This paper presents a unique historical experiment to explore the dynamics of institutional change in the Middle Ages. We have assembled a novel dataset, where information on political institutions for northern-central Italian cities between 1000 and 1300 is matched with detailed information on...

Understanding how public investment affects economic performance in highly indebted low-income countries is crucial in order to implement effective fiscal policies for adjustment with growth. In this paper we provide an empirical analysis to investigate the relationship between public...

According to Mark Roe, politics influences corporate governance. The separation between control and ownership is only possible when there is a low “degree of social democracy”. By contrast, systems, characterised by strong employees’ rights, are necessarily balanced by strong and...

Traditional trade theory maintains that international economic integration always yields potential welfare benefits. This result can however be maintained only in a world bereft of its institutional and cultural dimensions. In this paper we show that, once institutional factors are introduced,...

We examine the dynamic behaviour of unemployment rates by gender and of the gender unemployment gap over the 1992–2009 period by Italian regions. The results from unit root tests with unknown structural breaks indicate that the gender unemployment gap has narrowed in most cases. However, the...

The current account-interest rate relationship has been extensively investigated, but always assuming that it is linear. In this paper we examine the linearity versus nonlinearity issue with reference to this relationship in 11 OECD countries, and find overwhelming evidence in favour of...

In this paper, we estimate the urban wage premia (UWP) in Italy, with its economy characterized by the interplay between collective bargaining and spatial heterogeneity in the cost of living. We implement a reduced-form regression analysis using both nominal and real (in temporal and spatial...

In this paper, we estimate nominal and real (in temporal and spatial terms) urban wage premia (UWP) in Italy, with its economy characterized by the interplay between collective wage bargaining and spatial heterogeneity in the cost of living. Our dataset for the 2005-2015 period includes, for...

We address two seemingly unrelated empirical anomalies: the remarkable historical persistence of cultural and institutional differences affecting production and distribution even among nations and regions engaged in extensive trading, and the shortcomings of the standard model that predicts...

In this paper, we estimate nominal and real (in temporal and spatial terms) urban wage premia (UWP) in Italy, with its economy characterized by the interplay between collective wage bargaining and spatial heterogeneity in the cost of living. Our dataset for the 2005- 2015 period includes, for...