This paper develops a model of endogenous growth with overlapping generations to investigate the joint determination of social security, public investment and growth in a small open economy. We show that a pure pay-as-you-go-system with indexed to wages benefits provides the taxpayers with the...

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has monopoly power over wages. The presence of the union leads a benevolent government to implement a high level of immigration and induces a welfare loss not only from an...

We study the interactions between technological innovation, investment in human capital and child labor. In our setting new technologies require new skills and new skills can be developed only through schooling. In a two-stage game, first firms decide on innovation, then households decide on...

We use a political economy model of Schumpeterian growth with entry to investigate how an incumbent politician can strategically use the level of red tape to acquire incumbency advantage. By setting sufficiently high red tape, the politician induces the incumbent firm in the intermediate sector...

We empirically investigate whether the persistence of politicians in political institutions affects the innovation activity of firms. We use 12,000 firm-level observations from three waves of the Italian Observatory over Small and Medium Enterprises, and introduce a measure of political...

We develop a political economy model of Schumpeterian growth with entry where excessive red tape and bureaucracy are used strategically by the incumbent politician to acquire incumbency advantage. By setting sufficiently high red tape, the politician induces the monopolist to invest in...

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has market power over wages. The presence of the union induces a social welfare maximizing government to implement a high level of immigration, leading to a welfare loss not...