We propose a joint dating of the Italian business and credit cycle on a historical horizon, by applying a local turning-point dating algorithm to the level of the variables. Along with short cycles, corresponding to traditional business cycle fluctuations, we also investigate medium cycles,...

In this paper we investigate the relation between population, wages and urban population in the Italian economy. During the period examined, 1320-1870, the prevailing conditions were those of a poor, mainly agricultural economy with limited human capital and rudimentary technology. However,...

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the...

The recent fears of a sovereign debt crisis have spurred interest in the sustainability of public debt. There are two different approaches to the assessment of sustainability: the use of sustainability gap indicators (Blanchard et al., 1990) and the time series approach (Trehan and Walsh, 1988)....

Informal firms play a crucial role in both developing and developed countries, and there is evidence of a larger presence of moonlighting firms over ghost firms. The former are firms that operate simultaneously in the official and unofficial sectors, whereas the ghost firms undertake their...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the sustainability of public debt in Italy during the last 150 years (1861-2010) by employing a database containing several statistical novelties: new time series estimates of public debt and GDP (respectively Bank of Italy and Baffigi, 2011) and an original...

The financial crises of 2007-2008 and the subsequent worldwide recession show the importance of exploring the correlation between financial and real crises. Starting from our new estimation of the Italian business cycle (Bartoletto et al., 2017), we analyze the linkage between banking crises and...

This paper examines the impact of tax evasion on criminal activities in Italy. Specifically, we consider three types of crime that are related to economic determinants: property crimes (including robbery, theft and car theft), fraud and usury. We estimate a dynamic panel using annual data from...

This paper examines the role of tax evasion in explaining the business cycle in a DSGE model with a financial accelerator. For this purpose, we assume that financially constrained agents are tax evaders, taking advantage of an additional margin of flexibility in coping with adverse shocks. In...

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the...