Current account (CA) dispersion within European Union (EU) member states has been increasing progressively since the 1990s. Interestingly, the persistent deficits in many peripheral countries have not been accompanied by a significant growth process able to stimulate a log run rebalancing as...

The paper presents an estimate of the expenditure requirements to be used as a benchmark in the identification of best practices in the spending behavior of the municipalities. In order to distinguish the determinants of theoretical expenditure requirements with respect to those relating to...

This paper examines structural changes in the Italian manufacturing sector, focusing labour productivity in recent decades. To this end it distinguishes between trend movements in the data using a multivariate unobserved components model. Changes relative importance of cyclical and trend...

Potential output and the related concept of output gap play a central role in the macroeconomic policy interventions and evaluations. In particular, the output gap, defined as the difference between actual and potential output, conveys useful information on the cyclical position of a given...

This paper examines structural changes in the Italian manufacturing sector, focusing on labour productivity in recent decades. To this end it distinguishes between trend and cyclical movements in the data using a multivariate unobserved components model. Changes in the relative importance of...