Purpose – How many hours per week should workers in the USA and Germany spend at their paying jobs? The present paper aims to address this question by constructing policymakers' reaction functions capable of modelling the optimal length of working time as a function of the relevant labour...

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce the contributions in this special issue on “Unemployment, innovation and R&D”, and provide a brief outline of the international conference organised by the Applied Econometrics Association on “Policies against Unemployment”....

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to assess the effects of traditional inputs and firms' R&D capital on labour productivity growth. Design/methodology/approach – The study measures the effects of the traditional inputs on firms' productivity growth, through four procedures: OLS in first...

Purpose – This paper aims to shed light upon the controversial relationship between labour market flexibility and innovation in Italy, paying attention both to inter‐sectoral heterogeneity and to the regional differences. Design/methodology/approach – A set of hypotheses concerning the...

Purpose – The paper seeks to analyse the impact of different public policies on inequality, unemployment, growth and the tax burden. Design/methodology/approach – A dynamic general equilibrium model is built, in which growth is driven by endogenous technical progress, to analyse the impacts...

Purpose – Recent economic research has focused on the economic effects of the social environment. In the economic literature, important phenomena are considered, at least in part, as results of the individual's social environment. There is a similar revival of interest among economists who...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causes of unemployment persistence among the Belgian labour force. The underlying issue is to determine the eventual existence of a true causal relationship between successive unemployment spells. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causal link between government regulation of religion and the choice of investing in human and physical capital. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses an analytical model with a government setting the output quota to transfer to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the correlation between the educational level and the number of children in Italy, where a very low fertility rate may be observed. Design/methodology/approach – Since the number of children ever born is a count variable, Poisson regression...