THE DOMESTIC STABILITY PACT IN ITALY: A RULE FOR DISCIPLINE?
Francesca Gastaldi* and Luisa Giuriato**
Preliminary draft
April 2009
The 1999-2006 versions of the Italian Domestic Stability Pact had many shortcomings and a
modest impact with respect to the aim of aligning the fiscal behaviour of sub-national government
units with the national commitments under the European Stability and Growth Pact. The Domestic
Pact was revised in 2007 and 2008 to tighten the monitoring and sanctions framework and prevent
some inefficient behaviour. However, some undesirable features still mar the new regime: no
coordination exists between the Domestic Pact and the debt and tax constraints applied to local
governments; a clear definition of the contribution of sub-national governments to aggregate
compliance with the external rule is still lacking; flexibility has been introduced by means of an
artificial reference budget balance; side effects on resource redistribution are ignored; and
monitoring and sanctioning remain weak. Remedies for the above shortcomings can possibly be
found in the domestic pacts of the other EMU countries. Most of all, the Domestic Pact should be
adjusted to the specific characteristics of fiscal decentralization in Italy, where a large fiscal gap
exists, revenue autonomy is constrained and a large share of the responsibility for spending is rigid
and politically sensitive.
1. Introduction
The constraints imposed on the public finances by the Stability and Growth Pact force the
EMU countries to control their budget balances and the stock of debt with reference to general
government, i.e. to the consolidated accounts of central government, local government and social
security institutions. Control of the public finances thus requires the cooperation of a wide range of
entities and not just the commitment of the central government, even though the latter is the only
body directly responsible at European level for the results of the public finances. This situation is
therefore a problem of the supply of a public good: in the absence of incentives, constraints and
sanctions encouraging the other entities to contribute their part to the supply of the public good
“sound public finances,” the ultimate responsibility for financing its production falls on the central
government. To guarantee that all the entities called upon to contribute to the results of the public
finances do not engage in opportunistic conduct, the EMU countries have laid down various rules of
financial coordination known as Domestic Stability Pacts (DSP), which are imposed on or agreed
with the sector that is most important for the general government budget balances, i.e. local
government.
This work provides a preliminary analysis of the various ways in which the sub-national
rules are drawn up in general and the possible ways of sharing an external objective at local level
(Section 2). Section 3 presents the characteristics of the main sub-national rules adopted by the
EMU countries. Section 4 introduces the discussion with reference to Italy, describes the
*
University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Public Economics. Corresponding author:
francesca.gastaldi@uniroma1.it.
**
University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Public Economics: luisa.giuriato@uniroma1.it.
1
characteristics of Italian decentralization that are relevant to the choice of the fiscal rules for the
local authorities, looks at the DSP rules in force from 1999 and 2006, and presents an assessment of
the fiscal rules on the basis of the results of the consolidated accounts. The latest versions of the
DSP, introduced in 2007 and corrected in 2008 and 2009, are described and discussed in Section 5.
Section 6 contains an assessment of the Pact framework. Section 7 provides an evaluation of the net
borrowing and debt results for 2007 and section 8 a simulation of the 2009 budget targets for
Municipalities . Section 9 presents the main conclusions.
2. General models of sub-national rules
Rules for coordinating between different levels of government are often adopted in
developed countries to regulate financial relationships in contexts of fiscal federalism.1 Their
purpose is to guarantee both macroeconomic stability at national level and the advantages, in terms
of greater efficiency, of decentralization at local level (Joumard et al., 2005, p.5). The utility of
fiscal rules at local or sub-national level2 nonetheless varies with the country’s decentralization
structure and above all with the nature of the financial links between entities at different levels.
Among the most important elements is the presence or absence of wide fiscal gaps (or vertical fiscal
imbalances) at sub-national level, or in other words of a large difference between the expenditure
assigned and revenue competences, which is financed by central transfers, (Rodden, 2002, p. 672).
The existence of fiscal gaps gives rise, in fact, to a divergence between the local and
national opportunity costs of using public funds and therefore encourages excessive local
expenditure because it is financed in part by the common pool of state taxes (Weingast et al., 1981).
In addition, there is a problem of moral hazard deriving from the insurance effect provided by the
presence of a higher-level government entity, the central government, that, faced with local deficits,
will eventually intervene with special transfers to make good the deficits or by taking over the
liabilities; the ultimate effect is a loosening of the local entity’s budget constraint. In fact even an
explicit no-bail-out commitment by the central government cannot be considered credible; the
government cannot leave sub-national entities in a state of financial collapse, both because they are
“too big to fail” (Wildasin, 1997)3 and because support measures are preferable, including from the
standpoint of maximizing the social welfare of the federation (Persson and Tabellini, 1996;
Bordignon et al. 2001). If, moreover, the local entities have access to the capital markets, the fiscal
gap causes private investors to expect that the state will act as the guarantor of last resort for their
debt: the cost of debt is thus also increased for the decentralized entities, together with the volatility
of public expenditure and tax rates.
In short, a wide fiscal gap allows local entities to offload the costs of their fiscal
irresponsibility onto the collectivity. This prospect and the impossibility of eliminating the problem
of moral hazard suggest the adoption of stringent sub-national fiscal rules (Eichengreen and von
Hagen, 1996; Rodden, 2002), which are less necessary, instead, when the decentralized entities
1
On the problems of the approach to intergovernmental fiscal relationships, see, among others, Ter-Minassian and
Craig (1997), Pisauro (2001), Dafflon (2002), Rossi and Dafflon (2002), and Ahmad et al. (2005).
2
The term “local” refers to local and regional governments, whereas the term “sub-national” also includes federal
states.
3
The policy indication provided by Wildasin (1997) is to fragment the levels of government even further to the point of
creating jurisdictions that are so small the central government can allow them to fail, since the level of local public
goods they provide does not produce the sizable and important positive externalities that are produced instead by larger
entities and that protect them from the central government’s no-bail-out threat. Alternatively, he suggests the use of
more generous transfers by the central government than would be justified under a purely efficiency based approach,
thus avoiding the creation of deficits and the consequent make-good intervention by the central government. In short, a
second-best solution with inefficient transfers, but without a make-good intervention is indicated as preferable for the
collectivity to a second best solution with efficient transfers accompanied by a bail-out. Pisauro (2001) observes,
however, that these measures would aggravate the problem of the common pool.
2
enjoy a more balanced assignment of revenue and expenditure powers: the paradigmatic models are
the Swiss cantons and the Canadian federation. However, not even this model of fiscal federalism is
exempt from the need for central intervention, linked in particular to the assignment of adequate tax
bases, the danger of excessive tax competition and a greater sensitivity to the economic cycle,
which exposes local authorities to the risk of accumulating deficits in the negative phases of the
cycle. Last but not least, the closing of the fiscal gap does not increase sub-national entities’
perception of the effects their fiscal choices produce at aggregate level or eliminate the problem of
moral hazard: “closing the gap does not necessarily mean closing access to the pool [of tax
resources]” (Pisauro, 2002, p.706).
There are many fiscal rules applicable at sub-national level, although none is fully effective
in controlling local public finances or exempt from the risk of being evaded.
- Rules on budget balances: These are the most commonly applied, with variations in terms of the
type of budget considered (forecast, approved, outturn with or without losses carried forward);
they have the advantage of being simple but they can be meaningless if some revenue and
expenditure items are excluded and if it proves impossible to prevent off-budget items.
- Expenditure caps: These are found in the form of ceilings on total or current expenditure or
specific expenditure items. On their own they do not make it possible to prevent the formation of
debt if some items are managed off-budget, and they can cause allocative inefficiencies if, in
order to comply with the ceiling, sub-national entities reduce the expenditure that is most flexible
in the short term, i.e. investment expenditure. Moreover, the fact that local entities are entrusted
with politically sensitive expenditure (health care, education, services for old and disabled people,
etc.) makes it very difficult to make cuts and thus to comply with the ceilings. Among other
things, local public expenditure, precisely because very often it is for personal services, suffers
from Baumol’s cost disease, which prevents cost reduction and the overall compliance with the
cap.
- Ceilings on the own revenue of sub-national entities: These can be used both to limit or freeze the
authorities’ ability to alter tax rates or reliefs, often as a way of punishing non-compliant entities,
and to cap the revenue obtainable from a given tax base.
- Limits on the stock of debt or on the issuance of new debt: These are often couched in numerical
form and are sometimes accompanied by a request for administrative authorizations and
guarantees. They can be evaded by transferring debt to other general government entities that are
not subject to the limits or to local public enterprises outside general government and by engaging
in sale-and-leaseback operations.
- Restrictions on the type of expenditure that can be financed with debt: These generally state that
only investment expenditure can be financed with debt (the golden rule). In this way the current
account is separated from the capital account, with the current account balance including debt
service, i.e. interest payments and repayments of principal on the basis of a rule of the pay-asyou-use type. Such restrictions require an unambiguous definition of investment expenditure so as
to avoid the transfer of current expenditure items to capital expenditure. Moreover, they do not
appear to be able to guarantee the macroeconomic sustainability of the debt (Dafflon, 2002). The
second problem could be overcome by a rule that excludes capital expenditure from the balance
but restricts it in the aggregate for the various sectors (Balassone, Degni and Salvemini, 2002).
- Limits on the debt linked to the cost of debt service or indicators of the ability to service the debt
(own revenue, tax bases): These may not be effective in curbing debt if the financial conditions
are distorted or manipulated.
3
The combination of more than one restriction is appropriate when just one, particularly
rigid, constraint might give rise to undesirable conduct by sub-national entities: procyclical fiscal
conduct, i.e. increases in expenditure in the positive phases of the cycle accompanied by increases
in fiscal pressure in the negative phases (ratchet effect), budgetary window-dressing,4 and the
curbing of investment expenditure. The literature suggests overcoming these drawbacks by
combining ceilings on budgetary balances with a restriction on own revenue or by defining the
balance net of investment expenditure or, lastly, by adopting objectives that are not annual but
defined in the medium term so as to permit the offsetting of surpluses and deficits.5 The need for
more flexible constraints can also be met by introducing safeguard clauses or contingency funds,
though these may require very large sums to be set aside that to some extent undermine the
disciplinary effect of the rule.
However they are configured, the fiscal rules must constitute a credible commitment on the
part of local and national governments. Numerous factors contribute to this, first and foremost how
they are established (self-imposition, decisions by central government, multilateral bargaining), the
ex ante and ex post monitoring of budgetary data, the ways in which budget forecasts are made, the
existence of an independent audit system, the disclosure of data and the sanctions imposed on noncompliant entities. In particular, some types of sanctions are likely not to appear very credible – not
only those that are clearly disproportionate, but also those of a financial nature, since, owing to the
inevitable problem of moral hazard, an entity in greater difficulty is more and not less likely to
receive additional help (Joumard et al. 2005).
Not only administrative procedures can discipline local governments’ fiscal conduct but so
can financial markets by limiting access to financing or increasing the cost of debt (Breton, 1977).
