The paper provides an econometric analysis of the aggregate saving function of Italian households in the vein of the life cycle theory. Results from an ECM representation based on yearly data for 1951-1998 point to depressive effects on private consumption of recent reforms of social security,...

The volume collects the essays presented at the 15th Workshop on Public Finance organised by Banca d'Italia in Perugia from 4 to 6 April 2013. The workshop focused on the link between fiscal policy and macroeconomic imbalances and comprised four sessions. The first session concentrated on the...

In this paper we study the effects of fiscal policies on current consumption, distinguishing between Keynesian effects (KE), due to changes in current disposable income, and non-Keynesian effects (NE), due to expected changes in future disposable income. The literature has argued that permanent...

Women�s labor force participation is lowest in Italy among the OECD countries. Moreover, the participation rate of married women is positively correlated with their husbands' income. We show that high tax rates together with tax credits and transfers raise the burden for two-earner...

In this paper, I investigate the characteristics of house price dynamics for a sample of 16 emerging economies from Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, over the period 1995-2011. Linking housing valuations to a set of conventional fundamental determinants � relative to both the supply and...

In this paper we show that long-run expectations about future housing prices of both households and, especially, financial intermediaries had a large impact on households' indebtedness during the recent boom in U.S. housing prices. We introduce the theory of natural expectations in a...

This paper analyses aggregate household wealth in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US. Building on a new data set for the time span 1980-2011, we discuss the trends in household financial assets in the last thirty years, the reasons for differences across countries,...

The paper investigates the opinions of Italian families on the advisability and the possibility of saving. The analysis was carried out using the monthly micro-data underlying the Italian consumer survey conducted by Isae up to 2010 and by Istat thereafter. The results show that in recent years...

This paper analyses the macroeconomic effects of a protracted period of low and falling inflation rates when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates and the private sector is indebted in nominal terms (debt-deflation channel). In this scenario, even...

This paper investigates trends in Italian households� saving and wealth in the last twenty years, with a special emphasis on the period immediately following the financial crisis in 2008. The analysis is based on data from the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth (1991-2010). The...