The aim of this paper is to investigate the roots of the slowdown in the Italian total factor productivity (TFP). The analysis focusses on the specific pattern of technical progress in determining the dynamics of the TFP. This analysis can not be done with Cobb—Douglas technology but...

La forte ondata migratoria, che ha interessato molte economie dell’Europa occidentale a partire dalla fine del secolo scorso, ha posto numerosi paesi di destinazione, fino ad allora caratterizzati da tassi positivi di emigrazione, di fronte a nuove sfide per l’integrazione degli immigrati....

In this paper, we build on the insights of the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) approach by computing uniform tariff equivalents for the European Union primary sector using the Global Trade Analysis Project model and its associated data base. The main contribution of the paper is to extend and...

We study the determinants of governments and legislatures’ survival in Italy from the unification to the end of the I Republic (1861-1994) - excluding the fascist period and the subsequent transitory institutional period, "Constituente" (1946-1948). We test whether institutional features...

In what follows, we show that financing constraints affects firm's investment decisions before the constraints is binding. This occurs because the firm anticipates at the current time the future bound. We argue that, even with imperfect capital markets, investment policy must be such that there...

This paper explores the ability of a class of one-sector models to generate endogenous skills cycles. Skills cycles are here defined as endogenous fluctuations of the composition of equilibrium allocation of labor services. We consider a one sector economy in which there exist one type of...

In his seminal contribution on exchange rate crises, Krugman models speculative attacks as optimal market reactions to policy rules that are inconsistent with the inde…nite survival of a …xed nominal parity. Later contributions have shifted the focus of the analysis, modelling...

One of the things taught by Sebastiano Brusco is that the firm taken as a unit of analysis may turn out to be too large or too small. Too large when we address the problem of the minimum efficient size, which must refer, not to the firm as a whole, but to each single stage of the production...

The paper analyzes the VAT frauds issues in the European Union after the abolition of the internal customs.All the suggested solutions based on the origin principle create distortions in the “one market†and have a doubtful efficiency. The reverse-charge regime for all business to...

In this paper we focus on the intertemporal aspects of technological adoption. We consider a simplified model: firms produce an homogeneous good and adoption decisions concern a cost reducing technology. We focus on the issue of industrial leadership reversal. Imagine an industry facing a...