International institutions are recommending policies aimed at shift- ing the tax burden from labour and business incomes to less growth- detrimental forms of taxation, such as consumption taxes. However, de- spite the expected positive macroeconomic effects, a criticism about in- creasing the...

In microsimulation literature a limited number of models include a module aimed at analyzing and projecting the evolution of private wealth over time. However, this issue appears crucial in order to comprehensively evaluate the likely distributional effects of institutional reforms adopted to...

Household saving rate in Italy declined over the last two decades.This trend still persists despite three pension reforms have been enacted since the beginning of the nineties. In this paper we search further evidence of general macroeconomic effects through the analysis of households behaviour....

In microsimulation literature a limited number of models are provided with a module aimed at analyzing and projecting the evolution of private wealth over time. However, this issue appears crucial in order to get a comprehensive evaluation of the likely distributional effects of institutional...

The aim of this work is to match household consumption information from Indagine sui Consumi delle Famiglie (Household Budget Survey, HBS) by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) with Indagine sui Bilanci delle Famiglie Italiane (Survey of Households’ Income and Wealth, SHIW) by...

The long-term development of the social security system is a crucial policy issue in terms of both financial sustainability and adequacy, which constitute a difficult trade-off facing the policy maker. The particular complexity of this issue, also in the light of demographic dynamics and the...

Empirical cross-country evidence suggests that countries position themselves along a sort of Market Regulation (MR)-Social Expenditure (SE) trade-off “line”. Theoretically, it is clear that there exists a certain degree of substitutability between SE and MR, since both can provide a cushion...

Our theory of cultural-institutional persistence and innovation is based on uncoordinated updating of individual social norms and contracts, so that both culture and institutions are endogenous. We explain why Pareto-dominated cultural-institutional configurations may persist over long periods...

With the new European fiscal compact, fiscal rules of budget balance over the cycle have been introduced to limit the growth of the debt ratio to GDP. The objection may arise that they would have an adverse effect, especially in the long run on employment and growth. We test the proposition...