The economic crisis of 2008-09 has greatly compounded the challenge of economic policymaking both at the EU level and at the national level by causing a permanent loss in potential output – which may reach between 4 per cent and 6 per cent in the case of Austria (Gaggl and Janger, 2009) –...

Like most industrialized countries and many developing countries, Austria has taken measures to stabilise financial markets and to mitigate the sharp decrease in economic activity caused by the recent financial crisis. These measures amount to 4.2 per cent of 2008 GDP. Model simulations show...

The paper analyses the main differences in the financial structure of Italian and European non financial corporations in the 2004-2007 period, that is during the years before the financial crisis. The research is based on individual balance sheets of Amadeus (Analyse Major Databases from...

The fall in employment and the increase in unemployment rates in Italy in 2009 were fairly modest, given the sharp drop in GDP and compared with the recession of the early 1990s. This work shows that these data should be interpreted with caution, however. Firstly, employment trends as measured...

In this paper we investigate the governance structure of Italian pensions funds. First, we conduct a brief but critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature, in order to identify the areas where major improvements are necessary: a) the skills and competence of the trustees; b) the...

In this paper we focus on tenant rents in Italy and compare results from several methods for the rent dynamic estimation. We first document the sources of data available and then introduce quality-adjusted techniques, which enable us to separate the price variation due to qualitative changes in...

The paper analyzes developments in bank lending in Italy during the financial crisis, assessing the relative contribution of demand and supply factors to lending deceleration. We find that the slowdown in lending was mainly due to a reduction in demand. For households, this can be attributed to...

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...

The paper discusses the economic problem and the institutional features underlying the Nimby syndrome, and illustrates preliminary empirical evidence for Italy. It argues that siting procedures taking local preferences into account should be preferred when the heterogeneity in preferences across...

The substantial amount of undeclared foreign assets reported by disclosure schemes and analyses of international balance of payments statistics suggest that foreign assets held by Italians, as is the case in other countries, are greatly underestimated, in particular in the sector of portfolio...