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Centralization versus Decentralization of Legislative Production and the Effect on Litigation: A Case Study

  • Giuseppe Di Vita EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 10, 2015
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Abstract

This paper presents an empirical investigation into the effects on the duration of disputes of the coordination externalities that arise from the decentralization of laws and regulatory power from the state to the regions. To this aim we consider Italy, whose territory is divided into twenty regions, using a dataset derived from 800 judgements pronounced by the Italian regional administrative courts over eight years, from 2000 to 2007. The most important result of our research is that in sectors where European legislation prevails, and lower coordination externalities are observed, we find a shorter duration of disputes, whilst in economic sectors more exposed to decentralized legislation, with greater coordination externalities, disputes tend to have a longer duration.

JEL Classification: C41; K41

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Antoine Loeper for his useful suggestions and comments on a previous draft of this paper. A preliminary version of this research was presented at the 52nd Annual Conference of Italian Society of Economists (SIE), Rome, Italy, October 14–15, 2011, and during the international workshop organized by Prof. Giuseppe Di Vita and Prof. Giovanni Ramello entitled “Economic Analysis of Litigation”, Catania, Italy, June 20–21, 2014. All errors are the Author’s alone.

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Published Online: 2015-06-10
Published in Print: 2015-07-01

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