Suchergebnisse

This paper provides evidence of the impact of three important and general policies shaping the degree of labor market rigidity on the labor share: welfare expenditures, government expenditures on active labor market programs, and passive labor market measures. It analyzes the impact of regulation, such as the intensity of employment protection, and evaluates whether trade unions and minimum wage institutions play a role in the relationship between all measures and the labor share. The labor income share has experienced a declining trend since the mid-1970s in most advanced economies, and the existing literature found little if no correlation of this decline to general labor market characteristics. However, the present paper finds that some institutions are correlated to the downward trend, depending on the welfare system adopted, and that welfare and employment protection counteract the decline. Moreover, many countries saw an upsurge in their labor share after the burst of the financial crisis. Evidence of whether the effect of the policies weakened or reinforced the labor share after 2007 is reported.

Spagnolo: El llamado como "smartworking", "trabajo inteligente" o en España trabajo a distancia ha sido propugnado por el Gobierno italiano como un instrumento de conciliación durante la pandemia, primero a través del Decreto "Cura Italia" del 17 de marzo de 2020 y luego con el Decreto "Rilancio" del 19 de mayo del mismo año. Sin embargo, la evidencia cuestiona algunos de los objetivos de la Directiva de la Unión Europea n. 2019/1158, sobre conciliación de la vida familiar y la vida profesional de los progenitores y los cuidadores. Existe el riesgo de instaurar una "teoría de la doble carga de trabajo" o "doble turno", que aumentaría la desigualdad de género y exacerbaría los roles convencionales de género. A través del presente trabajo se cuestiona la evidencia disponible sobre los fenómenos de distribución del llamado "trabajo inteligente" y las tareas domésticas entre hombres y mujeres en hogares italianos durante las dos fases de la pandemia del Covid-19 en Italia. De los hechos resultantes y del análisis crítico de las regulaciones más recientes se alcanzan algunas conclusiones al respecto en el presente trabajo. Inglese: Smartworking has been invoked by the Italian government as a work-life balance instrument during the pandemics, first through the "Cura Italia" decree on March 17, 2020 and later on with the "Rilancio" decree on May 19. However, evidence questions some of the objectives of the EC Dir. n. 2019/1158, not yet in force. There is a risk to instate a "theory of double work load" or "double shift", which would increase gender disparity and exacerbate gender conventional roles. We discuss available evidence on the phenomena of smart working and domestic duties distribution among men and women in Italian households during the two phases of Covid-19 pandemics in Italy. From the resulting stylized facts and by discussing the most recent regulations, we draw some implications.

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of severe material deprivation (SMD) in relation to socio-economic characteristics of Italian and Spanish households. Italy and Spain have registered very different shares of severe material deprivation (households that cannot afford a minimum acceptable way of life, which is a social exclusion problem) since the 2008–2009 economic crisis, despite having similar experiences of poverty as measured in monetary terms. The analysis divides SMD into low-severe (basic or secondary or financial deprivations), medium-severe (when household suffer of two categories of deprivation) and acute-severe (when households suffer from all deprivations) and finds many interesting features associated with these categories. For example, temporary work does not shield a household from acute SMD, especially in the south of both countries, and maximum work intensity does not protect against financial distress in Italy and the Spanish South. These findings should stimulate policymakers, as local policies are needed to alleviate social exclusion.

Abstract
In the light of recent policies aiming at raising the computer literacy of young generations and at reducing the digital divide, this paper analyzes to what extent the probability of an individual having computer abilities is affected by the computer skills of her household's other members, i.e. if there are significant within household peer effects. We show how peer effects can be identified when skills are measured with a continuous variable and the learning costs are increasing and convex. Our application on a sample of Italian households indicates that peer abilities within a family significantly increase the individual probability of being skilled.

AbstractThe demographic challenge of the ageing population in European countries needs to be assessed in terms of sustainability and effectiveness of public policies improving the quality of life of the elderly. The European Commission has monitored the quality of life in European cities since 2004 through a survey on citizens' perception of their liveability. Given that the assessment of life quality embeds a multitude of positive and negative aspects, we develop a composite indicator that we call the senior liveability index (SLI) to rank the performance of cities, monitor the rank changes over time and explore possible reasons.

AbstractThis article reports estimates of the impact of service regulation reform on the productivity of French and Italian firms in retail, transports and professional services over the period 1998–2007. We implement a two‐stage least squares estimation: the first‐stage instruments mark‐ups, a financial measure of rents, with barriers to entry and the second stage estimates the impact of instrumented mark‐ups on total factor productivity (TFP), a real measure of firm efficiency. We find that entry barriers lower firm productivity by raising mark‐ups and rents. These estimates imply that, if French and Italian regulators had adopted the OECD best practices in terms of entry barriers, firms in these sectors would have increased their TFP level by five percentage points. We do not find any robust evidence of a non‐linear relation between mark‐up and productivity.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether several groups of European countries are on track for real "conditional" economic convergence in per capita income and the likely speed of convergence. The paper focusses also on the changes of the convergence processes over time.


Design/methodology/approach
Unlike the simple "absolute convergence", it explores the concept of "conditional" or "club" convergence. Moreover, it adopts the approach of extending the univariate model to take into account the panel dimension over an extended time interval and endogeneity.


Findings
A process of real economic convergence has characterised the period under investigation (1995–2016), but, in general, the size and significance of the parameter is greater for the wide European Union (EU) area (EU25 and above) rather than the Eurozone (EZ). However, the crises occurred after 2008 caused most of such lower convergence in the Euro area.


Research limitations/implications
This paper gives an estimate of the speed/time needed to several groups of European countries (EZ, in particular) to achieve real economic convergence. Future research could further develop the "stochastic" convergence concept.


Originality/value
This is an analysis of convergence in enlarging EU and EZ for an extended period (including the big crisis period and the subsequent recovery). It shows that EZ experienced a drop in the speed of real convergence after 2008 and converge at lower speed than the EU. As a consequence, a specific budget for EZ would be important to provide adjustment mechanisms after potentially large shocks.

By focusing on the Italian experience, we ask whether the relationshipbetween labor taxes and unemployment varies across regions. In spite of similar national labor market institutions, we show that this relationship is significantly stronger in the highly industrialized North than in the under-developed South, where unemployment is much higher. An important source of variation in the regional responsiveness of unemployment originates from the fact that regional gross wages in the North increase more than in the South in response to a hike in labor taxes. Regional wage setting affects regional employment (and unemployment) both directly and indirectly, via its impact on regional profits and the capital stock.