However, this disciplinary effect is produced under particularly stringent conditions that are rarely
met in practice regarding the availability of information, the openness of markets, and the absence
of moral hazard. Moreover, there is the problem of the lag or limited reactivity with which local
administrators perceive market signals, which are subject to sudden discontinuities (Ahmad et al.,
2005). To conclude, the choice of sub-national fiscal rules should be made in relation to the
objectives to be achieved (containing the size of the local public sector, sharing of external
constraints, sustainability of the debt, an incentive for allocative efficiency) and, where there are
several objectives, there should be several mutually consistent rules. In particular, if one of the
objectives is to share an external constraint, such as the Growth and Stability Pact, between
different levels, it is necessary to inquire into the possible forms this domestic rule can take in a
decentralized system. In order to be consistent, the domestic rules must replicate, in some respects,
the structure of the external constraint (e.g. objectives expressed in terms of the same variables, the
use of data comparable to those of the national accounts, and congruent time horizons). In
particular, since the external objective is a budget balance, it would be desirable, especially in
decentralized structures where there is some degree of local fiscal autonomy, for the domestic
control variable also to be a balance and not, say, a cap on expenditure. Moreover, since the purpose
of the constraint is to control the general government balance and not the size of the public sector, a
4
“Such practices include for instance: the reclassification of expenditures from current to capital, to escape current
budget balance requirements; the creation of entities whose operations - albeit of a governmental nature - are kept offbudget, and whose debts are not counted against the debt ceilings; the use of state or local government-owned
enterprises to borrow for purposes that should be funded through the relevant government budget; the use of debt
instruments – such as sale and leaseback arrangements – that are not included in the debt limits; the resort to arrears to
suppliers, which are typically difficult to monitor for inclusion in the public debt ceilings” (Ter- Minassian and Craig,
1997, p. 166).
5
Dafflon (2002) stresses the need for the time horizon required for the rebalancing of the budget to correspond with the
time horizon of local level administrative mandates: if these periods fail to coincide, a phenomenon of financial illusion
would be introduced together with an incentive for local politicians to overspend. Moreover, if the adjustment in the
early years of the period considered were modest, it would have to be much larger in the last year of the constraint’s
application, so that it would risk not being sustainable by the local government.
4
constraint applied to balances should not be accompanied by severe restrictions on fiscal autonomy.
In fact, insofar as the fiscal rules are applied in a context of decentralization, they must leave
margins of autonomy with regard to revenue and expenditure decisions. In line with the structure of
the external constraint, it would appear most suitable to supplement it with constraints on the
balances and debt of the local entities.
The sharing of an external objective gives rise to the problem of determining the
contribution that each category must make to the collective effort. This can be done either by
establishing the share of deficit and/or debt reduction to be borne by each category (regional and
municipal governments) or by establishing only the share required from the highest level in the
hierarchy of sub-national entities (regions/states); the choice between the two models depends on
the types of relationship existing between the various levels of government. In the first case (Figure
1.a) each category of local government must find, in turn, a way of sharing the objective internally.6
In the second case (Figure 1.b) the category of regional/state entities will establish the share of each
region/state and these, in turn, will agree the contributions required from each lower level entity
belonging to its jurisdiction. The system of monitoring and control also depends on the type of
sharing of the external constraint chosen: in the first case forms of peer pressure are important while
in the second it should require the intervention of the higher-level local entity.
The ways of sharing the objective within each category or higher local entity must take
account of the structural disequilibria between the different areas (Bosi et al, 2003) and can be
defined either as part of a formalized process of cooperation or with more sophisticated methods,
such as the creation of a market in deficit permits (Casella, 1999)7 in which entities compare the
cost of reducing their own deficit with the market price of permits and these are exchanged by way
of direct bargaining or auctions. This mechanism could allow an efficient allocation of deficits and
be regulated on the basis of the central government’s macroeconomic objectives. It is open to some
methodological criticisms, however (Patrizii et al., 2006; Rossi and Dafflon, 2002; Balassone and
Franco, 2001), especially as regards the initial distribution of permits, the need for sufficient
competition in the market for permits, the hypothesis of perfect substitutability between entities’
deficits, and the distortions introduced by considerations of a political nature that can influence the
decision to buy permits.
6
For Italy, such a proposal was supported by Bosi et al. (2003).
For Italy, such a proposal was supported by Commissione Tecnica per la Spesa Pubblica (2001) and by Giarda et al.
(2005), with special reference to debt financing of municipalities’ capital expenditure. More recently the proposal has
been discussed again in ISAE (2007).
7
5
Figure 1 – Models of sharing an external objective at local level
3. Models applied in Europe
The various EMU countries have followed many different paths in attempting to make the fiscal
policies of their decentralized entities consistent with the constraints of the Stability and Growth
Pact: in some cases marginal changes have been made to existing rules; in others new rules have
been introduced in a specific legislative context. In some countries the need for the decentralized
entities to contribute to achieving the aggregate objective arose even before the start of EMU. In the
6
mid-1990s Austria, Belgium, Germany and Spain already had a level of local deficit that
contributed to causing total deficit to diverge from the Maastricht target (Table 1). The fiscal rules
introduced at that time did not always bring the intended results. In the last ten years Austria and
Belgium have turned the local government balance into a structural surplus. The consolidation of
the budgetary balance in Spain was due instead to the results obtained by the central government
and the social security institutions, while the deficit of the autonomous communities was not
reduced significantly and the local governments, which had been in balance in 1995, recorded a
small deficit from 2002 onwards. In Germany the deficit of the Länder continues to represent an
important share of the total net borrowing. In other countries the problem of the consistency
between the external objective and the fiscal conduct of the decentralized entities emerged after the
start of EMU (Finland and the Netherlands).
Table 1 – General government net borrowing and debt by government level in selected EMU
countries (as a % GDP)
Net Borrowing
Federal countries
Austria
Central gov't
States/Regions
Local gov't
Belgium
Central gov't
States/Regions
Local gov't
Germany
Central gov't
States/Regions
Local gov't
Spain
Central gov't
States/Regions
Local gov't
Unitary countries
Finland
Central gov't
Local gov't
France
Central gov't
Local gov't
Italy
Central gov't
Local gov't
Netherlands
Central gov't
Local gov't
Debt
1995
-5.6
-5.2
0.1
-0.5
-4.4
-3.7
-0.8
0.3
-3.3
-1.9
-1.1
0
-6.5
-5.5
-0.6
0
2001
0
-0.7
0.5
0.3
0.6
-0.8
0.8
-0.1
-2.8
-1.3
-1.3
-0.1
-0.6
-0.8
-0.6
0
2005
-1.5
-1.8
0.1
0.2
-2.3
-2.4
0.3
-0.1
-3.4
-2.1
-1
0
1
0.2
-0.3
-0.1
1995
67.9
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
129.8
118.1
9.1
6
55.6
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
62.7
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
2001
66
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
106.5
100
6.5
5.5
58.8
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
55.5
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
2005
63.5
59.6
3.0
2.0
92.1
85.8
4.3
5.2
67.8
41.6
21.5
5.3
43
36.4
6.3
2.8
-6.2
-11.3
1.3
-5.5
-4.5
-0.2
-7.4
-7.5
0.1
-1.9
-1.5
0.2
5
1.9
-0.4
-1.5
-2.1
0.1
-3.1
-3.1
-0.3
-0.2
-0.2
-0.1
2.9
0.6
-0.6
-2.9
-2.6
-0.2
-4.2
-3.8
-0.9
-0.3
0.1
-0.2
56.7
n.d.
n.d.
55.5
45.2
9.3
121.2
119.5
5.2
76.1
n.d.
n.d.
42.3
n.d.
n.d.
56.9
51
7.1
108.7
104.7
3.32
50.7
n.d.
n.d.
41.3
39.1
5.3
66.4
59.8
7
105.8
99.9
6.3
54.8
46.8
8
Source: own elaboration on Eurostat and Bank of Italy
7
As regards consolidated debt, the local component is less than ten per cent of the total in
some countries (Austria, Belgium, France and Italy); in the Netherlands and Spain, its share is about
15 per cent, while in Germany it is about 40 per cent. In general the last ten years have seen a
tendency for the share of local government debt to decline, whereas, as will be seen in Section 4,
the tendency in Italy has been in the opposite direction, with local government debt rising from 4.3
per cent of the total in 1995 to 7.3 per cent in 2005.
This range of results is due to a variety of factors, but it is possible to identify the main
factors in each of the paths followed by the countries considered in disciplining and coordinating
the budgetary results at the different levels of government.
As shown in Section 2, the value of fiscal rules at local and sub- national level varies with
the structure of decentralization and the nature of the financial links between the entities at the
different levels. The degree of decentralization, measured in terms of the amount of expenditure
managed at local level, is generally used as an indicator of the extent of fiscal federalism. Among
the countries considered, Belgium, Germany, Finland and Spain can be considered as the most
decentralized, with local government’s share of total expenditure ranging from 39.4 per cent in
Finland to 53.4 per cent in Spain. In the last 10 years the degree of decentralization has on average
increased in all the countries considered except the Netherlands (Table 2).
On the financing side the total share of sub-national entities’ own taxes is generally small
(between 10 and 30 per cent of local tax revenue), compared with the use of instruments of
derivative finance such as vertical and horizontal transfers and tax sharing, thus reducing the
financial responsibility of sub-national entities. However, the decentralization of revenue has been
considerable both in Spain and in Italy (Table 2). Moreover, the autonomy implicit in own taxes
and revenue sharing depends also on the freedom that is granted at the local level in determining tax
rates, the tax base and tax reliefs. The potential fiscal effort is very limited in Austria and Germany.
Instead, Belgium and Spain and most of the unitary countries enjoy greater fiscal autonomy. Spain
has a high degree of fiscal autonomy compared with the other countries considered, with tax rates
and bases that can be manoeuvred in excess of 50 per cent of the revenue for the regions and 77 per
cent for the local authorities (Table 2). Consequently, if Spain is excluded, in most of the countries,
and especially in Austria and Germany, responsibility for expenditure does not appear to be
matched by sufficient responsibility on the financing side, thus potentially generating common pool
fund problems.
As regards the constraints, all the EMU countries have set a constraint on the annual budget
balance, both at the levels of intermediate government (federal states or regions) and at the lower
levels (local governments). Austria, Spain, Finland and Belgium have introduced a multi-year time
frame, complying with the objectives established at national level in the various European Stability
Programmes. In Germany, the Netherlands, France and Finland the compass of the constraint at the
lower level is limited to the current account balance, while in Austria and Spain the constraint
includes some off-budget items (Table 3).
In most countries the constraints on the balance are accompanied by constraints on the debt
of the local entities fixed by the higher level of government; by contrast, this is explicitly excluded
in Belgium and the Netherlands, but the possibility of borrowing can be limited if the balanced
budget constraint is not complied with. In Spain the constraint on the debt is self-imposed; in
France, Germany and Spain debt is subject to the golden rule at the local government level. In
France and Germany the constraint is numerical for the issue of new debt, while in Spain there is
also a ceiling on the stock. In Belgium the constraint is expressed in terms of a restriction on
interest payments. In all the countries recourse to local government debt is restricted to certain uses
of the funds and is often subject to central government approval. In Finland there is no constraint on
the debt. Constraints on expenditure are much less common and, among the countries considered,
only Germany and Belgium have provided, as an additional measure, a ceiling on the growth of
8
expenditure at the local level. Although there is no specific rule for revenue, the degree of fiscal
autonomy constitutes an implicit constraint on the financing of local entities. The application of a
minimum (or standard) rate and a maximum rate for local taxes amounts to respectively a lower and
an upper limit on the entities’ fiscal revenue. The Netherlands does not provide for any restriction
on tax rates and the same is true of Finland for most local and revenue-sharing taxes.
As regards the various methods used to define the constraints, it is possible to distinguish the
countries that have used a cooperative approach (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) from
those, such as Italy, that have imposed budgetary rules. In some countries (Austria and Spain) the
rules are not imposed but negotiated.
In 1992 Belgium, as part of its plan to converge on the Maastricht parameters, began to
coordinate its budgetary objectives at the different levels of government. In particular, the CSF
(Superior Finance Council), whose members include representatives of the federal government, the
regional government (3 regions and 3 linguistic communities) and local government (10 provinces
and 589 municipalities), established, in a process of cooperation between the centre and peripheral
entities, the contribution of each level of government to the budget constraint defined in the
convergence plan. The objective for all the levels of local government has been fixed, since 1999,
as a balanced budget; and an agreement of 2005 provides for the budgets of the regions and the
municipalities to be in surplus. No special constraints are envisaged on the issue of debt by
individual local entities, but the definition of the balanced budget and the results in terms of
surpluses in the last few years have clearly contributed to a sizable reduction in the debt at local
level, both as a ratio to GDP and as a share of total debt.
