Biography

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Catholic University in Milan (Italy) where I am a member of the CIFREL (Interuniversity Research Centre on Local and Regional Finance). I am also an Associate Fellow of the TARC (Tax Administration Research Centre) of the University of Exeter, UK.

My research is focused on Public Economics and entails topics in Taxation and Tax Compliance. I teach the second module of Public Finance for the degree in Economics and Management at the Catholic University of Milan.

In a research project (joint with Matthew D. Rablen) I have studied the compliance decision when taxpayers compare their consumption with others in their social network, and also to their own consumption in the recent past. We show that self-comparison may drive persistent post-audit effect and, from the policy perspective, that there are pronounced revenue returns to the initial acquisition of network information by tax authorities.

I have been involved with CIFREL in a policy study for the European Parliament Research Service where I contributed to the investigation of the outcomes of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) focusing on three main research concerns: i) the identification and estimation of the impact of EU ETS on CO2 emissions; ii) the assessment of the impact of EU ETS on performance at the industry level across member states; and iii) the characterization of the role played so far by the EU ETS as a source of revenues so to shed lights on its potential as a source of funding for possible future expansions of the EU budget.

In a recent paper (joint with Jiao Li and Matthew D. Rablen) we investigate the consequences, for the structure of income tax, and for tax authority anti-avoidance efforts, of the recent growth of mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes targeted at the middle of the income distribution. We highlight the importance of the supply-side in the market for tax avoidance and show that the price set by providers of tax avoidance schemes: i) is lower for richer individuals and, ii) varies to respond to the activity of the tax authority (leading to reduction in deterrence).

In a recent research (joint with Rosella Levaggi and Francesco Menoncin) we study tax avoidance and tax evasion in a intertemporal setting. We find that traditional deterrence instruments (fine and frequency of audit) reduce optimal evasion but, in contrast with results in a static framework, they have no impact on optimal avoidance. Our model also shows that non-compliance behaviour may result in a Laffer curve for fiscal revenues and that the revenue-maximizing tax rate is lower the more effective is avoidance at shielding taxpayers from fines. Our results suggest that specific policies need to be implemented in order to deter avoidance (e.g, tax simplification) and we illustrate their impact on evasion.

• mail@dgdi.me
• Milan/Venice, Italy