The Paper draws its motivation from the observation that, three years into the single currency, EMU financial markets are making only slow progress towards integration and from the belief that economic history can offer useful insights as to the causes of the phenomenon. In this vein, we...

Height data offer insights into the well-being of populations and historical periods for which other indicators are lacking. Researchers modeling historical heights have typically relied on the restrictive assumption of a normal (Gaussian) distribution, only the mean of which is affected by age,...

With the end of the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, the availability of a large body of new historical statistical data calls for a redefinition of the features of Italian economic growth. The paper presents new estimates – at both national and regional...

The article is part of the special issue of the journal on Charles P. Kindleberger (CPK). By reviewing CPK's works the author investigates Kindleberger's historical economics analysis method. This is argued to be based on two elements: the analysis of the capitalist economies and, in particular,...

The history of relations between the Italian banking industry and the State during the last 150 years from National Unification has affected the stability of deposits and credit flows, the effectiveness of investment choices. In carrying out these functions, banks have played an entrepreneurial...

We study competition in capital markets subject to moral hazard when investors cannot prevent side trading. Perfect competition is impeded by entrepreneurs’ threat to borrow excessively from multiple lenders and to shirk. As a consequence, investors earn positive rents at equilibrium. We then...

We derive a theoretical model of effort in the presence of career concern based on the multi-unit all-pay auction, and closely inspired by the Italian academic market. In this model, the number of applicants, the number of new posts, and the relative importance of the determinants of promotion...

We study here the problem of evaluating whether the selection from a set is close to the ranking determined by a measurable criterion. We propose a number of natural axioms and show that an index exists that satisfies all these axioms. The paper ends with an application of the index to Italian...

Structural change affects the estimation of economic signals, like the underlying growth rate or the seasonally adjusted series. An important issue, which has attracted a great deal of attention also in the seasonal adjustment literature, is its detection by an expert procedure. The...

This paper presents a somewhat novel approach to explore the economic contribution of ecosystems. It develops linked models to capture connections between resource stocks and flows and the resulting micro and macroeconomic impacts. A bioeconomic model is developed that is imbedded into a...