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

The availability of a flexible labour force might influence adjustment decisions regarding the rigid part of the labour force. To test this idea, we contrast the use of trainees (fixed-term contracts) and normal-contract workers (open-end contracts) when a reform made it more costly to use...

We provide a general characterization of diffusion processes, allowing to analyze both risk-sharing and contagion at the same time. We show that interdependencies are beneficial when the economic environment is favorable, and detrimental when the economic environment deteriorates. The risk of...

In Italy, about 28% of young males starting their first job in the private sector during 1989-1993 left their jobs in the first two years; some of them experienced job to job transitions but the majority of them experienced long jobless periods. A number of empirical studies suggest that the...

Questo articolo stima le probabilità di entrare e uscire dallo stato di povertà (poverty dynamics) e la sua persistenza in Italia negli anni ‘90, attingendo dalle fonti longitudinali dello European Community Household Panel, 1994-2001. Combinando le stime dei tassi di uscita con quelli di...

Starting from Adam Smith's intuition, compensating wage differentials are one of the most widespread explanation to describe why agents should bear occupational risk of injury and death. For nearly thirty years, economists have attempted to and empirical evidence on such wage differentials...

We make the point that a flexible specification of spousal preferences and household production technology precludes the possibility of using revealed preference data on household time allocations to determine the manner in which spouses interact. Under strong, but standard, assumptions...

We offer a rationale for elections that take place in the shadow of power. Factions unhappy with policy can threaten violence. But when they lack common knowledge about (i) one another's rationality, and (ii) their chances of victory at arms, mutual overconfidence can precipitate civil war. We...