This Paper is the result of the Bank of Italy-CEPR project to construct a monthly coincident indicator of the business cycle of the euro area. The index is estimated on the basis of a harmonized data set of monthly statistics of the euro area (951 series) which we constructed from a variety of...

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 reviews the main macroeconomic trends and the debate on policy priorities in Italy since the end of the Nineties. In the decade up to the outbreak of the global crisis (1998-2007), in Italy the reform process came to a virtual standstill; this is partly due to the fragmentation of the...

This paper describes recent developments in the Italian industrial system and investigates the main factors affecting its competitiveness. Our analysis provides a picture of widespread weaknesses. Production levels in all industries are lower than those before the crisis; with the exception of...

This paper reviews the main macroeconomic trends and the debate on policy priorities in Italy since the advent of EMU. It argues that, in the decade up to the outbreak of the global crisis (1998-2007), in Italy the reform process came to a virtual standstill and fiscal policy was inconsistent...

The aim of the paper is to estimate a reliable quarterly time-series of potential output for the Italian economy,exploiting four alternative approaches: a Bayesian unobserved component method, a univariate time-varying autoregressive model, a production function approach and a structural VAR....

This paper proposes a comparative analysis of the main macroeconomic aggregates (both real and credit aggregates) and the monetary policy response during the most severe recessions experienced by the Italian economy. This descriptive study focuses mainly on the last forty years, a period for...

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...