We characterize how public insurance schemes are constrained by hidden financialtransactions. When non-exclusive private insurance entails increasing unit transaction costs,public transfers are only partly offset by hidden private transactions, and can influenceconsumption allocation. We show...

This paper reviews the evolution of educational institutions and outcomes over the 150 years since Italy's unification, and discusses their interaction with national and regional growth patterns. While initial educational conditions contributed to differentiate across regions the early...

Private school enrolment may lead to worse subsequent performance in further education or in the labour market. If students differ in their ability not only to pay but to take advantage of educational opportunities (“talent” for short), private schools attract a worse pool of students when...

This paper analyses information from survey data collected in the framework of the Eurosystem's Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) on patterns of firm-level adjustment to shocks. We document that the relative intensity and the character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment adjustments in response...

This paper analyses information from survey data collected in the framework of the Eurosystem’s Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) on patterns of firm-level adjustment to shocks. We document that the relative intensity and the character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment adjustments in...

Interest rates on consumer lending are lower when funds are tied to purchase of a durable good than when they are made available on an unconditional basis. Further, dealers often choose to bear the financial cost of their customers' credit purchases. This paper interprets this phenomenon in...

This paper reviews the Italian unemployment experience, analyzing in particular the time-series behavior of unemployment rates along the path that brought Italy into Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union, and their disaggregated structure across geographical and demographic dimensions. High...