Il Rapporto 2009 analizza nella prima parte le politiche pubbliche adottate nel corso del 2008 e nei primi mesi del 2009, ponendo particolare attenzione ai seguenti ambiti: conti pubblici, fisco, previdenza e assistenza, sanità, istruzione e public utilities. Ne emerge un quadro molto articolato, dominato, in un primo tempo, dal disegno della manovra triennale per il risanamento dei conti pubblici e, successivamente, dalla difficoltà di adottare politiche adeguate a fronteggiare la crisi, entro i vincoli posti da un alto debito pubblico. La seconda parte del Rapporto è dedicata all'attuazione del federalismo fiscale. I contenuti della legge delega approvata dal Parlamento sono inquadrati nell'analisi più generale dei temi in gioco: la perequazione territoriale, l'articolazione dei tributi, il coordinamento finanziario tra livelli di governo, le regole per il federalismo differenziato e per le Regioni a statuto speciale, la governance del sistema.

The Italian Public Finance – 2009 Report has a twofold aim: in the first section to review and to evaluate the main policies in the field of public finance carried out by the Italian government during 2008 and first months of 2009; in the second section to analyse in detail a specific structural policy issue currently under discussion in Italy. The six papers included in the first section review the following areas of public intervention in the perspective of their budgetary implications: fiscal balance, taxation, social security, health care, education, public utilities and liberalization policies. Budgetary policies enacted by the Italian government before and after the global financial crisis deeply differ. The measures passed before summer 2008 (essentially spending cuts in education, health care and grants to sub-national governments) continue the strategy of budget consolidation pursued in the previous years. Starting from fall 2008 the stance of budgetary policies dramatically changes in order to tackle the effects of economic recession and to arrange measures to support economic recovery. However, the enacted measures stand out for their limited financial size compared to what established by the other countries, and for their fragmentary composition (a large array of modest fiscal allowances in favour of different sectors plus a one-off benefit to needy households). The second section, that includes seven papers, addresses the evaluation of the reform of fiscal decentralization recently passed in Italy. The law provides for a new framework for the financing system of Regions and Municipalities in line with the Constitutional reform enacted in 2001. However, the law just includes very loose guidelines for future government decrees to be adopted in the next two years. The papers investigate a number of specific building blocks of the federalist reform: interregional equalization systems, allocation of taxing powers across different levels of governments, fiscal rules for sub-national governments, asymmetric federalism and financing of special regions, institutional arrangements for fiscal federalism, local taxes.

JEL Classification: H00, H2, H5, H6, H75, H7