Regional heterogeneity in Italy: Transport, devolution and corruption

In the transport related literature little attention has been devoted to the institutional aspects involved in the strategic interaction between the central government and its local bodies. This might seem surprising given the relevance of the problem. This paper analyses the impact of the devolution of administrative powers on the transport sector. Specifically, we review some recent developments in the policies adopted in the transport sector by several advanced countries. Then, we analyze the relationship between mobility and devolution from a pure efficiency perspective. We describe the Italian devolution experience and present the latest data on corruption and per capita income to testify the heterogeneity among Italian regions. The main insight of our Tieboutian's framework is that decentralization is more sensible whenever there exists a lot of heterogeneity among regions in terms of per capita income and in the corruptibility of public officials, as this is the case for Italy. However, the Italian decentralization process might have been slow-downed due to fairness considerations.