The demographic database of Istat (www.istat.it)is explored and the main facts are extracted and described, both at the aggregate national level as well as at the regional one. This paper is completely self-standing but, at the same time, poses the basis for a more general analysis that will be...

Official poverty methodologies differ from other poverty measurement methods in the sense that the official ones are more often used as a benchmark to develop new policies as well as to evaluate the performance of existing programs. Europe has the tradition and the practice to use relative...

Several theoretical and methodological perspectives have been used to understand the trans-formations occurred during the last 20 years in the Costa Rican State. This work aims to de-fine a coherent approach of such transformations in order to understand them and be able to offer possible...

In this new version of the database we have included pilot social assistance programmes. A number of pilot cash transfer programmes have been introduced in Latin America, Asia and Africa in the last year or so, and a few more are in the design stage. Their scale and rationale suggest there is a...

Patterns of poor relief varied greatly amongst nineteenth century Irish cities. To date, however, there has been little examination of the reasons behind these divergences. One possible factor is the divergent occupational and demographic structures of these cities – ranging from the dramatic...

The Greek parliamentary elections in January .2015 led to a foreseeable change in government. The coalition government between the conservative Nea Dimokratia and of the socialist PASOK, become replaced. by a coalition government between the left wing coalition party SYRIZA and the extreme...

The paper proposes a method to speed up the transition toward the notional contributions pension system in Italy. It seems the most appropriate manner to combine and pursue employment and financial sustainability goals. The method computes percentages for abating the old retributive pensions...

In general, most countries of the former Eastern bloc have experienced poor growth performance and large increases in income inequality during the transition process. The most obvious success story in the process of transition to date has been Poland, which has outstripped other transition...

Poland undertook a rapid and decisive set of political and economic reforms starting in 1989-90, a period that has become known as the big bang. A widely held view is that, in all of the transition economies, the economic upheaval associated with the process of transition has led to substantial...

Most of the studies which have investigated the link between corruption and poverty may draw conclusions on causality in the form of models that only show correlation. This study is set out to investigate the Granger causal relationship between corruption and poverty. It uses dynamic panel...