Italy’s overall GDP growth has been dismal in recent years and this poor performance has been compounded by a declining trend in labour productivity and total factor productivity growth. This paper looks into growth accounting and structural indicators and analyses Italy’s performance...

In this paper, we investigate possible sources of declining economic growth performance in Italy starting around the middle of the '90s. A long-run data analysis suggests that the poor performance of the Italian economy cannot be ascribed to an unfortunate business cycle contingency. The rest of...

The study analyzes the impacts of the financial and economic crisis on the potential growth in the European Union. It carries out quantitative analysis in order to reveal the medium and long-term trends. According to the analysis the impacts of the crisis are significantly different in the...

In the European political discourse, the potentially vast economic benefits derived from the European Union are taken for granted. In the academic debate, these economic benefits, even if measured in terms of GDP per capita growth, are much less consensual. There are severe methodological...

Turkey has been a middle-income country for nearly half a century. Unlike Turkey, South Korea has managed to rapidly grow and become a high-income country. The success of South Korea may be an inspiration for many developing countries that cannot move from the middle-income trap, such as Turkey....

The European integration process started with the aim of reducing the differences in income and/or living standards between the participating countries over time. To achieve this, a certain alignment of institutions and structures was seen as a necessary precondition. While the goal of this...

We analyze investment decisions when information is costly, with and without delegation to an agent. We use a rational-inattention model and compare it with a canonical signal-extraction model. We identify three "investment conditions". In "sour" conditions, no information is acquired and no...

Relevant theoretical underpinnings suggest that higher education, continuous professional development and training provide numerous opportunities for societal advancement. This contribution posits that interventions in the realms of education can play a significant role in shaping key...

In pre-industrial Europe, growth was driven by the expansion of trade, and the expansion of trade was driven by falling trading costs. This paper discusses the mechanisms linking these processes: profit-seeking behavior by merchants, changes in the organization of production, technological...