The main goal of this paper is to examine the implications of firm-oriented fiscal policies, such as capital subsidies and tax allowances, in an economy with an underground sector. In addition, we investigate whether the technology structure of quot;hiddenquot; production may facilitate or...

We use official time series of the Italian evaded VAT base (Ministry of Finance) for the period 1980:1–2006:4 to investigate empirically the long-run characteristics of tax evasion and the relationship with the tax burden. Three hitherto unexplored issues are addressed. First, using different...

In this paper we investigate the relation between population, wages and urban population in the Italian economy. During the period examined, 1320-1870, the prevailing conditions were those of a poor, mainly agricultural economy with limited human capital and rudimentary technology. However,...

We propose a joint dating of the Italian business and credit cycle on a historical horizon, by applying a local turning-point dating algorithm to the level of the variables. Along with short cycles, corresponding to traditional business cycle fluctuations, we also investigate medium cycles,...

The recent fears of a sovereign debt crisis have spurred interest in the sustainability of public debt. There are two different approaches to the assessment of sustainability: the use of sustainability gap indicators (Blanchard et al., 1990) and the time series approach (Trehan and Walsh, 1988)....

The aim of this paper is to analyze the sustainability of public debt in Italy during the last 150 years (1861-2010) by employing a database containing several statistical novelties: new time series estimates of public debt and GDP (respectively Bank of Italy and Baffigi, 2011) and an original...