Table 2 – Expenditure decentralization and fiscal autonomy in selected EMU countries
Local expenditure
% of total
% of GDP
change
change
2005 1995-2005
2005 1995-2005
% delle entrate
change 19952005
2005
Federal countries
Austria
States/Regions
Local gov't
Belgium
States/Regions
Local gov't
Germany
States/Regions
Local gov't
Spain
States/Regions
Local gov't
34.8
18.8
16
42.2
28.3
13.9
43.1
27.5
15.6
53.4
37.8
15.6
-0.1
2.8
-2.9
4
2.5
1.5
3.9
3.2
0.7
17.5
15.1
2.5
17.4
9.4
8
20.9
14
6.9
20.2
12.9
7.3
20.5
14.5
6
-2.1
0.4
-2.5
1.1
0.6
0.5
-1.2
-0.4
-0.8
4.5
4.4
0.1
18.9
7.8
11.1
13
7.5
5.5
29.8
22.4
7.5
30.6
21.9
8.8
-2.7
-1.2
-1.5
3.4
3.5
-0.2
0.7
-0.3
1
17.2
17.1
0
8.2
3.4
4.8
6
3.5
2.5
11.9
8.9
3
11.1
7.9
3.2
-1
-0.4
-0.6
1.7
1.7
0
0.2
-0.2
0.4
6.6
6.3
0.3
Unitary countries
Finland
France
Italy
Netherlands
39.4
20.4
32.5
35.2
6.2
2.2
7.7
-5.4
19.9
10.9
15.5
15.9
-0.6
1
2.6
-7
20.8
10.6
16
5.2
-2
0.2
8.2
0.6
9.1
4.8
6.5
2
-1.3
0.2
3.3
0.1
Local tax revenue
Revenue with autonomy on
% del PIL
% of total local revenue
total local revenue
change 1995change
Rates and
Rates and/or
2005
2005
2005 1995-2005
reliefs
reliefs
35.1
58.9
-7.1
5.5
24.6
37.6
10.3
-0.1
75
41
0
7.9
55.4
53
38.9
3.8
47.3
44.8
44.2
12.8
-0.4
-2.6
19.4
4.7
7
2.7
5.4
100
46.6
51.3
17.6
2.4
33.6
53.7
2.9
74.5
72
89.9
17.8
66.4
100
Source: own elaboration on Eurostat and Bank of Italy
9
Table 3 – The characteristics of the budget constraints applied in the EMU countries
Austria Germany
UE countries
On the budget balance
On expenditure
Constraint
On tax autonomy
On debt
Imposed or negotiated but mandatory
Elf imposed or non mandatory
Annual budget
With reference to Multi-year budget
Decision on
constraints
Instruments to
offset the cycle
or shocks
Restrictions to
access to
Type of
constraint
Constraints on
debt
Safeguard
clauses
Transparency
Higher level of
gov.
Other subnational entity
Responsible
Other
entity
Frequency of data transmission
Standardization of budgetary data
transmitted
Independent audit
Sanctions
Financial sanctions
Mandatory measures
Monitoring
Application of
the rule
Safeguards clauses
Financial support
Cuts in mandatory expenditures
Current and capital exp.
Financing of capital exp.
Numerical
Non-numerical
Present
Not present
Spain
France
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Belgium
Finland
Netherlands
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
The cooperative approach has not produced such satisfactory results in Germany.8 The
assignment of responsibilities to the decentralized bodies is not well specified, so there is a strong
incentive for free riding. In particular, management of most of the devolved functions is shared
between the federal and regional governments, which reduces transparency in the assignment of
roles and specific government accountability. Further, the principle of linkage between
administrative functions and financial costs, combined with the relative lack of local financial
autonomy, engenders moral hazard and the host of problems connected with the common pool fund.
A Financial Planning Council was instituted to coordinate budget planning between the federal
government, regional governments, and other local bodies. Based on an agreement the Council
suggests budget targets. In any event, both the federal government and the regions remain
independent and autonomous in setting their budget policies; their only constraint is accounting
equilibrium. As for debt constraints, like a number of other countries Germany has instituted a
golden rule for local government budgets. In the mid-1990s the relatively relaxed local budget
constraints and the existing coordination procedures began to seem insufficient to ensure
compliance with European rules. Following the financial difficulties that emerged in 2001, in 2002
a new agreement was reached setting the objective of a balanced budget in the medium term both
for the federal government and for the Länder and enhancing the coordination functions of the
Financial Planning Council with specific regard to European constraints. The Council is empowered
to rule on local government budgets’ compliance with the Stability Programme and to make
recommendations to correct their fiscal behaviour. Further, federal government, Länder and
municipalities agreed on the division of the net borrowing target between levels of government: 45
per cent to the federal government and the remaining 55 per cent to regional and local authorities.
8
In addition to the federal government, the Constitution provides for 16 regions (Länder) e 13,000 municipalities.
10
Finally, a spending curb was instituted both at federal and at regional level so as to achieve the
general government budget balance.
Consensus and cooperation also play a major role in another country in which formal budget
rules apply, namely Austria.9 All levels of government must do their share to achieve budget
equilibrium, through the machinery of the “fiscal sharing act”. The objective is to ensure the
financial sustainability of the expenditure for which each entity is responsible. The need to involve
local governments in meeting the Maastricht standards resulted in a first informal agreement in
1996 and a proper “Domestic Stability Pact” in 1999. As a preliminary, the proportions in which the
various levels of government must contribute to deficit reduction are set for the entire duration of
the Pact. The various contributions are quantified on the basis of deficit targets for each year. For
local administrations, the distribution is not by individual entity but according to resident
population and the economic condition of the region to which the entities belong. This mechanism
makes it possible to negotiate deficit shares between regions, between the local governments within
each region, and between the entire set of local governments in one region and in another. It also
permits budget coordination, ensuring a certain degree of flexibility. Coordination is on two tiers:
one involving different institutional levels and a second, through Committees, involving relations
between individual regions and the local governments within them. The process involves setting
budget targets and short-term fiscal policy objectives and monitoring deficits and debt, for prompt
detection of any overall excessive deficit of the general government. The Committees suggest
adjustment measures and if necessary decide on the sharing of any penalties.
Spain also has a fiscal rule, but here too cooperation is decisive. In the last few years very
extensive decentralization has been carried out, but there has been a narrowing of the fiscal gap and
a reduction of moral hazard for local governments, making it possible to reconcile decentralization
with budget stability at sub-national level. During the 1990s fiscal policy for different levels of
government (17 autonomous communities, or regions, and 8,102 municipalities) was based on
coordination under the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, with representatives of the autonomous
communities. The Council also had the purpose of coordinating investment and borrowing policies
and resource distribution. Constraints were set, mainly on debt issuance. Local governments were
subject to the golden rule and to central authorization, and interest payments could not exceed 25
per cent of current revenues. These constraints did not prove to be particularly effective, and the
control of local budgets was achieved mainly on the expenditure side, through bilateral negotiations
that were lacking in transparency. In 2001 the need to institutionalize coordination induced Spain,
too, to pass a national law instituting a DSP (Ley General de Estabilidad Presupuestaria). The
central government unilaterally sets the consolidated budget target and the overall objective for
each level of government, based on a multi-year plan approved by Parliament and subject to the
oversight of the Council. The Council and the National Commission of Local Administrations are
responsible for allotting the deficit and debt targets among the various entities. The different levels
of government pledged to maintain budget balance or surplus, but each local authority retains full
independence in budgetary decisions. The Pact was revised in 2005 to attenuate some elements of
rigidity that might create incentives for pro-cyclical policy and reduce budget transparency through
off-budget transactions. For the central and sub-national governments, budget balance was no
longer defined on a yearly basis but over three years, in accordance with economic forecasts. As an
exception, the central government, the regions and largest city governments may run additional
deficits to fund investment projects (the golden rule). Further, negotiations were envisaged to set
the general objectives for the various levels of government, with the institution of a phase of
9
The Austrian federal state comprises 9 regions (Länder) e 2,359 local communities, and the constitution mandates the
sharing between federal and regional governments of the functions relating to state sovereignty, while all functions not
attributed directly to the central government are automatically the responsibility of the regions. Local administrations
are responsible for administrative functions delegated to them from higher levels. As in Germany, this federal structure
produces greater problems in controlling local budgets. In Austria it generated fiscal gaps generally in favour of the
local governments until the mid-1990s, but the situation was then inverted and local governments began to run deficits.
11
bilateral consultations between autonomous communities and central government and the
reinforcement of the role of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council of Autonomous communities
and the National Commission of Local Administrations.
The differences in the achievements of the DSP depend in part on procedural features, in
particular the monitoring of results. In Belgium, responsibility for the overall budget outturn of
local governments is assigned to the federal states (regions). The Superior Finance Council is
responsible for monitoring fiscal policy in the regions and checking its execution, in concert with
the regions and municipalities, through monthly exchange of data. Control on budget equilibrium at
municipal level is assigned to the provinces, which also have the power to impose budget
adjustments (spending cuts or tax increases) where the objectives are not met. The budget targets
are made more credible by the presence of an independent agency, the Federal Planning Bureau for
forecasting macroeconomic and budget variables for the federal budget process. Austria and the
Netherlands also have independent institutes, and in those countries there is, on average, less
deviation of budget and economic outturns from the initial forecasts.
In Spain the checking of budget objectives is entrusted of a central government agency that
is generally responsible for public accounting. The Finance Ministry monitors the financial
adjustment plans that the regions must present yearly. The Fiscal and Financial Policy Council,
however, has the power to verify the implementation of devolution and compliance with fiscal rules
at regional level. To tighten monitoring, the revised DSP provides that in preparing their budgets
the various administrations must supply all information necessary to verify their compatibility with
the targets; the information must be made available through a public database.
In Germany, it is the procedure itself that appears to weaken the DSP. Hierarchical ex-post
controls of compliance with the objectives is lacking, since budgets are subject only to checks at the
same level of government, while the State Audit Office carries out only administrative controls.
City governments, in their budget process, are considered as parts of their region, and their budget
policies are subject to the monitoring of the interior ministry of that region. Germany shows, on
average, a wider discrepancy between forecasts and outturns, presumably due to a relative lack of
independence in making macroeconomic forecasts and to the fact that the budget is drafted and the
outturn measured on a cash rather than on an accrual basis.
Ex post reconstructing the accounts according to ESA95 standards only after the fact
weakens the procedure for setting targets and, even more so, undermines budget control not only in
Germany but also in France and Italy. In the other countries, there is a mounting effort to make the
budget targets at the different levels of government consistent with the consolidated budget target
set in the stability programme. In this regard, Belgium, Austria and Spain refer more explicitly to
accounts drafted according to ESA95.
Sanction procedures differ considerably from country to country. Austria, Belgium,
Germany, the Netherlands and Spain provide for financial sanctions, such as reduced transfers,
and/or administrative penalties, such as the limitation of financial independence. In Belgium the
regions are subject to a sanction mechanism, and the CSF can ask the federal government to limit
their borrowing capacity. In Spain and the Netherlands, local governments’ access to credit depends
on having a balanced budget.
In general, when there is a violation, deviations from the adjustment plan have to be
justified, but in Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands no explicit sanctions are provided
for. Among the countries examined here, only Spain and Austria provide for the allotment of a
European sanction between the non-compliant jurisdictions. In Spain, the criterion for allotment is
decided after the fact. In Austria, the sanction applies, with joint and several liability, to all the
entities, not a particularly credible system for eliminating free riding. As a rule, these collective
sanctions are an incentive to maintain a balance between regional surpluses and deficits but do not
rule out the possibility that it will always be the same surplus regions to offset regularly excessive
deficits in others. That is, this mechanism takes no account of the fiscal sustainability of individual
entities, much less of the quality of their spending (ISAE, 2007). Spain also has a no-bail-out clause
12
that explicitly rules out any obligation on the part of the central government to salvage insolvent
local governments. Austria has a safeguard clause with respect to the budget constraint only in the
case of severe recession.
