Italy's overall GDP growth has been dismal in recent years and this poor performance has been compounded by a declining trend in productivity growth. This paper looks into growth accounting and structural indicators and analyses Italy's performance against other European countries. We look at...

Italy's overall GDP growth has been dismal in recent years and this poor performance has been compounded by a declining trend in labour productivity and total factor productivity growth. This paper looks into growth accounting and structural indicators and analyses Italy's performance against...

In light of the uncertainty of the effects of population ageing on growth and fiscal variables, it is sensible to ask whether Italy's public finances can achieve sustainability under the spending pressure exerted by future demographic and macroeconomic developments. The paper addresses this...

This paper focuses on two apparent puzzles for the Italian economy: i) How can an extremely poor performance in productivity growth be compatible with strong employment growth?; and ii) How can a sharp decline in competitiveness come along with higher export prices and a general situation for...

Targets can be very useful in policymaking within the context of the Lisbon Strategy, but they need to be used in accordance with certain criteria. In particular, there should be intermediate targets in place that directly affect final policy goals, and are easy to measure and monitor. Moreover,...

As a result of global trends in the financial industry, European financial markets are in the midst of a major transformation, and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is acting as a primary catalyst for such change. Over time financial integration will provide European markets with sufficient...

We provide evidence that the movements in yield differentials between euro zone government bonds explained by changes in international risk factors – as measured by banking and corporate risk premiums in the United States – are more pronounced for bonds issued by Italy and Spain. Liquidity...

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This paper presents the comparative-static national disaggregate Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Italian economy, ORANI-IT, which represents the starting point to the development of a tax CGE model of Italy. The model, designed at the Department of Treasury of the Italian...

In this paper we study the potential effects on the Italian economy of various reform packages in the spirit of the Europe 2020 strategy. By using the version adapted for Italy of the endogenous growth model developed by the DG ECFIN for economic policy evaluation (QUEST III with R&D), through...