This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions in Italy considering the developments in a 150-year time span. Using several statistical techniques, we find that GDP growth and carbon dioxide emissions are strongly interrelated, with a dramatic change of...

Extracting and forecasting the volatility of financial markets is an important empirical problem. Time series of realized volatility or other volatility proxies, such as squared returns, display long range dependence. Exponential smoothing (ES) is a very popular and successful forecasting and...

We investigate the performance of Socially Responsible Funds (SRFs) and Conventional Funds (CFs) in different market segments during the 1992-2012 period. From an unbalanced sample of more that 22,000 funds, we define a matched sample using a beta-distance measure to match any SRF with the...

This paper shows that having access to a fast Internet connection is an important determinant of capitalization effects in property markets. We combine microdata on property prices in England between 1995 and 2010 with local availability of Internet broadband connections. Rich variation in...

We study competition in capital markets subject to moral hazard when investors cannot prevent side trading. Perfect competition is impeded by entrepreneurs’ threat to borrow excessively from multiple lenders and to shirk. As a consequence, investors earn positive rents at equilibrium. We then...

We derive a theoretical model of effort in the presence of career concern based on the multi-unit all-pay auction, and closely inspired by the Italian academic market. In this model, the number of applicants, the number of new posts, and the relative importance of the determinants of promotion...

We study here the problem of evaluating whether the selection from a set is close to the ranking determined by a measurable criterion. We propose a number of natural axioms and show that an index exists that satisfies all these axioms. The paper ends with an application of the index to Italian...

Structural change affects the estimation of economic signals, like the underlying growth rate or the seasonally adjusted series. An important issue, which has attracted a great deal of attention also in the seasonal adjustment literature, is its detection by an expert procedure. The...

This paper presents a somewhat novel approach to explore the economic contribution of ecosystems. It develops linked models to capture connections between resource stocks and flows and the resulting micro and macroeconomic impacts. A bioeconomic model is developed that is imbedded into a...

We study Ramsey monetary policy in a New Keynesian model embodying pollutant emissions and greenhouse gas emissions control policy. We find that the optimal response of inflation to technology shocks is crucially affected by the environmental regime adopted for emissions control.