As an alternative to cooperation, local fiscal discipline can be imposed from above, as in
France, where during the 1990s a series of laws were enacted offering a degree of fiscal
decentralization, and local financial autonomy was reinforced, but no real Domestic Stability Pact
was ever adopted. There are no limits on local debt, but there are implicit constraints stemming
from the balanced budget rule and the investment accounting standards. On the one hand, the rule
requiring a balanced budget on current account makes application of the golden rule mandatory. On
the other, the charging of depreciation to the capital account requires a current account surplus to
cover past investment, thus limiting new debt to the financing of new investment only. Budget
controls are administrative and are performed by the local sections of the State Audit Office
(Chambre Régionale des Comptes). They examine both the ex-ante and ex-post budget balance. If
the deficit exceeds 5 or 10 per cent of current revenue (depending on population), the Chambre
must suggest corrective measures. The imposition of this rule on local public finances involves
some elements of risk, in that the accounting aggregate to which it refers is not exhaustive of the
local budget, which also includes transactions of entities delegated by the local authorities to
perform certain functions that are outside the consolidated budget (such as outsourcing, public
entities created jointly by more than one government, and unions of municipalities). So far, local
accounts do not appear to have been the source of any serious concern for compliance with the EU
constraints, but the good performance at local level has been assured by central government
transfers in cases of budget difficulties. French decentralization is marked by highly differentiated
fiscal gaps that require not only vertical but also horizontal transfers, and if problems in complying
with the European standards arise, unless the institutional relationships and budget rules are
modified the burden will continue to fall on the central government (Guilbert and Guegngant,
2002).
4. The Domestic Stability Pact in Italy
Italy has moved very far towards decentralization in the last few years. At present, subnational governments are responsible for about a third of total general government spending (Table
4). Especially significant is the fact that some 80 per cent of direct general government investment
expenditure is effected by the local administrations, and 45.9 per cent (or 1.3 per cent of GDP) by
municipalities alone.10 Capital expenditure thus represents a significant portion of municipal and
regional budgets (larger for the former than for the latter), and it strongly affects overall budget
results, especially for municipalities (ISAE, 2007). These sub-national authorities, moreover, have
jurisdiction over some politically sensitive spending items (health, education, welfare) and have a
high degree of structural rigidity on the spending side, especially the municipalities.
The tax or revenue powers assigned to the local authorities are still very limited, however.
Own taxes account for less than half of total revenues, cover less than half of current spending, and
are only partially under the control of the local bodies. Since tariff revenues are still relatively
insignificant, central government transfers remain paramount.11 So there is a substantial fiscal gap,
which the literature associates with the need for stricter fiscal rules, joined with the necessity of
coordinating local finances in order to comply with the external constraint of the Stability and
Growth Pact. To resolve the problem of free-riding in the provision of the public good of “sound
public finances,” Italy has taken a top-down approach in which the contributions required of the
10
Direct central government investment spending is less than 0.4 per cent of GDP. But most of the transfers to finance
investment by other general government bodies come from the central government budget.
11
For purposes of international comparison, however, it should be noted that such transfers include VAT revenue
sharing, which some countries (Germany) count as own resources.
13
various segments of general government are not specified12 but annual constraints are set on every
single subnational unit, differentiated in some years between the regional and the other authorities.
This way of sharing the Stability and Growth Pact burden derives essentially from the strong
relations, including financial relations, between the central government and each of the sub-national
units, which prefer to deal not with the authority immediately above them but directly with the
central government. The main defects of this approach consist in the lack of clear specification of
the objective that the local authorities should attain and in the rigid constraints that are set on the
individual governments, which cannot effect any offsets between one another (e.g. between
municipalities) or within a jurisdiction (e.g. the municipalities of a given region). They could even
have incentives for “creative accounting” (Ter-Minassian and Craig, 1997).
Table 4 – Characteristics of decentralization in Italy relevant to the choice of the sub-national
fiscal rule
Regions
Revenue responsibility (Own res. As % of
total revenues)
Tax autonomy
Expenditures
Tax revenue
according to
possibility of control
(%of total)
48,8
Municipalities and
Provinces
32,9
61
84,9
Control of rates and
tax base
Revenue sharing
5
None
34
15,1
21,6
10,9
12,3
14,1
Expenditures responsibility (% of total gen.
government)
Education
Politically sensitive
expenditures
Health
(% on total by
function)
Welfare (excl.
pensions)
Current expenditures
exempt from Pact
(%) - 2005
Capital exp. As % of
final expenditure (%)
- 2005
Gross fixed
investment as % of
general government
exp. (%) - 2005
Degree of structural
rigidity (%)*
98,4
1,9
13,1
13,9
58,8 (Provinces)
61,3 (Municip.)
16,2
27,9
14,3
8,05 (Provinces)
45,9 (Municip.)
37,9 (30,6)
51,0 (31,2) Municip.
34,9 (23,0) Provinces
* Defined as: (staff+debt service)/(current revenue; in brackets: staff costs as percentage of current revenue.
The rules of the Domestic Pact have always been determined during the final phase of the
budget process, i.e. when the size of the budget adjustment is being decided. Only twice was the
12
The technical reports accompanying draft finance acts give only indications on the effects in terms of deficit
reduction that should come from the application of the Domestic Stability Pact.
14
course of direct negotiation with the local authorities taken.13 The lack of direct talks in the initial
phases of the budget process and of a clear prior agreement between the parties has been one of the
causes of the numerous ex-post amendments to the Pact, year after year. As Table 5 shows, the
entities covered, the planning targets and how they are calculated, sanctions, and type of monitoring
all changed every year from 1999 to 2007.
4.1. The changing rules of the Domestic Stability Pact, 1999-2006. Groping about in search of
some kind of equilibrium, Italy made practically yearly revisions of its Domestic Pact, which
created problems for local planning and imposed adjustment costs. The budget constraint, originally
identical for all sub-national units, was diversified in 2002 between regions and other local
authorities. In turn, some municipalities and other local units with population below a given
threshold were excluded from compliance checks in some years. Finally, since 2002 special rules
have applied to the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano and to the special-statute
regions.14
Excepting the first two years of application, 1999 and 2000, when the Pact required a
reduction of the aggregate deficit on a current programmes basis for the subject entities as a group,
through 2006 it required each unit to correct the budget balance from previous years or else set a
limit – expressed as a ceiling with respect to historical values – on the growth of current
expenditure. In particular, since 2002 the constraint for regional governments consisted only in an
expenditure cap. As section 2 shows, the spending constraint actually only limits the expansion of
the local public sector and does not directly serve to share the burden of the European pact. At least
where it was combined with a constraint on the budget balance, its presence within the Domestic
Pact was justified as a correction to the budget balance itself. Past outturns, in fact, are not
representative of an entity’s actual fiscal virtue, because the scope for tax autonomy is so small and
revenue and expenditure trends are partially random.
In 2005 and 2006, in line with the controlled growth of overall general government
spending, the DSP was rewritten for all sub-national entities, with a new constraint on their
expenditure calculated as a ceiling on spending growth, for the first time including capital spending,
and distinguishing between virtuous and unvirtuous entities. For 2006, in addition, differentiation
between current and capital expenditure was required, the former to be contained and the latter
augmented, so as to improve the quality of local government spending.
Except for the first two years, the limits have always been determined on the basis of
historical expenditure, never referring to one-year projections, the actual planning horizon of local
authorities. Moreover, a growing number of items have been excluded from the ceilings. For
regions, the exemption of health care expenditure restricts the Pact’s applicability to just a third of
total spending. The exemptions comprise capital expenditure, a number of the least discretionary
budget items (e.g. transfer payment revenues and earmarked expenditure financed by transfers), and
extraordinary expenditure. Possible outsourcing of public activities, prompted in part by the fiscal
rules, has almost never been considered. Only the 2002 Pact established a method of calculating the
reference values that included outsourced spending (Law 448/2001, Article 24.4 bis).
13
In 2002 the Domestic Stability Pact for the regions was decided on as part of the State-Regions accord on health
expenditure of 8 August 2001 and formally enacted as Decree Law 347/2001. In 2007 the Pact was the subject of
explicit negotiations between central government and local authorities (26 September 2007).
14
By 31 March each year these authorities must agree with the Ministry of the Economy and Finance on a three-year
spending plan. Up to 2003 the agreement involved only current expenditure (actual outlays). From 2005 on it covered
capital spending as well (thus, actual outlays and commitments) and was subject to the general limit of 2 per cent of
spending or the constraint applying to ordinary-statue regions. If no agreement is reached, the Domestic Stability Pact
rules for the other local authorities apply. The authorities themselves decide which regime to apply to the smaller units
within their territory. The accounts of the special-statue regions and autonomous provinces too are subject to
monitoring.
15
Table 5 – The Domestic Stability Pact in Italy: characteristics of the fiscal rules
DSP 1999-2000
Ordinary-statute regions
Scope
(percentage of entities suject - %)
x
On expenditure
On debt
Partial coverage
Type of constraint
Exemption of capital expenditures
Annual budget
With reference to Multi-year budget
Constraint on budget balance
Constraint on expenditure
Outsourcing activities to other
entities
Type of constraint
Constraint on expenditure
Outsourcing activities to other
entities
Envisaged explicitly
On the budget balance
On expenditure
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Instruments to offset cycle or shocks
Partial coverage
Exemption of capital expenditures
DSP 2007-11
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Envisaged explicitly
Transparency
Responsible
entity
Frequency of data transmission
Entities for which it is mandatory
Standardization of data
Independent audit
Sanctions
Financial sanctions
Mandatory measures
Public list of non-compliant entities
Monitoring
DSP 2005-06
x
Higher level of
Other subnational gov.
Application of the Pact
DSP 2003-04
x
Instruments to offset cycle or shocks
Partial coverage
Exemption of capital expenditure
Partial coverage
Exemption of capital expenditures
Annual budget
With reference to Multi-year budget
Constraint on budget balance
DSP 2002
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100% Provinces 100% Provinces 100% Provinces 100% Provinces 100% Provinces
29% Municip.
29% Municip.
Municip.:
29% Municip.
29% Municip.
(82 % pop.)
(82 % pop.)
(82 % pop.)
43% in 2005
(82 % pop.)
29% in 2006
100%
Other local
x
x
x
x
x
x
Local government entities
Imposed or negotiated (mandatory)
Self imposed or non-mandatory
On the budget balance
Decision on constraint
DSP 2001
100%
x
x
x
x
Conferenza StatoRegioni and
Monthly
Regions and
x
Sanctions:1999
Incentives: 2000
Stato-Comuni e
Autonomie L .
Quarterly
Regions,
Quarterly
Regions,
x
Incentives
Quarterly
Regions,
x
x
Quarterly or half- Quarterly
All
All
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Constraints outside the Pact
Constraint on tax autonomy
Limits on range of tax rates
Tax rate freeze
Restriction to access on financing
Constraint on debt
For current and capital expenditure
Financing allowed only for capital
Numerical
Non- numerical
Based on cost of debt service
Type of constraints
Administrative constraints
Ban on guarantees from higher level of gov.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
What is more, the monitoring system has been extremely weak. At first it relied mainly on a
sort of peer pressure, with central government controls applied only to the larger entities and a
sample of smaller ones. Information was neither, complete nor timely. The accounting rules are not
the same as those for the European pact (ESA95). Sanctions have been quite mild and changeable,
ranging from a share in any EU fine (1999) to incentives for the virtuous authorities in the form of
lower interest rates on loans from the Deposits and Loans Fund (2000-2001), to administrative
prohibitions on non-compliant units. Through 2007 publication of the list of non-compliant entities
was never envisaged, and the sanctions were never applied.
