We show that the Italian wage curve, inexistent in the eighties and early nineties, has reemerged after the 1993 Income Policy Agreement, owing to the greater role granted to flexible and locally bargained top-up wage components.

We examine whether Italian household consumption exhibits excess sensitivity to "severance pay", a sizable lump-sum that workers receive at job termination. We find no evidence of excess sensitivity of non-durable expenditure to this anticipated cash-in-hand change.