A novel methodology, inspired by the literature on mobility, based on Markov matrices, to measure growth rate volatility by a synthetic in- dex is proposed. An asymmetric version of the index allows to identify how much volatility can be ascribe to negative or positive fluctuations around trend....

In this paper we analyze the determinants of growth rate volatility (GRV) of per capita GDP of 257 regions belongs to 25 EU coun- tries in the period 1992 − 2008. Among the determinants at regional level the growth rate of employment has a negative impact on GRV, while investment rate, the...

This paper provides a methodology based on General Variance Decomposition and Bayesian Model Averaging to estimate the degree of economic interconnectedness across different regions, and applies such methodology to a sample of 199 European NUTS2 regions in the period 1980-2008. The estimated...

Using public data (Forbes Global 2000) we show that the distribution of asset sizes for the largest global firms follows a Pareto distribution in an intermediate range that is “interrupted” by a sharp cutoff in its upper tail, which is totally dominated by financial firms. This contrasts...

This paper presents a model inspired by the Unified Growth Theory, where reductions in adult mortality together with improvements in technological progress are the deep causes of the transition from a Traditional (Malthusian) Regime to a Pre-Modern Regime, characterized by the accumulation of...

In this paper we analyze the relationship between (adult) mortality and the long-run development of countries from an empirical and theoretical perspective. A quantitative exploration of the model shows that improvements in adult survival rates alone bring an economy towards a Malthusian regime...