The Pact’s constraints come on top of other external constraints on local debt and taxes
under earlier legislation or special clauses in the national finance laws. The tax autonomy of subnational government units has always been partial, the possibility of determining the rates and
deductions on certain taxes being restricted to a very narrow range. In some years (2003-2005)
these limits were transformed into outright caps on revenue, as a consequence of the finance laws’
provisions freezing local tax rates.
16
Local authorities’ borrowing has been regulated by many legislative acts over the years.15
Sub-national bodies may finance investment expenditure by borrowing from the Deposits and
Loans Fund or from other financial intermediaries or by securities issues. This golden rule is
accompanied by administrative obligations (notification, the requirement to submit a financial
plan), constraints (no central or regional government guarantee, restrictions on yields of local bonds
with respect to Treasury securities), and guarantee requirements (guaranteed repayment out of
current revenue). There is a cap on the expansion of the local authorities’ debt in the form of a limit
on the ratio of interest payments to revenue.16 Local debt has never been explicitly covered by the
Pact; references to it are indirect and always couched in terms of rewards and sanctions.
Essentially, the rules in force from 1999 through 2006 were ambivalent. On the one hand
they were quite rigid (reference to annual figures, no safeguard or cyclical adjustment clauses, no
rainy-day funds), but on the other they lacked stringency (exemption of increasing numbers of
revenue and expenditure items, no consideration of outsourcing, weak monitoring and sanctions,
lack of information transparency). Thus the high degree of compliance found by the State Audit
Office may be best interpreted as the consequence of the mildness of the rules rather than the
virtuous behaviour of the authorities. In its yearly reports to Parliament, the Audit Office found a
more than satisfactory, and increasing, degree of compliance, in that every year the results were
better than the planning targets, above all for regions and provinces.
However, this positive judgment is belied by a reading of the public finance aggregate that is
relevant to European controls, namely general government net borrowing (Figure 2). The aggregate
excessive deficits that Italy ran from 2003 to 2006 were not entirely the doing of the central
government. Sub-national governments also contributed, while the social security institutions
almost always turned in a positive balance (Table 6). From 1998 to 2006 the borrowing of local
authorities was lower (in proportion to GDP) than the central government deficit, but it gradually if
irregularly worsened over time, and together with the deterioration of the central government
finances this produced, in 2001 and then from 2003 onwards, overshoots of the Stability and
Growth Pact ceiling. To comply with the European standards, central government net borrowing
was lowered from 3.82 per cent of GDP in 2005 to 2.72 per cent in 2006, but that of local
governments rose from 0.85 to 1.13 per cent.
Responsibility for the worsening balance is not shared equally among the various subnational authorities. The largest role in the growth of general government net borrowing was played
by regions and the local health units. And while the deficit of the provinces is small if growing, that
of the regions and health units is more substantial (0.54 and 0.25 per cent of GDP, respectively, in
2006), with individual entities’ performance ranging from modest surpluses to large deficits. Net
borrowing by municipalities, by contrast, has trended downwards since 2004, being cut by 50 per
cent in three years. It might be presumed that the different types of constraint imposed on the
different sub-national units contributed to the difference in budget performance. The constraint on
the regions has always been especially weak, because since 2002 there has only been a ceiling on
current expenditure, and with exemptions for a large number of items, including health care. Even
in 1999-2001, however, when the constraint called for containing the deficit, the regional balance
had swung back and forth between surplus and deficit.
15
Law 142/1990, later incorporated into the local government code (Legislative Decree 267/2000). Law 403/1990
abolished the requirement that local authorities apply for credit first to the Deposits and Loans Fund. Law 155/1989
made loans for local investment conditional upon approval of a financial plan (additional conditions were laid down in
Decree laws 504/1992 and 528/1993 and Law 724/1994). Ministerial decree 152/1996 regulates securities issues by
local authorities.
16
At first the limit was 25 per cent (Article 204 of the local government code). It was lowered to 12 per cent in 2004
(Law 311/2004, Article 1.4) and then raised to 15 per cent in 2006 (Law 296/2006, Article 1.698).
17
Figure 2 – Net borrowing in Italy:1989-2007 (%GDP)
10.00
5.00
0.00
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1999 2000-0.84
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
-1.73
-1.90
-2.79
-3.08 -2.86
-3.35
-3.49 -3.47
-4.23
1998
-2.67
-5.00
-7.41
-6.96
-9.09
-10.00
-10.38 -10.04
-11.43 -11.44 -11.38
-15.00
Central government
Local government
Social security
General government
Primary balance Gen. Gov.
Source: elaboration on Istat (2008)
For municipalities and provinces, the worst results came in the years from 2002 to 2004,
when the Pact regulated the financial balance with a golden rule that exempted capital expenditure.
In 2002 the constraint was so mild that the deficit actually increased by 2.5 per cent with respect to
the 2000 outturn; in 2003 the target for the municipalities was merely an “improvement” on the
balance registered in 2001. Performance more in line with the aim of curbing the general
government deficit was achieved with the application of limits to final expenditure in 2005 and
2006, but these distorted the composition of expenditure, with a reduction in capital spending,
especially for fixed capital formation, which municipalities cut by 8.3 per cent and provinces by 6
per cent. The next year, the caps distinguished between current and capital expenditure, stabilizing
municipal investment and spurring that of the provinces, which rose by 4.2 per cent. Neither the
spending cap nor the constraint on the budget balance, by contrast, appears to have affected current
expenditure, which rose by an average of 3.7 per cent per year in municipalities and 8 per cent in
provinces.
Finally, it is worth observing the changes in the consolidated debt of local administrations
over the years of the Pact (Table 6), even though this is governed by outside rules. The debt of the
sub-national units has never been a large component of total general government debt (6.9 per cent
in 2006). But between 1999 and 2006 there was a considerable increase, as local debt more than
doubled in proportion to GDP and rose from €32.7 billion to €108 billion, while central government
debt rose by 17.6 per cent. Local government debt thus increased even in the years when total
general government debt diminished, so that its role in the overall expansion of debt was certainly
significant. Admittedly, the jump in debt registered between 2002 and 2003 was largely an
accounting change, reflecting the reclassification of the Deposits and Loans Fund outside the
general government sector, but even so local government debt increased by two percentage points
between 2003 and 2006, from 5.35 to 7.33 per cent of GDP; at the same time, the debt of regions
18
and municipalities rose from just over 1 per cent to about 3 per cent of GDP. The fastest rise was in
provincial debt, which nearly doubled.
Table 6 – The general and local governments net borrowing and debt:1999-2006 (%)
1998
Central gov.
Local gov.
Regions
Provinces
Municipalities
Health units
Other local entities
Social security
General government
Central gov.
Local gov.
Regions
Provinces
Municipalities
Health units
Other local entities
Social security
General government
Central gov.
Local gov.
Regions
Provinces
Municipalities
Other local entities
Social security
General government
Central gov.
Local gov.
Regions
Provinces
Municipalities
Other local entities
Social security
General government
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Net borrowing/GDP
-2.20
-1.45
-1.14
-3.09
-2.99
-2.96
-0.24
-0.59
-0.14
-0.28
-0.81
-0.45
0.02
-0.21
0.18
-0.12
-0.03
0.06
-0.02
-0.04
0.01
-0.04
-0.11
-0.10
-0.26
-0.28
-0.23
-0.23
-0.29
-0.31
-0.01
-0.14
-0.18
0.02
-0.34
-0.04
0.04
0.08
0.08
0.08
-0.04
-0.05
-0.35
0.31
0.45
0.29
0.93
-0.08
-2.79
-1.73
-0.84
-3.08
-2.86
-3.49
Net borrowing: composition of the growth rate
-25.26
-14.05 250.88
0.20
2.26
13.30
-25.39
18.30
18.04
-12.00
8.24
-23.23
36.68
-2.74
-3.18
0.72
-2.81
6.02
2.30
-0.33
1.19
-2.37
1.39
2.47
1.12
4.81
3.25
-24.58
12.00
-10.11
-1.66
-0.23
-1.20
4.01
0.51
-23.90
-9.61
17.30
-21.92
35.43
-35.86
-49.04 286.48
-3.68
25.70
Debt/GDP
110.70 105.35 104.74 101.54
98.72
2.90
3.29
3.32
3.59
5.35
1.31
1.49
1.54
1.72
2.07
n.d.
0.12
0.13
0.15
0.36
1.31
1.29
1.26
1.29
2.50
0.28
0.38
0.39
0.43
0.42
0.01
0.51
0.64
0.42
0.21
113.62 109.16 108.70 105.56 104.27
Debt: composition of the growth rate
0.55
4.08
0.54
0.22
0.51
0.17
0.38
1.82
0.23
0.12
0.22
0.39
0.12
0.01
0.03
0.21
0.05
0.02
0.08
1.21
0.11
0.03
0.05
0.01
0.46
0.15
-0.18
-0.20
1.53
4.40
0.73
1.84
2004
2005
2006
-2.96
-0.95
-0.29
-0.14
-0.27
-0.24
-0.02
0.45
-3.46
-3.78
-0.85
0.01
-0.11
-0.21
-0.51
-0.03
0.44
-4.18
-3.92
-1.15
-0.43
-0.13
-0.21
-0.37
-0.01
0.62
-4.44
3.60
15.35
10.19
1.43
-1.09
5.80
-0.98
-15.83
3.11
26.13
-2.28
-8.57
-0.92
-1.52
8.16
0.57
-0.02
23.84
6.75
8.21
10.81
0.75
0.13
-2.92
-0.57
-4.91
10.05
98.16
5.54
2.19
0.41
2.54
0.40
0.10
103.80
99.86
6.33
2.40
0.51
2.87
0.55
0.00
106.20
99.46
7.33
3.06
0.59
3.07
0.61
0.00
106.79
3.35
0.40
0.20
0.06
0.14
0.00
-0.09
3.66
3.89
0.90
0.25
0.11
0.38
0.15
-0.10
4.70
3.07
1.19
0.73
0.09
0.29
0.08
0.00
4.26
Source: elaborations on Istat (2008)
In conclusion, the Pact plus limits to the taxing and debt-contracting autonomy of the subnational jurisdictions did not succeed in controlling the net borrowing of provinces and above all of
regions; it did not affect the accounts of municipalities until the last few years, and only at the cost
of a distortion in the composition of expenditure; and it failed to contain the debt trend of local
government as a whole.
19
5. The new rules of the Domestic Stability Pact for 2007-2011
The new Pact introduced by the 2007, 2008 and 2009 finance laws covers the period through
2011. The rules for the ordinary-statute regions are not much changed from the past, save for the
return to a limit on final expenditure in place of separate caps on current and capital spending. The
new Pact envisages experimentation with the regions and autonomous provinces with a view to
taking the financial balance as the reference. Starting with 2008, the other regions too can use this
aggregate, on condition that the experimentation has shown positive results for the attainment of the
public finance targets.
Domestic Stability Pact 2007
The main changes in 2007 involved the treatment of provinces and of municipalities with more than
5,000 population, which were subjected to a constraint on the final budget balance, which must be
complied with in drafting the budget. In calculating the target balance, all budget items are
included, including investment expenditure (only credit collection and loan disbursements are
excluded). The new 2007 Pact distinguishes between virtuous and non-virtuous administrations
with reference to the average result on a cash basis in the three years from 2003 through 2005 and
differentiates the “annual adjustment” between the two.17 For units averaging a surplus, the annual
amount of the “adjustment” for 2007 is determined exclusively on the basis of average current
expenditure in 2003-2005. For those running deficits on average, however, the adjustment is a
weighted sum of the average current expenditure for 2003-2005 and of the average budget balance
for those years. Hence, the adjustment is proportional. The arithmetic of the 2007 Pact for
municipalities is shown in Table 7. That for the provinces is similar, save for the lack of a ceiling
on the size of the adjustment.
