A quality-adjusted specification of labor is suggested which allows firm training to affect labor efficiency. To assess the cost and productivity effects, this specification is integrated into a flexible neoclassical cost function. The empirical analysis uses panel data for eight plants in the...

In machine tool assembly several make-to-order products have to be manufactured simultaneously in a multi-stage production system. Due to customer requirements batches are very small. A process plan specifies the neccessary machines, tools, auxiliary devices as well as the operations to be...

In the 1987 study On the Determinants of Brazilian Exports, two hypotheses figured prominently. First, it was stated that Brazil's comparative advantage was in unskilled labor intensive products and secondly that policy interventions rather than internal factors were responsible in fostering...

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to develop an optimization model of CNC turning process. The objective function of the model is to minimize processing time and carbon emission. We implemented the results of optimization with real machining application using a certain workpiece....

Italian manufacturing ¯rms have been losing ground with respect to many of their European competitors. This paper presents some empirical evidence on the e®ects of innovation on employment growth and therefore on ¯rms' productivity with the goal of understanding the roots of such poor...

In this paper we investigate the way consumption changes around retirement in Italy. Using micro data covering the 1985-96 period, we find that consumption age patterns are similar to those found in the US and other developed countries, despite the much more wide-spread cohabitation of different...

This paper studies how heterogeneity in income dynamics affects the POUM hypothesis (the idea that poor people do not support high level of redistribution because they hope to be rich in the future). We consider a setting where individuals evaluate their expected future income using both their...

Recovery in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain is held back in part by structural barriers. Overcoming these requires structural reform and public investment. Given the limited availability of political and financial capital, prioritising reform efforts and spending is important, but difficult....

This paper analyzes the existing relationship between economic growth and the monitoring of corruption and examines the possible outcome of the implementation of a State reform in order to weed out corruption. Growth is always higher when monitoring is high and therefore corruption eradicated....