According to the ‘Ricardian’ equivalence hypothesis, consumption is dependent on permanent disposable income and current deficits are equivalent to future tax payments. This hypothesis is tested on 14 European countries in the 1990s. The relationships between private sector savings...

According to the ‘Ricardian’ equivalence hypothesis, consumption is dependent on permanent disposable income and current deficits are equivalent to future tax payments. This hypothesis is tested on 14 European countries in the 1990s. The relationships between private sector savings...

This paper describes the rebirth of the utilitarian approach, with the social welfare function a là Bentham, after the crisis due to the emergence of the ordinalist microeconomic analysis. It is shown that Vickrey in 1945 had already anticipated the themes developed earlier by Harsanyi and...

The growth in top incomes occurring in most Oecd countries as from the closing decades of the 20th century is by now well documented, while hard thinking in terms of evaluating the phenomenon appears overdue. Prompted by Franzini Ricchi e poveri. L’Italia e le disuguaglianze (in)accettabili...