The inclusion of average cash outlays as a factor in determining the size of the adjustment
can be read as a proxy for the size of the entity involved, in order to differentiate the requirement
among entities with the same absolute budget result. The spending cap goes beyond simple
compliance with the European Stability and Growth Pact and sets Italy’s domestic rules apart from
those of much of Europe. Implicitly, this type of fiscal rule seems to aim at limiting the size of the
local public sector, which is probably necessary in Italy in that past performance does not
accurately reflect the fiscal position of these units.
The target balance is then calculated both on a cash and on an accrual basis. It consists of
the average balance (cash and accrual) for 2003-2005, increased by the amount of the adjustment
and reduced (for the 2003-2005 average) by any proceeds (on a cash and on an accrual basis) from
the disposal of assets in order to pay off loans. Also, for municipalities only, a ceiling is placed on
the size of the adjustment each year, which must not exceed 8 per cent of the 2003-2005 average of
final expenditure (net of loans granted).
17
Actually, this is not an annual adjustment, because it does not correct the budget balance for the reference year on a
current programmes basis but bears on a past average. Further, the calculation is not linked to actual measures taken by
the local authorities but serves only to determine the target balance.
20
Table 7 Calculation of target budget balances for municipalities : 2007 Finance Law
Entities in deficit Sm<0
Entities in surplus Sm > 0
With cap to adjustment
Criterion for the
application of the cap to
adjustment
2007
0.33 |Sm | + 0.029 Gc >
0.08 Gf
Annual adjustment
0.33 |Sm | + 0.029 Gc 0.08 Gf = 0.08(Gc+Gk)
0.029 Gc
Budget target
0.67Sm + 0.029 Gc xDism
Sm + 0.029Gc – x Dism
Criterion for the
application of the cap to
adjustment
Sm + 0.08 Gf – x Dism
0.205 |Sm| + 0.017Gc >
0.08 Gf
Annual adjustment
0.205 |Sm| + 0.017Gc 0.08 Gf= 0.08(Gc+Gk)
0.017 Gc
Budget target
0.795 Sm + 0.017Gc
–x Dism
Sm + 0.017Gc – x Dism
2008
Criterion for the
application of the cap to
adjustment
Sm + 0.08 Gf – x Dism
0.155 |Sm| + 0.013Gc >
0.08 Gf
Annual adjustment
0.155 |Sm| + 0.013Gc 0.08 Gf= 0.08(Gc+Gk)
0.013 Gc
Budget target
0.845 Sm + 0.013Gc
–x Dism
Sm + 0.013 Gc – x Dism
2009
Sm + 0.08 Gf –x Dism
Legenda. Sm: average 2003-2005 of balance on a cash basis. Sm > 0: average deficit, Sm > 0: average surplus.
Gc: average 2003-2005 current expenditure on a cash basis. Gf: average 2003-05 of final expenditure. Gk: average
2003-2005 capital expenditure.
Dism: average 2003-2005 of capital revenue on cash basis from disposals of real estate and other assets
x: share of Dism allocated to early repayment of loans.
Domestic Stability Pact 2008
The 2007 Pact has no flexibility, and for effectiveness it requires that the budget constraint to which
it applies itself be rigid. But given a large fiscal gap, rigid expenditure commitments and limited tax
autonomy, this requirement is difficult to be met. Recognition of this rigidity prompted the
introduction, for 2008-2010, of a new, more flexible way of determining the balance to be used both
in calculating the adjustment and in calculating the budget objective. The new balance, described as
on a “mixed accrual basis”, is defined as the sum of the balance on an accrual basis for the current
account and on a cash basis for the capital account (net of the proceeds of credit collections and of
outlays for loans granted). The arithmetic of the 2008 Pact for the municipalities is shown in Table
8.
21
Besides, no adjustment is required for municipalities and provinces, rather they benefit from
a further reduction in the calculation of their target balance, if they made large asset disposals in
2003-2005.18 The 2008 version of the Pact improves monitoring over all local governments and
modifies the sanction machinery, which now envisages the automatic raising of some local tax rates
(the regional petrol tax and automobile taxes, the municipal income surtax and the provincial
automobile registration tax) and publication of the list of non-compliant authorities. The fact that
the sanctions are automatic toughens the Pact significantly; until now, there had been ample scope
for discretion, undermining its credibility. Still, the fact that sanctions are not commensurate with
the magnitude of the violation is a major incentive for overshooting the budget objectives (Zanardi,
2007).
Domestic Stability Pact 2009
For the first time in the history of the budget process in Italy, the DSP for 2009-2011 has been
defined before the discussion of the annual Financial Law (FL) in July 2008 (DL 112/2008
converted in Law 133/2008). The FL has only introduced minor changes and integrations to the
original text, whose main elements are shown in table 8.
First, it has been set the absolute value of the contribution of local governments (regions,
provinces and municipalities) to the achievement of the targets of public finance (art. 77), through a
reduction of the aggregate deficit equal to 3.15, 5.2 and 9.2 billions of euros respectively in 2009,
2010 and 2011. These reductions correspond to 0.2, 0.35 and 0.6 percentage points of GDP. In
particular, slightly more than 50 per cent of the budget savings (1.65 billions in 2009, 2.9 billions in
2010 and 5.14 billions in 2011) should be imputed to provinces and municipalities with a
population above 5.000 inhabitants. Therefore, this rule does not set the level of deficit that is
allowed to each government level, rather how much they have to contribute to the total budget
saving. The final result will therefore depend on the final values of the balances.
The technical documents associated to the law have defined the improvement in terms of the
difference between the trend and the target net borrowing for provinces and municipalities. The
available estimates for the trend show a significant worsening of the balance for the aggregate of
municipalities (from 325 millions of euros in 2007 – a result that has been judged by Corte dei
Conti better than the ex ante targets defined by the Pact – to a deficit of about 2 billions of euros in
2009 and in the following two years).Taking into account the constraints imposed to local
governments with the application of the DSP in 2008 and 2009 as a consequence of the legislation
ruling in 2008, these balances could be underestimated unless the hypothesis is made that the
number of the virtuous local governments will decrease.
The new criteria to distribute the target among local governments are defined in a
differentiated way for provinces and municipalities, according to the fact that they have or not have
fulfilled the target established for 2007 and that they have or not have a positive or negative balance
(using the criterion of “mixed accrual basis” already defined for the DSP in 2008). In this case, the
principle of improving the financial balance – i.e. the difference between final revenue and final
expenditures (including the capital account, but excluding the items originated by credit operations)
– is maintained, with the aim of facilitating the convergence of the rules of the DSP with those of
the Stability and Growth Pact. For each local government, the specific balance target is determined
by applying specific coefficients to the 2007 balance. This latter is calculated in terms of mixed
competence in 2007 according to the scheme of Table 8. The financial balance must be at least
equal to that of 2007, improved for local governments running deficits and worsened for local
governments running surpluses on the basis of the coefficients set in every year. For the year 2009,
those municipalities running deficits in 2007 – regardless of the fact that they have respected the
18
If the 3-year average of capital revenue from disposals of real estate and securities (not counting those earmarked for
the early repayment of loans) is above 15 per cent of average final revenue, the target adjustment amount is reduced by
an amount equal to the difference (if positive) between that revenue excess and the annual size of the adjustment,
calculated using the parameters laid down by the 2007 Finance Law.
22
2007 DSP – the discretionary margin in taxing and spending is implicitly defined by the difference
between the balance reported in 2007 and the 20 per cent of the final expenditures.
In order to cushion the impact of extraordinary operations on the balance of 2007, nonrecurrent revenue (e.g. from selling equities, receiving dividends, or from selling real estate
properties) are excluded from the definition of the balance if the corresponding resources are spent
for new investments or to reduce the stock of public debt.
Within the DSP, the evolution of the public debt is also under control, in line with the aim of
containing the growth of public debt in the Public Administration as a whole. To this purpose, the
traditional limit to the stock of the debt, equal to a maximum of 15 per cent of the current revenue
(art. 204, TUEL), is kept. From 2010, those local governments for which the DSP is applicable, will
be allowed to increase the level of their debt by a percentage annually determined by the Ministry
of the Economy (differentiated for Provinces and Municipalities), in agreement with the Conference
Stato-Città and Local Autonomies. In the case an entity records a ratio between debt and current
revenue (excluding central and regional transfers) above the limit, the admissible ratio is reduced by
a percentage point.
Another important feature is monitoring. To this purpose, local governments are obliged to
inform the Ministry of the Economy every six months about the results achieved in terms of mixed
competence and about the determination of the target. In order to verify the fulfillment of the Pact,
it is then necessary to produce certification of the financial balance calculated in terms of mixed
competence. In the case in which this information is not provided, the local governments is
considered non-compliant; in the case of delay, assuming workers is not allowed.
Those local governments not fulfilling the rule are subject to a number of sanctions, most of
which entails changes of the spending behavior:
reduction of transfers by the Ministry of the Economy in the following year, equal to the
difference between the target and the actual balance, up to a limit of 5 per cent of the total
amount of transfers;
current expenditures will not be allowed to increase above the last three-year average.
Recourse to debt to finance investments is also not allowed;
new assumption of workers is not allowed;
reduction of the benefits to administrators of those local entities that do not comply with the
DSP.
Furthermore, it is introduced a “rewarding mechanism” for well-behaving local governments.
This mechanism allows province and municipalities that have achieved the programmatic target, to
reduce the target balance by excluding from it an amount equal to 70 per cent of the difference
between the actual balance and the corresponding target. The size of this preferential treatment
depends on the degree of “virtuosity” of the local government. This latter is determined by its
position with respect to two economic indicators: the degree of financial autonomy and the degree
of structural rigidity of the budget. And it is attributed according to the distance of those indicators
from the average, separately for demographic class. For provinces, the indicator used to measure the
degree of financial autonomy do not apply until the introduction of fiscal federalism presently under
review. Finally, from 2010, the value of the degree of financial autonomy will be calculated
separately for demographic class and geographic.
