The volume collects the essays presented at the conference "Social capital, economics and political economy" held in Rome on 27 June 2014. The first session analyzes definition and measurement issues about social capital. The second and third sessions examine its determinants and economic...

In the last two decades the socio-economic literature has highlighted the importance of social capital (an ample set of social relations and cultural attitudes) for economic growth and the wellbeing of citizens. The literature broadly suggests a negative correlation between social capital and...

The paper investigates the effect of electoral rules on voter turnout. It focuses on Italian municipalities, where voting schemes are differentiated by the size of the city: a single ballot system applies to municipalities with less than 15,000 inhabitants, while a dual ballot system is in place...

This paper studies the role of the expansion of higher education supply in increasing the equality of post-secondary education opportunities. It examines Italy�s experience during the 1990s, when policy changes prompted universities to offer a wider range of degree courses and to open new...

The paper examines micro data on Italian manufacturing firms� inventory behavior to test the Meltzer (1960) hypothesis according to which firms substitute trade credit for bank credit during periods of monetary tightening. It finds that their inventory investment is constrained by the...

Recent literature has aimed at evaluating human capital externalities by estimating the effect of human capital on wages at urban level. We argue that this methodology might not identify properly human capital spillovers. We consider a general equilibrium model based on Roback (1982) where both...

Putnam (1993) argues that (i) center-northern Italy has developed faster than southern Italy because the former was better endowed with social capital; and (ii) that the endowments of social capital across Italian territories have been highly persistent over centuries. This paper provides an...

Developments in the real-estate sector are of crucial importance for the business cycle and financial stability. This study analyses developments in the Italian housing market on the basis of both real and financial variables. Following the sharp contraction of the market during the financial...

Since the second half of the �90s, investment incentives channeled through the Law 488 have represented the main policy instrument for reducing territorial disparities in Italy. From 1996 to2003, the total amount of funds distributed to industrial firms has accounted for 16 billions of Euro...

This paper examines how business investment responds to investment tax credit, as enacted by Italy�s Law 388/2000. To assess whether the programme made investments possible that otherwise would not have been made, it exploits some features of the tax credit scheme, such as the fact that...