In this paper we provide an explanation for three features that characterize the Italian savings rate: by international standards, Italy is a `high-saving' country; the Italian savings rate has declined markedly in the last three decades; the correlation between saving and growth is stronger in...

We test for the presence of precautionary saving using a self-reported measure of earnings uncertainty drawn from the 1989 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth. The effect of uncertainty on saving and wealth accumulations is consistent with the theory of precautionary saving and with...

Economic theory suggests that uninsurable income risk, health risk and the expectation of future borrowing constraints can reduce the share of risky assets in a household's portfolio. In fact, if its utility function exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and decreasing prudence, a household...

The paper uses Italian daily data from January 1991 to July 1992 (a period in which the lira belonged to the narrow EMS band without foreign exchange controls) to measure the relationship between liquidity and interest rates. The high quality of the data allows us to separate that part of...

We model an international union as a group of countries deciding together the provision of certain public goods and policies because of spillovers. The countries are heterogeneous either in preferences and/or in economic fundamentals. The trade-off between the benefits of coordination and the...

We model an international union as a group of countries deciding together on the provision of public goods or policies that generate spillovers across members. The trade-off between benefits of coordination and loss of independent policy-making endogenously determines size, composition and scope...

We construct a set of indicators to measure the policy-making role of the European Union (European Council, Parliament, Commission, Court of Justice, etc.), in a selected number of policy domains. Our goal is to examine the division of prerogatives between European institutions and national...