The pandemic crisis that began at the beginning of 2020 and the recent war crisis are impacting a regional context made difficult by the uncertain pace of growth rates in recent years and by various structural limits. For the elaboration of regional programming themes, in addition to the trends of the macroeconomic variables indicated above, it is therefore necessary to extend the analysis to some basic issues that characterize the development of the Island, if an adequate level of policy effectiveness is to be achieved.
We focus below on public sector spending, trying to evaluate the main critical issues, but also the medium-term opportunities of the regional economy and to support development strategies with more adequate information bases.
The public sector and available resources
The public sector has always activated a significant share of the regional economy which, in 2020, the pandemic-emergency year, reached 28.6% of the total demand for goods and services, compared to a national share of 21.3%. This gap, historically originating from the lack of consolidation in Sicily of an adequate production base in the private sector, determines a relative greater importance of public spending in the various moments of the economic cycle, both in the expansionary phases and in the phases of contraction of demand (with contextual judgment of effectiveness on the actions undertaken).
In this section of the Defr (regional economics and finance document), attention is paid to the medium-long term effects of the distribution of public resources in the territories and, in particular, to those affecting some important functions. To this end, the database of the Agency for Territorial Cohesion is used, in the version that reports the 2000 – 2020 historical series of regionalized revenues and expenditure, recently published.
The trend of per capita expenditure of the extended public sector (PSA) in Sicily
The tables below show the trend in per capita expenditure of the extended public sector (PSA) in Sicily, Southern Italy, Central North and Italy, in relation to total expenditure and investment expenditure as well as, in sectoral and economic category terms, to expenses for healthcare, personnel and roads, in a complete historical series from 2000 to 2020 and in real terms. From the five graphs below we can see a volume of public resources disbursed in Sicily that is relatively lower than the national average for the entire period considered, in terms of total expenditure, with a difference equivalent to the ratio between 86.3 and 100 (between 77, 4 and 100 if compared to the Center and North).
It also appears clear that the amount of investment spending in the same years declined sharply after 2008, due to the contraction imposed by the Stability Pact, which places Sicily at the lowest level among the constituencies, highlighting a gap that is at the basis of the stagnation regional economy and representing on average 77.4% of the corresponding value of Italy and 70.4% of that of the Center and North.
Another evident characteristic is represented by health expenditure characterized by a particularly erratic trend in Sicily, due to the system of reporting and transfers at national level, but with average values that remain close to those of the South and lower than those of the other districts for the 20 years considered: 91.5% of the corresponding value of Italy and 84.9% of that of the Center and North.
Furthermore, there is an expense for roads which is particularly penalizing for Sicily and which results in the infrastructure gap in this field. On average over twenty years it represents 74.4% of the national value and 69.3% of the value of the center and north.
Finally, personnel expenses contracted for all administrations after 2008 (Stability Pact). This voice in Sicily has therefore lost its primacy since approximately 2011, also a legacy of the PA’s tendency to give clientelistic responses to unemployment, aligning itself in recent years with the national value.
Public spending and investment spending
In other words, public spending, in particular current spending, which should be distributed taking into account the characteristics (age, personal, socio-economic condition, etc.) and the number of recipient citizens, in order to make the enjoyment of rights effective relating to health, education, assistance (articles 32, 34 and 38 of the Constitution), has disregarded the pursuit of these criteria, while investment spending, in addition to penalizing all of Southern Italy, has not adopted any of the equalization objectives which must characterize development spending at regional level. However, in the sense of equalization a new scenario has opened up, inaugurated by a new cycle of European policies.
Source: regional economics and finance document 2024/2026
