Religion as a component of family background may transmit values that positively affect children's educational achievements. Nevertheless, in its conservative dimension religion hampers children's self-determination and may lead them not to invest in higher education. Notably religion may adapt...

This paper examines the determinants of innovation and its effects on small- and medium-sized firms We use the data from the OPIS databank, which provides a survey on a representative sample of firms from a province of the Southern Italy. We want to study whether small and medium sized firms can...

Dropping out of school has recently become an issue of major policy concern in Italy. A series of reforms of secondary school objectives, programmes and organizational design have been proposed to adapt the public school system to evolutions in the labour market and to increase overall...

In this paper I examine a number of issues related to the Italian youth labour market and, in particular, youth labour market entry, over the last decade or so. The Italian youth labour market has a number of characteristics, present to a degree in other countries, but which by by their...