The hypotheses of sectoral return rates on regulating capital either gravitating around or converging towards a common value is tested on data for various OECD countries by adopting two panel varying coefficient approaches. Our null hypotheses receive some empirical support, that turns out to be...

This study analyses, through cross-section estimation methods, the influence of spatial effects in productivity (product per worker), at economic sectors level of the NUTs III of mainland Portugal, from 1995 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2005 (taking in count the data availability and the Portuguese...

In this paper we argue that a better understanding of the relationship between inequality and growth can be obtained by shifting the analisys from the space of final achievements to the space of opportunities. To this end, we introduce the Opportunity Growth Incidence Curve, that can be used to...

The paper provides some insights into the current reform of the system of intergovernmental relations in Italy. A most relevant change is the abolition of transfers from a higher level of government as an ordinary means of finance for sub-central governments, with the exception of grants having...

Haiti e la Repubblica Dominicana, gli stati che occupano rispettivamente la parte sinistra e destra dell’isola di Hispaniola, rappresentano un caso di divergenza economica e di inversione delle posizioni relative di reddito: se nell’epoca coloniale Haiti era più ricca dell’attuale...

We consider the effect of money illusion - defined referring to Stevens' ratio estimation function - on the long-run Phillips curve in an otherwise standard New Keynesian model of sticky wages. We show that if agents under-perceive real economic variables, negative money non-superneutralities...

We investigate the sources and determinants of output growth of Italian manufacturing firms. Applying stochastic frontier techniques, we decompose output growth into factor accumulation and TFP growth from 1998 to 2003. TFP growth is further decomposed into technological change, efficiency...

Negative values for estimated variances can arise in a panel data context. Empirical and theoretical literature dismisses the problem as not serious and a practical solution is to replace negative variances by its boundary value, i.e. zero. While this is not a concern when the individual...