The revenues of local governments in the statistical register for public administrations: inequality decomposition by sources

Abstract

The statistical register for Public Administrations (Frame PA) contains peculiar information on structural and economic variables on a subset of the Italian PA Institutions. Moreover, Frame PA includes different sub-populations. Focusing on the subpopulation of local governments, i.e. municipalities, unions of municipalities, provinces, mountain communities and metropolitan cities, the differences between public institutions in terms of revenues are analysed. The revenues of local government stem mainly from three sources: i) the current revenue tax based, contributory and equated, ii) the current transfers, iii) the non-tributary revenue. In the present paper, the decomposition of the Gini index “by sources” is used to better understand the differences in the revenues of local governments and can help politicians and policymakers to better allocate resources.