This paper studies the impact of size on labor cost and productivity for Italian manufacturing firms. The distributions of both labor cost and productivity display a wide support, even when disaggregated by sector of industrial activity. Further, both labor cost and productivity, when considered...

Based on new datasets collecting financial statements and off-balance sheet data on a wide number of medium and large Italian enterprises between the 1970s and the 2010s, the work aims at contributing to the debate about the productivity growth gap that affected the Italian industry, as compared...

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different products than manufacturing exporters. In particular, high market-specific fixed...

In this paper, a conceptual theoretical model is developed to better integrate various dimensions of the firms' decision to export. The model sheds light on the affirmations of the founding models of the 'new theory of international trade', in particular the role of productivity and sunk costs...

We analyze the conditions under which an (S,s) rule may be derived and compare these with alternative rules. We consider the case of labor demand with fixed adjustment costs. The (S,s) rule implies a specific ordering of choices: downward adjustment, non-adjustment and upward adjustment with the...

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different products than manufacturing exporters. In particular, high market-specific fixed...

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison between survey and time series-based estimates of capacity utilization for the Italian manufacturing sector. The comparison is focused on the actual economic crisis. Two kinds of empirical evaluation are implemented: the ability of the series to...