Pareggio e bilancio pubblico: un equilibrio da ripensare

The approval of the Constitutional Law 1/2012 introduced in our Constitution, also in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, the principle of the structural equilibrium between public budget revenues and expenditures, and of the sustainability of public administrations' debt. The essential objective of this short writing is to analyse and reflect on the balance of the public budget, with the hope that this will contribute to stimulate a more in-depth debate among academics, operators of public administrations and the legislator on a concept that is particularly dear to business administration scholars. The contribution is articulated in three parts. In the first, we recall the intrinsically dynamic and unstable nature of the budget balance, together with its inability to inform about the generation of public value. Later, we will focus on the genesis and the effects of the process of semantic redetermination of the budget balance. Finally, brief considerations on some possible research perspectives are presented.