A spatial cross-sectional analysis of political trends in Italian municipalities

摘要

The aim of this paper is to detect mimicking behaviour in the tax setting of local governments which share similar political ideology. We conduct an empirical investigation of municipalities' cross-sectional data of the Marche region using spatial econometrics models. Discriminating between several sources of fiscal interaction, empirical evidence suggests that municipalities governed by the same coalition tend to implement similar tax rates according to their ideology.