The Italian economy performs well below the EU average. The reason is a dramatic and persistent low rate of investment, always invoked but never supported by national and supra-national institutions. However, investment to increase the quantity and quality of human capital is key to boost...

A<sc>ltavilla</sc> C. and C<sc>aroleo</sc> F. E. Asymmetric effects of national-based active labour market policies, <italic>Regional Studies</italic>. Labour market policies settled at the national level imply a 'one-size-fits-all' labour market strategy. This strategy might not sufficiently take into account region-specific...

The Italian process of flexibilization of the labour market has created a dual market populated by protected permanent employees and unprotected temporary workers. The latter comprises not only temporary employment relationships but also autonomous collaborations used by firms as low-cost de...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to point to the inefficiency of the Italian educational system as a key factor of persistent differences between the distribution of incomes (skewed) and that of talents (normal), stated in the Pigou paradox. In fact, against the intention assigned to it...

Italy has an immobile social structure. At the heart of this immobility is the educational system, with its high direct, but especially indirect cost, due to the extremely long time necessary to get a degree and to complete the subsequent school-to-work transition. Such cost prevents the...

Labour market policies settled at national level imply a “one-size-fits-all” labour market strategy. This strategy might not sufficiently take into account region-specific economic structures. We employ a panel factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to evaluate whether active labour...

We examine the role of organized labour in the restructuring experience of two coal-mining regions in the 1990s. Under similar external circumstances, the Czech Republic’s Ostrava region underwent gradual restructuring from early on whereas Romania’s Jiu Valley region went through no...

Until recently, regional labour market imbalances were considered transitory phenomena, a consequence of state failure in generating distorted investment incentives in depressed regions as well as of excessive labour market rigidities. Labour mobility and wage flexibility were at the core of the...

This paper provides the first available evidence on overeducation/overskilling based on AlmaLaurea data. We focus on jobs held 5 years after graduation by pre-reform graduates in 2005. Overeducation/overskilling are relatively high – at 11.4 and 8% – when compared to EU economies. Ceteris...