We estimate the effect of weather shocks on yield of corn, durum wheat, and grapevine using two-way fixed effect models on Italian province-level panel data at the annual frequency. Our estimates reveal substantial non-linearity in the effect of temperature on agricultural yields, in line with...

This paper argues that the lack of timely and decisive policy action to correct domestic and external imbalances contributed crucially to the build-up of financial excesses that led to the financial crisis and the Great Recession. We focus on 2002-07 and perform a number of counterfactual...

Technological progress in finance has been accelerating over the last decade. In the future, it is likely that financial intermediaries may undergo significant challenges as regards their traditional business model and functions, since an increasing share of payments may be settled without...

The paper summarizes the debate about the proposed introduction of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). We place the CBDC in the wider context of the different types of money used in market economies. We explore the most important ideas on why economic agents use money, on the history of...

We study how the timing of technology adoption through capital accumulation shapes firm-level productivity dynamics and quantify its aggregate implications in a model of heterogeneous firms. Using data on the census of incorporated Italian firms and exploiting the lumpiness of capital...

The paper compares the quality of Italian Medical schools’ freshmen on the basis of the scores obtained in the locally conducted entry exams which are using a common national test frame. The test is quite selective (partly because of the reduced size of the intake yearly allowed): winners are...

The Economy of the Italian Regions in the year 2005 analyzes the evolution of production, labour market, financial aggregates and regional public finances in the four main Italian territorial areas. Topics analyzed focus on structural change in the Italian economy; trends in Mezzogiorno's...