Since the second half of the ’90s, investment incentives channelled through the Law 488 have represented the main policy instrument for reducing territorial disparities in Italy. From 1996 to 2003, the total amount of funds distributed to industrial firms has accounted for 16 billion of euro,...

To explain the concentration of human capital in cities, urban theory conjectures that the metropolitan scale provides two sources of returns for the more educated: production benefits, both in terms of wages and non-monetary gains, and consumption benefits. By exploiting a unique survey on...

To explain the concentration of human capital in cities, urban theory conjectures that the metropolitan scale provides two sources of returns for the more educated; production benefits, both in terms of wages and non-monetary gains, and consumption benefits. By exploiting a unique survey on...

The paper provides an empirical investigation of labor market pooling. The analysis concentrates on Italian industrial districts and shows that there is fragmentary evidence of a widespread wage premium. In particular, there is no evidence of district differentials for the returns to seniority...

<Para ID="Par1">There is little evidence as to the effectiveness of incentives for the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent jobs. We aim at filling this gap by studying a recent Italian program which provides benefits for employers who convert contracts for workers in specific demographic groups...</para>

Information on seasonal frequencies can provide valuable insights for understanding economic fluctuations. This is particularly true for Italy, where the variability of production in manufacturing is extremely high and almost entirely due to seasonal factors. This paper identifies the...

This paper investigates the effects of subsidies on the investment decisions of a sample of Italian manufacturing firms. We use survey information on firms� subjective evaluations of the investment they would have undertaken without financing, finding that subsidies have limited...