The paper investigates the opinions of Italian families on the advisability and the possibility of saving. The analysis was carried out using the monthly micro-data underlying the Italian consumer survey conducted by Isae up to 2010 and by Istat thereafter. The results show that in recent years...

Changes in social security laws and regulations which took place in the late sixties and early seventies apparently weakened the link between contributions and benefits permitting a time path of aggregate consumption in excess of what would have occured in the absence of such changes. In this...