23
Table 8- Calculation of target budget balances for municipalities : 2008 and 2009 Finance
Law
Finance law 2009 for entities that respected the
2007 DSP
Entities in
Entities in deficit
surplus
Sm > 0
Sm < 0
Cap to budget
target
Finance law 2008
Entities in deficit
Sm < 0
Cap to
adjustment
applied
0.205 |Sm| +
0.017Gc > 0.08
Gf
Criterion for the
application of the
cap to adjustment
Annual
0.205 |Sm| +
adjustment
0.017Gc
Budget target
Smix + 0.205
|Sm| + 0.017Gc xDism
Entities in
surplus
Sm > 0
Finance law 2009 for entities that did not
respect the 2007 DSP
Entities in
Entities in deficit
surplus
Sm < 0
Sm > 0
Cap to budget
target
0.08 Gf=
0
0.08(Gc+Gk)
Smix + 0.08 Gf Ğ Smix ĞxDism
xDism
Smix Ğ
Ğ
0,017 Gc),
if
> 0 and
2008
Criterion for the
application of the
cap to
adjustment/target
Annual
0.155 |Sm| +
adjustment
0.013Gc
Budget target
Smix + 0.155
|Sm| + 0.013Gc xDism
0.155 |Sm| +
0.013Gc > 0.08
Gf
0.08 Gf=
0.08(Gc+Gk)
Smix + 0.08 Gf
ĞxDism
0 -0.48 Smix07
Smix ĞxDism,
Smix Ğ
0,013 Gc)
(-0.48 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
0.20 Gf - Smix07 +0.10 Smix07
-0.48
0.2Gf
Smix07+Smix07
-0.70 Smix07
(-0.48 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
0.20 Gf - Smix07 0
+0.10
-0.70
0.2 Gf
Smix07+Smix07 Smix07+Smix07
Smix07
Ğ
2009
Criterion for the
application of the
cap to
adjustment/target
Annual
0.155 |Sm| +
adjustment
0.013Gc
Budget target
Smix + 0.155
|Sm| + 0.013Gc xDism
0.155 |Sm| +
0.013Gc > 0.08
Gf
-1.10 Smix07
0.20 Gf - Smix07 0
0.08 Gf=
0 -0.97 Smix07
0.20 Gf - Smix07 +0.10 Smix07
0.08(Gc+Gk)
0.2 Gf
Smix07
Smix + 0.08 Gf - Smix Ğ xDism -0.97
0.2 Gf
+0.10
-1.10
xDism
Smix07+Smix07
Smix07+Smix07 Smix07+Smix07
Smix Ğ
Ğ
0,013 Gc),
>0 and
if
>0,013 Gc
2010
Criterion for the
application of the
cap to
adjustment/target
Manovra annuale 0.155 |Sm| +
0.013Gc
Saldo obiettivo Smix + 0.155
|Sm| + 0.013Gc xDism
2011
(-0.97 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
(-0.97 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
0.155 |Sm| +
0.013Gc > 0.08
Gf
(-1.65 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
0.08 Gf=
0 -1.65 Smix07
0.20 Gf - Smix07 0
0.08(Gc+Gk)
Smix + 0.08 Gf - Smix Ğ xDism -1.65
0.20 Gf
Smix07
xDism
Smix07+Smix07
(-1.65 Smix07 +
Smix07)>0.20 Gf
-1.80 Smix07
0.20 Gf - Smix07 0
-1.80
0.20 Gf
Smix07+Smix07
Smix07
Smix Ğ
Ğ
0,013 Gc),
if
>0 and
>0,013 Gc
Legenda. Sm: average 2003-2005 of balance on a cash basis. Sm > 0: average deficit, Sm > 0: average surplus. Smix:
average 2003-05 of balance on the mixed accrual basis.
Gc: average 2003-2005 current expenditure on a cash basis. Gf: average 2003-05 of final expenditure. Gk: average
2003-2005 capital expenditure.
Dism: average 2003-2005 of capital revenue on cash basis from disposals of real estate and other assets
x: share of Dism allocated to early repayment of loans.
Δ = [ (1-x) Dism - 0,15 Ef], and Ef: final revenues
6. Observations on the Domestic Pact’s general approach.
First, one is struck by the backward-looking design of the fiscal rule. Reference to the average
balance for 2003-2005 has the virtue of preventing opportunism on the part of the local authorities,
which can no longer affect those figures. But it also binds the control of local finances to results that
will recede further and further in time but which are assumed to be representative of “a financial
24
situation that is correctly framed by the determination of expenditure requirements and/or the
adequacy of the fiscal effort” (Bosi et al., 2003, p. 9). However, this backward-looking approach
does not necessarily reward the authorities that make the greatest fiscal effort or exert the most
control over spending, while it can reward those that receive the most transfers. Further, the failure
to consider current programmes budget projections essentially eliminates incentives to improve
resource use in the future and does not help to better the quality of budgets.
Another problem is that, holding the amount of the deficit constant, authorities are
differentiated only according to absolute current expenditure; the constraints ignore other factors in
deficits, such as the incidence of capital expenditure and the fiscal effort. Further, the Pact sets out
its constraints in absolute terms, thus failing to take account of differences in the size, population, or
gross product of the various subnational units. This constitutes a fundamental difference from the
European Pact, whose constraints are all normalized as a percentage of GDP, and from the manner
in which the other euro-area countries specify the contribution of single segments to the
achievement of the overall external objective. What is more, the rules do not get at anomalous
budget positions – possibly indicated by excessive spending on a per capita basis – but on the
contrary preserve them, in that adjustment is proportional to the absolute value of the deficit.
Aside from greater flexibility, no significant correction can be expected from the use of the
“mixed accrual” balance for 2008-2010. The result of the combination of two partial balances
computed on two different bases can be erratic. And the new definition of the “mixed accrual”
targets will certainly affect the behaviour of the local governments, which will seek to comply with
the constraint by acting on current account items on the cash side and capital account items on the
accrual side. The outcome is hard to forecast, and in any case a far cry from normal administrative
practice.
Lastly, there is still no coordination with the constraints on debt, which is included only
indirectly, and only for the past, in determining local public finance objectives. In fact, the average
amount of asset disposals in 2003-2005 reduces the adjustment target by the amount allocated for
early repayment of loans. This clause, which takes account of the effort made to reduce the debt in
2003-2005, offers no incentive for greater reductions in the future but is only a sort of expost
reward, and quite a large one, given that disposals during the relevant years were substantial.
In conclusion, the new rules are complex, pursuing a multiplicity of aims: to mitigate the
adverse effect that spending ceilings have had in the past, to make the domestic and external targets
more similar, to differentiate the treatment of municipalities and provinces according to their fiscal
virtue, and to avoid making local budgets excessively rigid, thanks to the expression of targets in
terms of budget balances and the introduction of the “mixed accrual” basis for accounting. The new
version of the DSP nevertheless has features that are not found in the experience of other euro-area
countries and that are still far from instituting a true sharing of the external constraint.
7. The Domestic Stability Pact in 2007: an assessment of the results.
The examination of the cash consolidated accounts in the Relazione Unificata sull’Economia e la
Finanza Pubblica per il 2008 (Ministero del Tesoro, 2008) and of the economic accounts in Istat
(2008) allows a first assessment of the effects of the 2007 Pact. Both documents show an
improvement of the budget balances of all local entities. In particular, the economic accounts
(Tables 9 and 10) show a notable improvement in the situation of Regions and Municipal
governments, that present positive balances, and a less satisfactory result for the net borrowing of
the Provinces. In 2007 the Local Governments are the entities that most contribute to the
improvement of the general government budget balance: in one year the net borrowing of the Local
Governments decreases from 1,13 to 0,06 per cent of GDP.
Compliance with Domestic Pact 2007: Accounts outturn (millions of euros)
25
Table 9 Compliance with Domestic Stability Pact 2007: accounts outturn (millions euros)
ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS
Provinces
2006
EXPENDITURE
Employee compensation
Intermediate consumption
FINAL CONSUMPTION
TOTAL CURRENT
EXPENDITURE
Gross fixed capital formation
Investment grants
TOTAL CAPITAL EXPEDITURE
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
REVENUE
Indirect Taxes
Direct taxes
Public transfers
TOTAL CURRENT REVENUE
Contributions to investment
TOTAL CAPITAL REVENUE
TOTAL REVENUE
Gross saving (+)/ deficit
Budget balance
Entities that complied with the DSP
(%)
Var.07/
06
2006
2007
Municipalities
Var.07/
2007
06
2006
Regions
2007
Var.07/0
6
2.354
3.498
7.054
2.148
3.628
7.059
-8,75
3,72
0,07
16.627
19.575
38.364
15.615
20.353
38.416
-6,09
3,97
0,14
5.677
4.650
13.618
5.445
4.326
13.188
-4,09
-6,97
-3,16
9.247
2.791
710
3.553
12.800
9.124
2.868
945
3.872
12.996
-1,33
2,76
33,10
8,98
1,53
45.338
15.151
1.315
16.926
62.264
45.410
15.529
1.653
18.083
63.493
0,16
2,49
25,70
6,84
1,97
126.454
4.992
16.583
22.077
148.531
131.768
4.533
16.317
21.347
153.115
4,20
-9,19
-1,60
-3,31
3,09
4.334
4.396
1,43
3.356
9.392
1.719
1.777
11.169
145
-1.631
3.578
9.822
1.812
1.904
11.726
698
-1.270
6,62
4,58
5,41
7,15
4,99
16.074
2.686
18.433
52.883
7.088
7.719
60.602
7.545
-1.662
16.171
3.325
18.509
55.128
8.043
8.690
63.818
9.718
325
0,60
23,79
0.41
4,25
13,47
12,58
5,31
49.919
21.976
53.721
130.782
9.643
9.698
140.480
4.328
-8.051
53.088
24.574
57.673
141.264
13.367
13.442
154.706
9.496
1.591
6,35
11,82
7,36
8,01
38,62
38,61
10,13
93.5
90.2
73.5
88.7
93.0
60.0
Source: elaborations on data from Istat, Conti ed aggregati economici delle Amministrazioni Pubbliche (june 2008).
Data on the entities that complied with the DSP are drawn form Corte dei Conti (2008) and are referred to the sample
considered (in 2007, 92 Provinces and 1.173 Municipalities).
In the Regions the health expenditure is regulated by separate pacts and the 2007 DSP
required the reduction of the final expenditures with respect to 2005, without applying the
distinction between current and capital expenditures that was in force in 2006. Ceilings to the
expenditures generally restrain the less rigid part of the budget, i.e. the investments. In fact, the
economic accounts show an increase (+4,2 per cent) in current expenditure and a decrease (-3 per
cent) in capital expenditure, in particular in the gross fixed capital formation (-9,2 per cent). The
DSP constraints produced the expected distortion, although capital revenues increased thanks to the
higher public investment grants. The good overall budgetary result of the Regions can thus be
accounted to the moderate growth in the expenditures (+3 per cent) and to the much higher increase
in revenues (+10 per cent), due to the rise in own revenues (direct and indirect taxes), in current
transfers (+7,8 per cent) and in capital transfers (+38 per cent). The more stringent 2007 Pact
contributed only partially (via the reduction in investments) to the fiscal consolidation of the
Regions, although the number of virtuous Regions decreased with respect to the past (60 per cent in
2007; 93 per cent in 2005-06).
A different assessment can be provided for Municipalities and Provinces. They are highly
“virtuous”: 89 per cent of the Municipalities and 90 per cent of the Provinces respected the 2007
Pact. Both Municipalities and Provinces kept the final consumption expenditure unchanged in 2007,
thanks to the reduction in the employees wages, compensated by the increase in intermediate
consumption. Fixed capital formation is not distorted by the Pact: it increases by 2,5 per cent and
represents more than 2/3 of the total capital expenditure. Total expenditures grow less than 2 per
26
cent with respect to 2006 and are largely financed by the rise in revenues (+5 per cent), in particular
in direct taxes for the Municipalities (which are however only 6 per cent of current revenues) and in
the public contributions to investments. Therefore, the increase in the capital transfers, the constant
level of current transfers and a higher fiscal effort allowed the maintenance of the levels of current
expenditure and the increase in the level of capital expenditure19.
This evolution confirms both the strong correction imposed on the local governments by the
DSP, which is evident from the improvement in the budgetary balances, and the reluctance of the
entities to restrain the expenditures. Up to 29 per cent of their expenditure is made up by politically
sensible expenditures and up to 27,9 per cent by public investment. Therefore the local entities did
not restrain them, but continued to finance them by increasing their own revenues and, above all,
thanks to higher contributions and transfers from Regions, State Sector and non consolidated public
entities.
The debt evolution (Table 10) show a moderate increase for the General Government (+1
per cent) in 2007 and a reduction in the debt stock to 104 per cent of GDP. But for the anomalous
result of the Social Security, Regions and Municipalities show the larger variation with respect to
2006. However, the ratio of Local Government debt to GDP decrease from 7,5 to 7,2 per cent, for
the first time since 1999,when the local debt was 2,9 per cent of GDP. The contribution of the Local
Government to the reduction of the overall debt is, however, limited, as its debt is relatively small.
