This paper presents a microeconomic theoretical model of union optimizing behavior which is then used to test the relevance of the tax-push hypothesis for wage formation in nine Western European countries. Two factors—the compensation and the progressivity effects—are shown by the model to...

This paper presents a microeconomic theoretical model of union optimizing behavior which is then used to test the relevance of the tax-push hypothesis for wage formation in nine Western European countries. Two factors - the compensation and the progressivity effects - are shown by the model to...

This paper analyses the main critiques addressed by the literature and the policy-makers to the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact. It further indicates to what extent the 2005 reform of the Pact meets those critics. It finally argues that the 2005 reform may be too little and arrive too late to...

This paper presents a microeconomic theoretical model of union optimizing behavior which is then used to test the relevance of the tax-push hypothesis for wage formation in nine Western European countries. Two factors—the compensation and the progressivity effects—are shown by the model to...

All existing international indicators - both ordinal and cardinal - of structural nature signal that Italy is a country cronically characterised by great inefficiencies, though it succeeds in remaining among the 7 economically most powerful countries in the world. Both in cyclical terms and in...

This paper aims at providing an economic analysis of the intergenerational social mobility in Italy. The data come from ISTAT. We present absolute mobility and social fluidity tables. We also examine the cohort effect, finding for Italy an increase in intergenerational absolute mobility, and a...

The Constitutional law on gender parity in the labour market registered a smaller evolution in Italy than in Europe and in the rest of Western countries, so that the present Italian primary laws are somehow more backward than they used to be 60 years ago. The European Union, however ,is pushing...