The theory of employment is clearly a central question in economic thought. Economists of all traditions and schools have always admitted short run fluctuations in aggregate employment levels associated with the business cycle and explained them with a variety of factors. Yet the central...

The objective of this paper is to show that the current global economic crisis, in which also Italy fell in 2008, represents just the last step of a long declining path for the Italian economy which began in the nineties, or to be more precise in 1992and 1993. In particular, I argue the reasons...

The use of the gravity model to evaluate the effect of policies in a cross-country framework is largely predominant in the international economics empirical literature. This literature usually implements importer and exporter fixed effects to account for the theoretical Multilateral Trade...

The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent buen vivir ("good life"), Latin America’s new concept for collective well being, can be considered a way forward beyond current paradigms related to economic growth, development, ideology and state building, with its strengths and...

The paper deals with the conditions of capital accumulation that can guarantee a sustainable pollution level and, consequently, a growing carrying capacity of the ecosphere for humankind. It follows an approach of ecological economics, utilising laws and models derived from the ecological...

Many countries have recently implemented fiscal decentralization reforms, assigning more functions and spending responsibilities to sub-national governments. In this paper we investigate the reasons behind the decentralization process of different categories of government expenditure (such as...

The idea that effective demand is closely connected with money supply has emerged a number of times in the history of economic thought, within approaches differing in origin and formulation. In particular, we analyse Lange and Patinkin’s theses and those of Luxemburg and the money circuit...

This paper addresses the historical evolution of benefit-based taxation, with particular reference to the contribution of the Italian school of public finance. In particular, it is shown that the positive interpretation of the benefit theory as a criterion of rationality and judgment is well...

The objective of this paper is to explore whether “the efficiency thesis” concerning the relation between welfare states and globalisation is functional for economic growth or, alternatively, whether “the compensation thesis” produces better results in terms of economic growth. The...

We study an economic decision problem where the actors are two rms and the Antitrust Authority whose main task is to monitor and prevent rms potential anti-competitive behaviour. The Antitrust Au- thority's decision process is modelled using a Bayesian network whose relational structure and...