In most advanced countries, future retirees will have to rely less on social security schemes and more on private pension plans, which mostly leave to the worker the choice between ashing-in or annuitizing pension wealth at retirement. Therefore, a better understanding of the determinants of the...

This paper reconstructs the series of the real returns on Italian equities, bank and PO deposits and long-term government bonds from 1860 to today. In the long-run the return on shares was much higher than that on government securities and also that on bank and PO deposits. However, this summary...

The relationship between the demographic structure and the saving rate of a society is the reflection of the aggregation of the behaviour of heterogeneous households, differing from one another in the type of living arrangements and in the characteristics of their members. In order to contribute...

This paper analyzes the determinants of Italian households� participation in the debt market, considering both demand and supply effects and using the Bank of Italy�s Survey of Household Income and Wealth. The probability of debt is positively influenced by age (until 35 years), which...

The paper analyzes the problems of measurement of durable consumer prices posed by quality change. Theoretical price indexes are defined and used to analyze several empirical methods of estimation of quality adjusted price indexes. The paper shows that hedonic regressions and other quality...

This paper presents an endogenous growth model with intertemporally dependent preferences and "Ak" technology. We derive sufficient conditions for a balanced growth path to be an equilibrium, provide a full characterization of the equilibrium dynamics of the economy, and explore the implications...

Which households use consumer credit? This paper addresses the question using harmonized data from Eurostat�s EU-SILC survey for nine European countries in the period 2005-08. There is wide heterogeneity in participation in the consumer credit market, ranging from 15 to 46 per cent across...

This paper examines the retirement decisions of Italian households using data from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) for 2008. The analysis focuses on the adequacy of pension wealth, knowledge of supplementary retirement rules, the determinants of enrolment decisions and...

The study analyses trends in the market for consumer credit during the crisis, relying on data by CRIF referring to demand for personal and special-purpose loans and to contracts signed between 2007 and 2013 in Italy (55 and 37 million respectively). The analysis shows how the sharp reduction in...

Half a decade of crisis has had a substantial impact on the market for credit to Italian households. From 2008 through 2012 the share of indebted households decreased by 4 percentage points, to 23 per cent; among young households it fell by 12 points. The decline involved consumer credit and...