In this paper, the effects of fiscal policy on labor supply are considered in a life-cycle model. Three alternative policies are examined: balanced-budget changes in public spending, debt-financed changes in public spending, and substitution between debt and taxes. It is shown that the effects...

Recently, several studies have emphasized the role of R&D expenditure in determining Total Factor Productivity (TFP). In this paper it is shown that the relationship between R&D variables and TFP is far from being established. In particular, by using data for the Italian economy, it is found...

The aim of this paper is to study the main determinants of the productivity growth and its interaction with the business cycle. In particular we investigate which variables are responsible for productivity growth and if recessions are associated with a higher or lower pace of productivity...

The paper analyses the labour market impact of international trade on the Italian manufacturing sector. Using data for a panel of manufacturing industries the effects of trade-induced changes in sales on employment and wages are investigated. The evidence suggests that the industry adjustment to...

We analyse productivity growth differentials across 68.000 Italian manufacturing firms over 2001-2010, in order to disentangle internal and external productivity drivers. A two-stage procedure is implemented for extracting fixed effects for 103 home counties of the firms (stage one), and...

We analyse behaviour and motivations of a sample of about 1,000 consumers purchasing 'fair trade (FT) goods', i.e. food and artisan goods which include socially responsible (SR) characteristics and a price premium for primary product producers with respect to equivalent non-FT products. By...

This paper uses micro data from the 1980, 1991, and 2000 population censuses to investigate the role of changes in the industry mix in accounting for the differential trends in the incidence of child work (ages 10–15) across Brazilian states. We find that exogenous compositional changes...