Under less restrictive assumptions than in previous contributions, this paper highlights various general patterns of profit rate dynamics. Without a substantial re-distribution of income in favour of profits, the profit rate declines. When labour productivity is weak the profits/wages ratio...

Increasing globalization, if properly exploited, can provide interesting opportunities for regional economies. Nevertheless, when they are not managed with a far-sighted approach, regions, and particularly those at an intermediate level of development, can lose their comparative advantages...

Since Reddito Minimo d'Inserimento pilot experiment ended, a number of papers have attempted to study minimum income policies in Italy. Contributions have aimed at providing insight for possible future program implementations. In this paper we present a case study as an applied contribution to...

Credit market imperfections can prevent the poor from making profitable investments. Under asymmetric information observable features, such as wealth and collateral, play an important role in determining who gets credit, in violation of the Equality of Opportunity principle. We define equality...

Following a growing literature we test, in this paper, the two alternative hypotheses of self selection and learning by exporting across different Italian manufacturing firms. Using matched sampling techniques, we estimate whether new export-oriented firms are more efficient than...

The presence of organized crime is a pervasive feature of many developed and developing countries. Even if ‘mafia’ organizations have greatly enlarged the geographical scope of their activities, as in the past they are still deeply rooted in specific territories where their presence...

The aim of the study is to test for equality of opportunity at the en- try into the national labour market of Italian graduates. By using an Italian survey data on the transition from university to work, we focus on the probability to get a job within three years from the graduation, and we find...

This paper studies an agent-based model that bridges Keynesian theories of demandgeneration and Schumpeterian theories of technology-fueled economic growth. We employ the model to investigate the properties of macroeconomic dynamics and the impact of public polices on supply, demand and the...

In the last years, a number of contributions has argued that monetary - and, more generally, economic - policy is finally becoming more of a science. According to these authors, policy rules implemented by central banks are nowadays well supported by a theoretical framework (the New Neoclassical...

The paper estimates the cost of maintaining a child, of different ages, the cost of being a single and the cost of additional adults present in a family with the aim of making the income levels of different households comparable. The study investigates the issue of econometric identification of...