Under limited asset market participation fiscal consolidations have a deep and prolonged deflationary effect, causing substantial short term welfare losses to households whose access to financial markets is limited. We show that it is possible to both reduce public debt and boost consumption of...

The paper represents the outcome of an ongoing research program on the dynamics of joint stock companies in Italy between the 1861 Unification of the country and World War 1. It is based on a considerable quantity of data, the bulk of which is constituted by the very detailed set covering the...

The paper analyzes the role of the structure of communication - i.e. who is talking with whom - on the choice of messages, on their credibility and on actual play. We run an experiment in a three-player coordination game with Pareto ranked equilibria, where a pair of agents has a profitable...

In this paper we investigate the role of reciprocity in sustaining the emergence of implicit collusive agreements in hierarchical organizations. We conduct a laboratory experiment in which an agent hires, on behalf of the principal, one worker out of two candidates. The two candidates differ in...

Firms’ survival and longevity have recently emerged as a new intriguing theme of business history, spreading from the initial studies on family business to all forms of business. In family business the transition to the next generation can represent a strong limit to survival, as it depends on...

The article retraces the steps which marked the transformation of Sesto San Giovanni from a small agricultural centre in the vicinity of a great city such as Milan, to becoming one of the principal centres of Italian industry. Two preliminary questions, of notable importance, have been dealt...

This article provides an overview of recent progress in the theory of market structure, of the role of market leaders and the scope of industrial policy, presents new results through simple examples of quantity competition, price competition and competition for the market and develops new...

Our experiment is made by three treatments. The first one reproduces the classical public good game. The second environment represents a perfect competition market where the contribution of a representative player to the private good gives a positive rent if and only if it is not lower than the...

A Markowitz portfolio model is developed in this paper, in order to show how the optimal portfolio is changed if the bank forecasts a shock. It is shown that monetary and real shocks result in quite different patterns of reaction by the bank and these results do not depend on the existence of...

We introduce endogenous strategic interactions under competition in quantities and in prices together with endogenous entry in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with flexible prices. The endogenous mark ups depend on the form of competition and on the degree of substitutability...