This work contributes to the small but growing body of literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our dataset, based on a new Bank of Italy survey, provides information on exports and imports of services (excluding transportation and travel) in 2008-09 for almost 3,000 Italian...

The 1991 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth contains detailed retrospective information on major bequests and gifts received by each member of the household. This information is used to estimate the share of intergenerational transfers in total welath and to relate this share to...

We study the effects of anti-competitive service regulation by examining whether OECD countries with less anti-competitive regulation see a better economic performance of manufacturing industries using less-regulated services more intensively. Our results indicate that lower service regulation...

This paper analyses the local determinants of producer service growth in Italy, focusing on agglomeration economies, and taking into account the particular features of this sector with respect to manufacturing. Using an OECD classification, we estimate a dynamic specification allowing for...

We study the effects of the world economic crisis which began in 2007 on the Italian productive system. National accounts data are supplemented with information gathered in spring 2009 from the Bank of Italy�s survey on industrial and service firms, and from interviews with about 70 of...

This paper focuses on how multi-plant firms allocate their workforce and investments between headquarters or plants located in or close to the headquarters area (HQ plants) and those located in the same country but farther away from the headquarters area (non-HQ plants). Using survey data on...

Using unique matched bank-firm data on export, import and ordinary loans for a large sample of Italian manufacturing exporters for the years 2007-2010, this paper investigates the role of trade finance in a credit shock. We find that the credit shock faced by exporters in the aftermath of the...

The paper surveys the literature on the measurement of innovation activity and evaluates the position of Italy with respect to the other major European countries. Innovation has been measured from different perspectives: the environment in which firms operate, firms' commitment, its outcome....

The creation of the Euro area has increased the importance of obtaining timely information about short-term changes in the area's real activity. In this paper we propose a number of alternative short-term forecasting models, ranging from simple ARIMA models to more complex cointegrated VAR and...