Digital agendas, regional policy and institutional quality: assessing the Italian broadband plan

摘要

Broadband policy has been booming with the support of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs). However, its performance and impact remain contentious, since primary evidence is lacking. The paper studies the first Italian plan for financing broadband-deprived areas through the ESIFs, characterized by multilevel governance. It is found that its overly centralized design suffered from serious policy faults, which hampered regional efforts. Funding mismatches and other institutional obstacles disadvantaged the northern and central regions; however, because the latter enjoyed higher institutional quality, they managed to leapfrog the (more supported) southern ones. The digital agendas' performance is shaped by the institutional quality-multilevel governance mix.