The economic effects of immovable property taxation: A review of the Italian experience

Abstract

In this paper we review the results in the empirical literature on the effects of immovable property taxation reforms occurred in Italy in the last decades. We preliminary resume the recent history of property taxation reforms and discuss why Italy represents a good experimental laboratory to identify their effects on economic outcomes. We then review the empirical contributions regarding the impact of the ICI, introduced in 1993, and of the IMU, introduced in 2012, on local firms' investments, property values and households' consumption. We finally resume the findings related to the political economy of residential property taxation with respect to the incentives of local authorities, tax avoidance and voters' reaction