We analyse the evolution of EU citizens' living standards, considering the EU as a single country. Average living standards have improved considerably as the European integration process has unfolded. EU28 income inequality has steadily declined, mostly as a result of the macroeconomic...

This paper contributes to the debate on the design of a centralised fiscal tool absorbing country-specific negative shocks in the euro area. Based on theoretical insights, it identifies the broad characteristics that a shock absorber based on unemployment should have in order to be...

We analyse how accounting for household production could affect labour market statistics. This topic has grown in importance since the release of the new System of National Accounts in 2008. Because the traditional headcount ratios focussing on the number of people carrying out some home and...

Italian Abstract: Il dibattito sulla povertà in Italia negli ultimi settant’anni è caratterizzato da alcuni pas-saggi significativi: la Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sulla miseria e sui mezzi per com-batterla nei primi anni cinquanta; il lungo periodo della Commissione Povertà,...

The paper analyses the evolution of inequality in Italy from 1989 to 2014, focusing on three business-cycle phases: the 1992 currency crisis, the moderate growth from 1993 to 2007, and the double-dip recession from 2008 to 2013. Data from the national accounts and the Bank of Italy's Survey on...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, several countries have resorted to self-adaptive mechanisms that allow non-pharmaceutical interventions to be tailored to local epidemiological and health care indicators. These mechanisms reinforce the interdependence between containment measures and the evolution...

In the last decade the Italian economy has underperformed compared both with the previous decades and with the main European countries. It is widely acknowledged that this evolution reflects unresolved structural problems, which have become more urgent in view of the major changes in the world...