In this collection of papers we first analyze the evolution of the Italian food industry and the retail trade sector during the past decade (Chapters 1 and 2). Chapter 3 describes the structure of large retailers and buying groups in Italy. Chapter 4 proposes alternative measures of the degree...

We conduct a regional analysis of the relationship between market concentration and price dynamics in the grocery retail sector, focusing on a sample of five categories of goods belonging to the 12 COICOP aggregation and on a panel of countries that includes Germany, Spain, Finland, Italy,...

Productivity is the main factor holding back long-term economic growth in Italy. Since the second half of the 1990s, productivity growth has been feeble both by historical standards and compared with the other main euro area countries. Understanding the reasons for such a performance and finding...

The purpose of this work is to describe the present conditions and possible development of telecommunication networks in Italy, with particular reference to new generation networks. We review the main technological solutions adopted from a cross-country perspective and investigate the...

High-speed Internet, or broadband, access is an essential infrastructure that has been proven to stimulate competition, productivity and growth and it is considered the engine of the so called knowledge-information economy. In this paper, we first provide a technical survey of the standard...

In this paper, we provide an assessment of the evolution of markups in Italy in the last twenty years. To this aim, we resort to both macro and micro data and estimation techniques, namely reduced forms accounting measures (price-cost margins) and production function model-based indicators. When...

The geographic digital divide has a significant, though largely unexplored, dimension within a country. This paper proposes an index of digital development for the Italian NUTS2 regions (rDESI) based on the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). The rDESI monitors the...

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...

This paper examines the recent behavior of sovereign interest rates in the euro area, focusing on the 10 year yield spreads relative to Germany for Italy and other euro area countries. Both previous analyses and the new evidence presented in the paper suggest that, in recent months, for several...

In the aftermath of the euro-area sovereign debt crisis, several commentators have questioned the favourable treatment of banks' sovereign exposures allowed by the current prudential rules. In this paper, we assess the overall desirability of reforming these rules. We conclude that the...