This paper studies the effects of fiscal policy on private GDP, inflation and the long-term interest rate in Italy using a structural vector autoregression model. To this end, a database of quarterly cash data for selected fiscal variables for the period 1982:1-2004:4 is constructed, largely...

An extensive literature analyses the impact of upper-tier transfers on the spending behaviour of lower level governments. According to the median voter framework, a transfer from the centre should act as a lump sum grant to residents and thus be spent by jurisdictions in the same proportion as...

This paper investigates whether a public sector premium exists after controlling for observable characteristics and for additional motivations, other than monetary, that may induce workers to prefer employment in the public sector. We study the entire conditional wage distribution on Italian...

We evaluate the public-private wage differential in ten euro area countries for men in the period 2004-2007. Using the most recent methodologies on a Mincerian equation, we assess how much of the pay differential between public and private sector workers depends on differences in endowments and...

We test whether the sharp increase in sovereign spreads of euro area countries with respect to Germany after the explosion of the Greek crisis was due to deteriorating macroeconomic and fiscal fundamentals or to some form of financial contagion. Our analysis includes indicators of domestic and...

The capability of a country's public sector to provide high-quality goods and services in a cost-effective way is crucial to fostering long-term growth. In this paper we study the determinants of public service efficiency (PSE) and in particular the role of citizens' political values. Indeed, we...

Why do some states default on their debt more often than others? We argue that sovereign default is the outcome of a political struggle among different groups of citizens. It is more likely to happen if: (i) domestic debt-holders are relatively weak; (ii) the political costs of the financial...

We study the effects of fiscal policy on macroeconomic developments in Italy over the period 1982-2010 with a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model. We include public debt and impose the government budget constraint in the estimation. In contrast with previous research we also include...

Whether discretionary fiscal policies in industrialized countries act counter- or pro-cyclically and whether their reaction is symmetric or asymmetric over the cycle are still largely unsettled questions. This uncertainty remains even when attention is restricted to euro-area countries, where...