This paper focuses on two apparent puzzles for the Italian economy: i) How can an extremely poor performance in productivity growth be compatible with strong employment growth?; and ii) How can a sharp decline in competitiveness come along with higher export prices and a general situation for...

A coincidence in time between the volatility break associated with the "Great Moderation" and large changes in the pattern of conditional and unconditional correlations between output, hours and labor productivity was detected by Galí and Gambetti (2009). We provide a novel explanation for...