conclude.
SIEP Working Paper, 2017
This article investigates the patronage phenomenon under a theoretical point of view. Legislative... more This article investigates the patronage phenomenon under a theoretical point of view. Legislative dissent could have damaging e ects for both party and legislator, i.e., legislators depend on their party for re-election, which in turn partially depends on its reputation of cohesiveness. Nevetheless dissent allows the legislator to build a good reputation with local constituents for re-election sake. Then parties may sometimes benefi t from tolerating some level of dissent. As a result the party has a double goal: it should require the maximum loyalty from legislators, not ignoring the legislators' reputation with the voters. In this paper we consider patronage as an additional tool for the party to calibrate parlamentarians' loyalty towards the party itself and towards constituencies.
Drafts by Federico Quaresima
SSRN Working Paper, 2021
Despite the burgeoning literature concerning national cabinets stability , municipal governments'... more Despite the burgeoning literature concerning national cabinets stability , municipal governments' early terminations have received little attention. Since recently there has been a surge of public services assigned to municipalities in countries throughout the world the question appears worthwhile. The present work aims to fill the gap with the state-level literature, researching the political and socio-economical factors that could make city councils prematurely collapses more likely. Specifically, after a brief review of the literature, I investigate towns' cabinets tenure based on an original data set of 6235 Italian local administrations from 1999 until 2012. Being the issue at the municipal level rather uncharted, I will make use of the previous research verifying the hypotheses developed until now and proposing new possible explanatory characteristics which can contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon. JEL: H11, H83
German Economic Review, 2020
It has long been recognized that the presence of politicians on the boards of directors of public... more It has long been recognized that the presence of politicians on the boards of directors of public firms may create inefficiencies. Nevertheless, research has so far neglected the effect of political affiliation on the appointment of Members of Parliament to the boards of public firms. This article intends to fill this gap by conducting an empirical analysis on a sample of 945 deputies of the Italian Parliament elected over the period 1996-2001. Regression discontinuity estimates show that the center-left coalition is about 25 percentage points more likely to appoint its Members of Parliament to the board of public enterprises than the center-right coalition. Political appointments become more pronounced when the center-left forms a governing coalition.
Economics of Governance, 2019
This article investigates patronage in the Second Italian Republic by considering patronage a fun... more This article investigates patronage in the Second Italian Republic by considering patronage a fundamental device able to guarantee a party presence in the governance of public bodies. The study sheds light on a particular area of party patronage, namely political appointments concerning legislators; it analyzes the factors which could determine whether a member of Parliament will be appointed to a state-owned enterprise’s board of directors after a legislature, seeking to gain a better understanding of how political actors exploit this opportunity. Direct political connections can be conceptualized as instruments to control and reward politicians and/or strategies to enhance political control over the bureaucracy. The empirical investigation suggests that legislators’ efforts in Parliament play a role in the likelihood of patronage appointments. Education does not seem to significantly increase the probability of receiving a nomination for a seat on public firms’ boards, moreover, our result casts doubt on the merits or competencies of the appointed politicians.
SIE Conference Paper, 2019
In 2008 the incoming Berlusconi's government cancels the taxation on main houses (ICI), substitut... more In 2008 the incoming Berlusconi's government cancels the taxation on main houses (ICI), substituting it with an intergovernmental grant of equal amount. The balance sheet representation changes consequently, but the balance sheets of many municipalities do not register the compensating grants in the correct line: about the 38% (ordinary statute regions) do not register compensating grants in the right budget line, this share reduces in 2009 and 2010, but it remains high, a quarter of municipalities still register such grants in a line different from the correct one. Statistical analysis reveals that such misrepresentation sometimes is done underrating the entrance from ICI (and overrating general entrance) sometimes writing the compensating transfers in the budget line devoted to tax on main houses (the tax that was canceled). In our opinion such misrepresentation is too high to describe it as a pure random error. Our research question is to investigate if such errors depends on lack in competencies of municipalities or are somehow intentional: municipalities misrepresents the grants they received recording them in another line and summing them with other elements, because of they will to signal themselves to stake-holders. Thus we want to investigate if a windows dressing activity is applied by municipality and which kind of activity it is.
MPRA Working Paper, 2019
The present work reviews how scholars of different disciplines have examined political appointmen... more The present work reviews how scholars of different disciplines have examined political appointments in recent years, in particular, those regarding public and semi-public organizations. First of all, I show how political economy research has shed light on several reform processes, arguing how economic and managerial policies have been implemented also considering political rationales, such as, for instance, the preservation of parties’ control of privatized firms. This enduring power of political parties primarily results from their preserved appointment authority over semi-public firms (beyond public agencies), one of the tools by which the political class continues to govern the enterprises in question. In particular, this appointment authority has been exploited by parties in order to reward their members and control bureaucracies, among other purposes. The phenomenon naturally resulted in a widespread surviving politicization of the state, which presents several consequences, especially in terms of public-private politically connected firms’ performance. In the conclusions, I suggest some further research trajectories which could enhance the literature.
Rivista Italiana di Economia, Statistica e Demografia, 2019
Nel 2008, l’entrante governo Berlusconi realizzò la promessa elettorale di cancellare l’imposta c... more Nel 2008, l’entrante governo Berlusconi realizzò la promessa elettorale di cancellare l’imposta che gravava sull’abitazione principale (ICI). Per compensare i Comuni della perdita di gettito furono previsti dei trasferimenti compensativi di pari ammontare.
Conseguentemente si modificò anche la rappresentazione del bilancio comunale, in aggiunta alle righe del TITOLO I (Entrate Tributarie) che permettevano di registrare l’ICI sull’abitazione principale (dopo il 2008 riservata alla sola registrazione dell’ICI sulle abitazioni di lusso) e altra ICI (o ICI secondaria) compariva una riga nel TITOLO II (trasferimenti) dove registrare i trasferimenti compensativi per L’ICI. Nonostante questo, oltre il 25% dei Comuni (il 38% nel 2008), non registrarono correttamente i trasferimenti ricevuti. Tale scorretta rappresentazione ha una rilevanza statistica troppo elevata per essere considerata un puro errore casuale. È nostra opinione che questo comportamento derivi dalla volontà di segnalare agli stakeholder alcune
informazioni in maniera non corretta. Nella prossima sezione riassumeremo la
letteratura sul bilancio creativo e sulla trasparenza dello stesso. Nella sezione 3
descriveremo il fenomeno dal punto di vista statistico. Nella sezione 4 indicheremo
alcuni risultati che permettono di approfondire le dinamiche di scorretta rappresentazione. La sezione 5 conclude.
SIEP Working Paper, 2017
This article investigates the patronage phenomenon under a theoretical point of view. Legislative... more This article investigates the patronage phenomenon under a theoretical point of view. Legislative dissent could have damaging e ects for both party and legislator, i.e., legislators depend on their party for re-election, which in turn partially depends on its reputation of cohesiveness. Nevetheless dissent allows the legislator to build a good reputation with local constituents for re-election sake. Then parties may sometimes benefi t from tolerating some level of dissent. As a result the party has a double goal: it should require the maximum loyalty from legislators, not ignoring the legislators' reputation with the voters. In this paper we consider patronage as an additional tool for the party to calibrate parlamentarians' loyalty towards the party itself and towards constituencies.