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...

The purpose of this paper is for the first time to use Business Tendency Survey data, first, to identify new facts that are useful for the interpretation of the decline in the volatility of real activity in the Euro area, and, second, to test the inventory management hypothesis as an explanation...