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The Italian Government introduced the Green Certificate market in order to stimulate the production of electricity form Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The suppliers are obliged to produce a share of renewable electricity otherwise they must buy a number of certificates corresponding to the quota. The paper aims to quantify the economic impact of a reform on Green Certificate market through the Hybrid Input-Output. More- over, through the singular value decomposition of the inverse matrix of the model, we identify the appropriate key structure able to obtain both the expected positive total output change and the increase of electricity production from RES.

In the last decade, as many other European countries, the Italian Government adopted several reforms in order to increase the use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The liberalization of the electricity market that represent one of these reforms aims to reach environmental benefits from the substitution of fossil fuel with renewable sources.The Italian Green Certificate market was introduced in 2002 in order to accomplish this objective and represents a mechanism where a quota of renewable electricity is imposed to suppliers in proportion to their sales. The electricity industries are obliged to meet this condition by producing the quantity of renewable electricity by means of a change in their production process, otherwise they must buy a number of certificates corresponding to the quota. This mechanism changes the importance of the electricity industry first in promoting climate protection, than in terms of the impact in the economy as a whole. A policy aimed to develop the market of green certificates may lead to environmental improvement by switching the energy production process to renewable resources. But above all an increase in demand for green certificates, resultant from a reform on the quota of renewable electricity, can generate positive change in all components of the industrial production. For this purpose, the paper aims to quantify the economic impact of a reform on Green Certificate market for the Italian system by means of the Macro Multiplier (MM) approach. The analysis is performed through the Hybrid Input-Output (I-O) model that allows expressing the energy flows in physical terms (GWh) while all other flows are expressed in monetary terms (e). Moreover, through the singular value decomposition of the inverse matrix of the model, which reveals the set of key structures of the exogenous change of final demand, we identify the appropriate key structure able to obtain both the expected positive total output change and the increase of electricity production from RES.

The increasing attention to environmental damage and the problem of climate changes have led many studies to concentrate on environmental taxation as an incentive-based instrument of environmental policy. Focusing on the relationship among environmental, labour market policies and institutional sectors, this paper aims to investigate the economic effects of a fiscal reform designed with the intent of reducing the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, according to Kyoto Protocol. For this purpose, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is used with imperfection market for labour factor and a green tax on commodity output depending on the level of CO2 emission is introduced. Tax revenues are than completely distributed to the economy in order to reduce the income tax or to cut the regional tax on commodity value added. In this way a revenue-neutral environmental policy is tested and the double dividend and any other effect on national economy are assessed. The application will be done on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Italy for the 2003 year

Over the past two decades, the Italian labour market has undergone a number of profound changes. A thorough analysis of these changes shows that there has been a progressive employment polarisation, although with a very peculiar dynamics. While employment did grow in high-skill and low-skill occupations, and it shrank in the medium-skill ones, these changes did not take place simultaneously, as polarisation assumes. Moreover, wage polarisation is hardly observable in the same period. Quite differently, Italy has been characterised by relatively low or even declining returns to education along with progressively decreasing wages in the low-skill segment of the labour market. In this context, we study the potential of an employment incentive policy, for which we imagine two options, one targeting workers in high-skill and the other in low-skill occupations. The objectives of the policy are enhancing aggregate employment and improving working conditions (wages) either in high-skill or low-skill occupations, depending of the option. For the simulation of the two policy options, we employ an integrated model that combines a macro disaggregated and multi-sectoral Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with a micro-simulation model. While the CGE model evaluates how the macroeconomic shock reverberates on the labour demand at industry level, the micro-simulation model computes how the changes in macroeconomic variables affect households’ decisions in terms of labour supply and final consumption.

This study made an effort to build the Social Accounting Matrix for the Nigerian economy, which describes the income circular flow through the integration of the production with the income flows, including both the generation and the distribution of value added and the creation of final demand. Such database allows developing an extended input–output model and a Macro Multipliers analysis based on the technique of singular value decomposition. First, the analysis identifies the key sectors amongst the agricultural sectors that have significant interactions with the other commodities of the economy. Furthermore, the Macro Multipliers analysis is conducted in order to identify the interactions between policy objective (total output) and policy control (final demand) at a multi-sectoral level.

This study constructs a Social Accounting Matrix for Nigeria for the year 2010. An extended multisectoral model is calibrated to analyze the backward (power) and forward (sensitivity) dispersion to identify the key industries of the economy with their importance vis-a-vis to other industries of the economy. The study identifies financial services as one of the key industries of the Nigerian economy which highlights its greater importance and its role in boosting the economic growth. Several policy options may be simulated to investigate the spillover effects in the whole economy.

The challenge of climate change needs to be tackled with environmental policies carefully designed for achieving environmental benets and avoiding negative economic eects. The introduction of an environmental tax in the economic system, can generate a double benet represented by the attainment of the environmental target (rst or green dividend) and other additional benets (second/third or blue dividends) represented by gains in welfare, employment, consumption etc. The policy should be therefore analysed through a general equilibrium analysis that is able to quantify the environmental and welfare direct and indirect eects generated within the economic system. Since international environmental agreements set clear target deadlines on the reduction of GHG emissions, in this paper a dynamic CGE model is developed, which is based on a bi-regional SAM framework for Italy.

