This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency...

This paper analyses proficiency in literacy and numeracy in the countries that have participated in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS, administered between 1994 and 1998), the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL, administered between 2003 and 2007) and the Survey of Adult...

This paper exploits data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) to shed light on the link between measured cognitive skills (proficiency), (formal) educational attainment and labour market outcomes. After presenting descriptive statistics on the degree of dispersion in the distributions of...

This paper studies the relevance of the different factors that influence, at the territorial level, efficiency in the market for public infrastructures in Italy.

The 1993 Income Policy Agreements (concertazione) reformed wage setting institutions in Italy. This change introduced a relevant ability in absorbing macroeconomic shocks and a curb in inflation- ary expectations, at the cost of stagnant aggregate real wages. The firm-level wage premia remained...

This paper proposes a taxonomy of the main regional transport infrastructure indicators available in Italy and discusses the principal merits and limitations of each of them. The indexes show scant correlation and may offer contrasting data on the infrastructure endowment of a given area. As a...

<em>Competition and transparency in public procurement: a survey</em> - Italy suffers of a chronic lack of modern infrastructures. The market for public works is as a whole not transparent and inefficient in terms of costs and time of completion of the works; greater competition could improve the...

Compared with other European countries, the Italian labour market stands out for the low level of both female participation and fertility. In this paper we focus on the employment patterns of Italian mothers around the time of childbirth. Our hypothesis is that the difficulties involved in...