Table 10 – General government net borrowing and consolidated debt by government level :
results for 2007
Mln.
euro
Net borrowing
Disaggregation
% of Var.
of rate of
Mln. euro
GDP 2007/06
increase
Central Government
-38.208 -2,49
Local Government
-948 -0,06
1.591 0,10
Regions
-1.270 -0,08
Provinces
325 0,02
Municipalities
-650 -0,04
Local health units
-944 -0,06
Other local entities*
Social security
9.977 0,65
General Government -29.179 -1,90
-5,1
-94,3
-119,8
-22,1
-119,6
-82,5
-42,8
36,4
-41,2
Debt
% of
GDP
-4,1 1.487.869 93,05
-31,7 110.520
6,91
-19,4
44.862
2,81
-0,7
8.828
0,55
-4,0
46.565
2,91
-6,2
-1,4
10.265
0,64
-5,4
586
0,04
-41,2 1.598.975 100,00
Var.
2007/06
Disaggregation
of rate of
increase
1,14
-0,33
5,30
2,08
3,01
1,06
-0,02
0,14
0,01
0,09
-28,88
946,43
1,07
-0,26
0,03
1,07
Source: Banca d’Italia, Supplementi Bollettino Statistico–Finanza Pubblica n.17, 11/3/2008; Istat, Conti ed aggregati
economici delle Amministrazioni Pubbliche (june 2008).
* Statistics by Banca d’Italia do not distinguish between Other local entities and Local Health Units.
19
This is confirmed also by the cash consolidated accounts (Ministero del Tesoro, 2008) and by the results of the
preliminary survey by Corte dei Conti (2008). Corte dei Conti (2008) observes that the control on the current
expenditure was not so widespread among the local entities. In particular there is evidence of an increase in current
expenditures payments (between +2,4 and +9,2 per cent with respect to the average 2003-05 data) for 72 per cent of the
entities in the survey.
27
8. The 2009 Domestic Stability Pact for Municipalities: an assessment of the budgetary targets
The final budget data for the Italian Municipalities were still not available at the beginning of April
2009: these date are necessary to calculate the 2007 budget balance on a “mixed accrual basis” and
then to determine the 2009 budget targets and thus to assess the effects of the change in the 2009
Pact. In the absence of these data, we employed a simulation using the sample of the 314
Municipalities in the Region Lazio that are constrained by the rule. We adopted also the following
hypotheses20:
- All Municipalities in the sample respected the 2007 Pact;
- The budget targets for 2007 were the results of three alternative behaviours:
(a) the consolidation was proportionally applied to both the current and the
capital balances (both on a cash and on an accrual basis);
(b) the consolidation was concentrated on one single balance, either the current or
the capital one (both on cash and on an accrual basis);
(c) the consolidation was concentrated on the cash current balance and on the accrual
capital balance. This hypothesis expresses the incentive for the entities to exploit
the mixed accrual basis to reduce their consolidation effort. The incentive is
particularly strong for the entities in deficit, that can obtain a looser 2009 budget
target by obtaining first a higher deficit on a mixed accrual basis.
-
The same hypothesis, (a), (b) or (c) was alternatively applied to all entities in the sample.
We disregarded the effect of the constraint on the consolidation effort that depend on the
final expenditure.
We then tried to assess the effect of the 2007 balance on a mixed accrual basis on the 2009
targets. We evaluated the new 2009 targets with respect both to the 2008 targets and to the 2009
targets under the previous version of the Pact.
The new rule is generally more stringent for the entities in deficit (Figure 3; data are ordered
according to the average 2007 cash balance), especially for those entities whose 2007 balance was
obtained under hypothesis (a) of proportional correction of both the current and the capital balances.
As expected the most favourable results are obtained under hypothesis c), which allows a higher
deficit as the staring point for the 2009 targets.
The Municipalities with positive balances (Figure 4) do not show large differences between
the targets according to the 2008 and the 2009 rules, if their 2007 balance was obtained under
hypothesis (c). The 2009 targets are more ambitious under the 2009 Pact, if the 2007 results were
obtained under hypothesis (b). A proportional correction on both the current and the capital
balances (hypothesis (a)) gives mixed and erratic results: a looser consolidation effort for some
entities and a greater effort for others.
20
Our simulation is not comparable with the simulation in Corte dei Conti (2008) on a sample of 1.020 Municipalities
with more than 8.000 inhabitants. Corte dei Conti (2008) observes, as we do, that a larger consolidation is required by
all entities and that this is particularly burdensome for the more virtuous entities, those that had a positive budget
balance and respected the Pact in 2007.
28
Figure 3 - Differences between the 2009 budget targets according to the 2008 Pact and
according to 2009 Pact (under hypothesis a – b – c): Municipalities with 2007 average cash
deficit
Note: Diff SO09-SO09 (x): difference between the 2009 balance targets under the 2008 Pact and the 2009 targets under
the new 2009 Pact and under hypothesis (x), where x=a, b, c.
Figure 4 - Differences between the 2009 budget targets according to the 2008 Pact and
according to 2009 Pact (under hypothesis a – b – c): Municipalities with 2007 average positive
cash balances
Note: Diff SO09-SO09 (x): difference between the 2009 balance targets under the 2008 Pact and the 2009 targets under
the new 2009Pact and under hypothesis (x), where x=a, b, c.
29
Although this is just a simple exercise, we try to assess the consolidation effort required
from the Municipalities in 2009 in Table 11 . The Table provides (on a normalized basis) the
aggregate balances for the Municipalities in deficit and for those in surplus on a mixed accrual basis
(average 2003-05) and the different 2009 targets. We observe that the Municipalities in surplus
were required to obtain a small effort in 2008 and a looser target in 2009, under the 2008 Pact;
under the new 2009 Pact, the budget target highly depend on which correction was made in 2007. A
lower target for 2009 is obtained if entities adopted hypothesis (a) or (c), a more ambitious target is
required if entities adopted the behaviour (b) in 2007.
Analogous observations can be made for Municipalities in deficit: according to the 2008
Pact they were required to improve their budget balance by 40 per cent, while according to the 2009
Pact the possible results are different, depending on the consolidation behaviour adopted in 2007,
and some of them require a large improvement in the balances (especially under hypothesis (a)).
The 2009 budget target are highly depended on how the 2007 budget results were obtained.
It is anomalous that Municipalities that are supposed to have all been virtuous in 2007, have
different 2009 targets just depending on the type of consolidation effort they provided. This
reduces the budget autonomy of the entities and makes the budget target a strategic variable.
We observe that there is no credible ex ante relationship between the 2009 target imposed
on all Italian Municipalities (as indicated in the 2009 financial Law) and the rules that should obtain
this result. The great variety of results that can be obtained for the 2009 targets with the mixed
accrual basis makes all the more indispensable the early availability of the final budget data, so to
correctly assess the amount of corrections required.
Table 11 - Budget targets for 2008 and 2009
Average (200305) mixed
balance
2008
mixed
budget
target
(LF2008)
2009 mixed
budget
target
(LF2008)
2009 budget
target
(LF2009)
Hypothesis
(a)
2009
budget
target
(LF2009)
Hypothesis
(b)
123
2009 budget
target
(LF2009)
Hypothesis
(c)
Entities
100
104
92
62
83
with
positive
balances *
Entities
-100
-60
-67
-4
-14
-50
with
deficits*
* Entities are distinguished between those with positive and those with negative balances according to the 2003-05
average mixed accrual basis budget balance.
9. Conclusion
The basic weakness of the controls imposed on Italian local government entities between
1999 and 2006 is the absence, nine years after the initial DSP, of a well established, consolidated
set of constraints, serving as an effective tool of control in the hands of central government but also
as a planning instrument at the lower levels. In the sequence of variants of the Pact, one is struck by
the variability of the adjustments required, very large in some years and much less in others; the
weakness of monitoring and sanctions for non-compliance; the lack of an explicit agreement on the
portion of the adjustment assigned to the central and to the local governments, so that the latter
never had a clear overall result to attain. Further, the local entities are bound not only by the Pact
but by other constraints as well, both on own revenue and on borrowing, and there is no
coordination between these sets of rules and limits.
30
The approaches taken by other European countries are highly diversified as regards the
definition of budget constraints, control and monitoring procedures, and sanctions. But a common
course can be identified: a stronger tendency than in Italy to make the domestic rules consistent
with the European Stability and Growth Pact.
In the euro-area countries, the degree of decentralization has affected the determination of
domestic constraints and the results. Belgium and Germany, which are highly decentralized, have
taken a cooperative approach, with good results in Belgium, less so in Germany owing to the large
fiscal gap and a less clear assignment of responsibilities between levels of government. In Austria,
the strictness and autonomy of budget policies are counterbalanced by the possibility of transferring
portions of deficit from one entity to another. This mechanism has increased the involvement of
local bodies in maintaining macroeconomic equilibrium, but the aggregate results have almost
never fulfilled the planning targets. The adoption of a comparable system in Italy, in the current
situation, would require a high degree of coordination, transparency and control over the budget
trends of the authorities involved, but it would have the advantage of making the allocation of
capital expenditure and debt more efficient (Giarda et al., 2005).
Perhaps the most suggestive experience is that of Spain, where the attribution of powers to
the lower levels of government has been quite recent. The DSP entails a rule set by the central
government, but only after a phase of negotiations that has taken on added importance since 2005.
However, Spain has a better balance than Italy between spending responsibility and fiscal
autonomy. This narrows the fiscal gap, and in 2005 it made it possible to relax the rigidity of the
rule by setting multi-year objectives and adopting a golden rule.
One factor that should be borne in mind in formulating a DSP is suggested by the Belgian
experience: the credibility of procedures, both in the fixing of objectives, which is done by
independent forecasting methods, and in the phase of control and monitoring. In this context, one
must not play down the elements of budget predictability and controllability that may be
undermined by inconsistent accounting standards. Relying on an ex-post reconstruction of the
accounts by ESA95 standards weakens the procedure for setting objectives and even more so that of
budget control, which is often only partial. And above all, it does not result in a reliable valuation.
These problems are found not only in Italy but also in Germany, whereas Belgium, Austria and
Spain set their objectives with explicit reference to ESA95.
The fiscal rules introduced in Italy starting in 2007 will not significantly alter the constraints
on the ordinary-statute regions, at least not until the experimental phase with the special-statue
regions and provinces has been completed. In the future, this trial could lead to a different way of
setting the fiscal rules. The rules for lower levels of government have been considerably changed,
however. These authorities are now distinguished on the basis of budget outturns and bound to an
objective defined in terms of the budget balance, practically without excluding any items. The
objective is calculated as a correction to an average of past outturns, an “adjustment” that is the
resultant of a dual proportional reduction, bearing on the average budget balance and average
current expenditure. The limit on spending goes beyond simple compliance with the European
Stability and Growth Pact, setting Italy’s domestic rules apart from those of many other European
countries. As far as the objectives of various fiscal rules are concerned, this appears to be an
implicit limit to the magnitude of the local public sector, which is probably necessary in Italy in
that the true fiscal situation of the local entities is not completely expressed by their past budget
balances.
The 2007 fiscal rule is totally inflexible, and if applied with a rigid budget balance constraint
it requires a sharp correction in terms of own revenue and expenditure. To attenuate this rigidity,
the rules for 2008- 2011 have abandoned this correction for entities that, on the average, have had
surpluses in the past and allowed the others broader scope for action by setting the objective in
terms of a new, “mixed accrual” basis. This basis for calculating the balance, which is not used in
the other European countries, is a pure accounting artifice designed to allow some flexibility, and it
accentuates the difference between the variables used in actual budget management and those
31
referred to in the DSP. The issue of flexibility in the fiscal rules for local government, therefore,
needs to be rethought; the design should be more transparent and should correspond better to
administrative practice.
Finally, the constraints should take account of the volume of expenditures that the local
administrations consider indispensable, which cannot be reduced beyond a certain point. As Bosi et
al. (2003) suggested, this means determining an amount of resources that must be allocated to local
governments to satisfy these spending needs sufficiently with respect to other governments at the
same level and with respect to what can be considered a fair and adequate fiscal adjustment effort.
The need, that is, is to design the DSP not only in order for compliance with Italy’s European
commitments but also for consistency with the nature of Italian decentralization and the desired
model of federalism.
32
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