The 2015 Milan Universal Exposition (Expo), as a major international event, represents an opportunity for the hosting country to trigger the economic growth because of the huge investments and public/private expenditure involved with the event. The economic benefits deriving from the event are expected in its preparatory phase, during the main exposition, and after its conclusion. In this perspective, this article develops a CGE model to assess the overall direct and indirect impact of Milan Expo 2015 on Italian economy, given the complex interrelationships among operators described by the SAM. The analysis considers the shocks on demand occurred during the preparatory phase of the Exposition, from 2011 to 2014, to determine the impact on the economic system of the event itself. Then, after the conclusion of the event, we analyzed the potential impacts on the economic system of a set of demand shocks related to the renovation of the Expo infrastructures and expected tourist flows.

The ongoing economic stagnation and low inflation rates affecting EU have refuelled the debate on the role and the limits of monetary policy in pushing the economic growth. Given the tight margins for fiscal policy for EU state members, traditional and unconventional monetary policies are becoming more looked-for to break out of this condition. However, the main issue on whether the real or nominal aspects prevails still remains. In this situation, a framework able to identify and analyse any interaction between economic and financial flows becomes crucial to detect the dynamics pushing towards expansions or contractions resulting from monetary policies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect impact of monetary policies implemented by the European Central Bank on the main Italian macroeconomic variables both in aggregate and disaggregate terms. For this purpose we use dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model calibrated on the financial social accounting matrix for Italian economy.

The increasing attention to climate changes have led national Governments to design environmental tax policies able to face environmental problems and their associated economic consequences like as a negative change of GDP. The environmental taxation in particular is considered a powerful instrument of pollution control. More important, it provides public revenue that can be recycled at local level in order to attain the regional double dividend in a fiscal federalism framework. In this respect, we use a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with imperfect labour market, to assess the regional effects of an environmental fiscal reform designed with the aim of reducing the CO2 emissions in a fiscal federalism setting. In particular, we introduce a local green tax on commodities output with a progressive structure. The tax burden depends on the commodity polluting power. According to fiscal federalism principles the tax revenue is collected by the local Government and it is entirely recycled to finance the local consumption expenditure. The application is done on a bi- regional Social Accounting Matrix for Italy and the results highlights the distributional effects of the reform on macroeconomic variables into the bi-regional income circular flow.

The size of the Italian expenditure for the health care on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and on total public expenditure, is in line with those of the major industrialized countries, and somewhat lower than the European average. The Italian healthcare sector does not simply face a contraction of the expenditure: in effect, it should be highlighted that Italy currently does not spend “a lot” and, above all, invests “little” in the mentioned sector. Nevertheless, the health sector can be a very important flywheel for the economic recovery, provided that a lot of attention is paid, and the best resources are invested. In this work, the authors intend developing an analysis of the desirability of investment on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the health sector, and the consequent compatibility with current expenditure, by identifying at the outset the channels multipliers related to the resources at present allocated to the current health expenditure and capital account. For this analysis, two different simulation scenarios have been considered: in the first, an increase in Health services demand by Government has been studied, while in the second, an increase in final demand of Health services by Households has been considered. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.

The allocation among Institutional Sectors of Health Care Expenditure for the Elderly can be designed in a way that new processes can be activated that stimulate total output and overall employment. The impacts of these processes as they emerge from several policy scenarios in all phases of income circular flow within the economic system, can be determined with reference to the model of computable general equilibrium (CGE) calibrated on the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) data set. The HCEE is placed within the economic flows of a bi-regional SAM for Italian economy which provides the data set for a CGE model where the hypothesis of involuntary unemployment is also considered. Two policy scenarios are then simulated to evaluate the impact of the policy reform in HCEE on total output and unemployment. Under the first scenario the Regional Government reduces the expenditure in integrated home care assistance (ADI) in order to directly increase the demand of private residential health care (ARA) services; under the second scenario the Regional Government transfers the resources saved by reducing ADI to the Households in order to stimulate their demand of ARA.

The greenhouse effect forces national Governments to design environmental tax policies for facing not only global warming but also the negative economic consequences resulting from the reduction of emissions such as a negative change of GDP. This paper aims at verifying the impact of an environmental fiscal reform able to attain both the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the regional double dividend. We have decided to follow the computable general equilibrium approach for modelling the multisectoral income circular flow in the case of a bi-regional economy as described by a Social Accounting Matrix we have built for this purpose. The tools of analysis we chose represent suitable and consistent instruments in order to quantify the effects of an environmental tax reform. They can in fact highlight the possible differences in responses between macro regions in terms of regional GDP changes, regional prices and regional employment rate. In fact, the extended multi-sectoral framework, on which the model is developed, represents economic activities, imperfect labour market and institutional sectors behaviours in each macro region. The simulations performed concern the introduction of a progressive and proportional green tax on each type of commodity according to the corresponding level of CO 2 emissions. Furthermore all simulations introduce a recycling scheme of green tax revenues, whose aim is reducing both the income tax and the regional tax on activities (IRAP). The application is done on a bi-regional Social Accounting Matrix for Italy for the year 2003.