The Finance-Growth Nexus is a classical source of debate among economists. This contribution offers regional evidence on this issue in order to see if it can meet the data within a 140 years old economic union -- Italy -, in the ideal context for its main competitor - New Economic Geography -...

This paper develops a simple analytical framework in which optimal health and retirement policies amid population aging can be discussed. To be efficient, these policies must recognize and exploit the dynamic complementarities between the timing of retirement, the size of lifecycle labour income...

This paper analyzes institutional arrangements for exchange rate systems and reviews what we know. It looks at the foreign exchange market, different balance of payment situations in which countries find themselves and the necessary exchange rate adjustments. It studies the options that are...

The paper extends the methodological toolbox of measures of industrial concentration and regional specialization. First, a taxonomy is proposed which gives rise to a modular construction system for disproportionality measures based on three characteristic features: the projection function, the...

This paper analyzes how international rules are established and stabilized, i.e. how an international institutional order develops. Rules emerge mainly through learning from negative experience and serve to reduce transaction costs. The paper looks at mechanisms that stabilize rule systems, at...

This paper develops a methodology for estimating the parameters of dynamic opinion or expectation formation processes with social interactions. We study a simple stochastic framework of a collective process of opinion formation by a group of agents who face a binary decision problem. The...

The present contribution tests whether countries can be pooled when studying the finance-growth nexus. Overall, our results point toward a 'pragmatic' positive answer, though considerable heterogeneity is present among developing countries.

The paper analyzes the contemporary organizational restructuring of production and work within firms. We emphasize the shift from a "Tayloristic" organization of work (characterized by significant specialization by tasks) to a "holistic" organization (featuring job rotation, integration of tasks...

The paper analyzes the influence of minimum wages on firms' incentive to train their employees. We show that this influence rests on two countervailing effects: minimum wages (i) augment wage compression and thereby raise firms' incentives to train and (ii) reduce the profitability of employees,...

The paper analyses a partial equilibrium outsourcing model with Cournot competition in intermediate good production. Final production is located in western Europe, whereas the intermediate good can be manufactured by a western (outsourcing) or eastern European supplier (offshore outsourcing)....