This paper proposes a strategy to increase the efficiency of forecast combination. Given the availability of a wide range of forecasts for the same variable of interest, our goal is to apply combining methods to a restricted set of models. With this aim, a hierarchical procedure based on an...

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...

In recent years, in Italy, the analysis of economic disparities at a regional level received much attention. In spite of this, improvements in quantitative analyses have not been adequately supported by new data releases. Adopting a procedure firstly developed by Di Fonzo [21], Italian main...

The aim of this paper is to test the claim that social protection is a luxury good. Therefore, GDP elasticity of selected social protection expenditure is estimated using a new econometric approach developed first by Kao and Chiang (Advances in Econometrics, 15, 179-222, 2000). Time series...