Cecilia Susanna Jona-Lasinio

Italy's Decline: Getting the Facts Right

The Italian economy is often said to be on a declining path. In this paper, we document that: (i) Italy’s current decline is a labor productivity problem (ii) the labor productivity slowdown stems from declining productivity growth in all industries but utilities (with manufacturing contributing for about one half of the reduction) and diminished interindustry reallocation of workers from agriculture to market services; (iii) the labor productivity slowdown has been mostly driven by declining TFP, with roughly unchanged capital deepening. The only mild decline of capital deepening is due to the rise in the value added share of capital that counteracted declining capital accumulation.

Sectoral Determinants and Dynamics of ICT Investment in Italy

Many measures of the impact of Information and Comunication Technology (ICT) on growth have been provided for the United States; much fewer analyses have been proposed for European countries, due also to scarcity of disaggregated data. In this paper we make use of very detailed sectoral data for Italy to study both the aggregate evolution and the sectoral diffusion of ICT investment expenditure during the 1990s. In the aggregate we find that the 1992 recession strongly halted ICT investment, and only in 1999 the Italian economy recovered the same rate of ICT capital formation. Second, mixed evidence on diffusion is shown by the sectoral expenditure on ICT capital goods: although the ICT fraction of total investment has increased in all the relevant macro-sectors (industry, commerce and advances services), the number of total sectors investing in ICT has not risen between 1992 and 2000. Finally, an econometric analysis of sectoral ICT determination shows that, besides capital intensity and interest rates, R&D expenditure is a strong predictor of ICT investment expenditure. Hence, since R&D-intensive sectors are usually associated with the highest growth potential, ICT expenditure by those sectors may trigger a virtuous growth dynamics.

Intangibles, ICT and industry productivity growth: evidence from the EU

We set out intangible investment data by industry for 14 EU countries in 1995-2010 and industry growth accounting incorporating these data for 8 countries. We find: (a) intangible investment has grown in manufacturing and services, but most strongly in services (b) the contribution of intangibles to labour productivity growth is similar in both manufacturing and services and in the high growth economies (Austria, Germany, Finland, France, Netherlands, UK) exceeds the contribution of labour quality (c) the very large size of the service sector means that countries with good manfacturing but poor service productivity growth (Germany and France) have done relatively badly overall and those with good service sector growth (UK, Netherlands) have performed well (d) Spain and Itay have very low labour productivity growth due to very low TFP growth.

Searching for the Determinants of IT Investment: Panel Data Evidence on European Countries

The aim of this paper is to identify the stage of IT adoption in individual European economies, and to analyse the determinants of IT investment in a panel of EU countries. We first analyse the dynamics of IT investment expenditure in 15 European countries from 1992 until 2001 and, by means of a cluster analysis, we draw a picture of IT diffusion in Europe. By clustering the European countries according to their shares of IT spending over GDP, we identify three fairly stable groups of fast, medium and slow adopters. We then build an econometric equation of the determinants of IT investment to be estimated with panel data for five European economies over 1980-2001. We consider both aggregate IT investment, and investment in hardware or software taken alone. Financial conditions, income growth and comparative advantage turn out to affect IT investment, but we find that the determinants of hardware investment only partially overlap with those of software.

Public intangibles: the public sector and economic growth in the SNA

In this paper we present the theoretical framework for analysis of public and non-prot sectors as developed under the SPINTAN (FP-7) project. A specic

Intangible Assets and Productivity Growth Differentials Across EU Economies: The Role of ICT and R&D

We analyze productivity growth differentials across the EU in the perspective of intangible, as well as tangible, capital accumulation. Based on a new international dataset on intangibles, we identify three main EU regions corresponding to the Northern area, Central Europe and the Mediterranean area. We find that intangible capital accumulation has strongly contributed to labor productivity growth in the best performing European economies/regions. Moreover, we find evidence that intangible capital accumulation, especially in software and R&D, is associated with spillover effects.

New Technologies and the Growth of Capital Services: A Sensitivity Analysis for the Italian Economy over 1980–2003

Productivity measurement and analysis are the main topics addressed in this book, which is the result of the contributions presented and discussed in two international workshops organized by the Statistics Directorate and the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) of the OECD. The first workshop was organized jointly by the OECD with Fundaccion BBVA and the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas and held in Madrid in October 2005, and the second one was organized jointly by the OECD and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office and the State Secretary for Economic Affairs of Switzerland and held in Bern in October 2006. The two workshops brings together representatives of statistical offices, central banks and other branches of government in OECD countries that are engaged in the analysis and the measurement of productivity developments at aggregate and industry levels.The outstanding progress in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) witnessed in the past decade seems to have had a remarkable role in fostering economic growth both in developed and developing countries (Vu, 2004). However measuring and assessing the impact of ICT on economic growth is still a challenging task for most economies. The developments of the new economy have raised many essential questions about the measurement of intangible assets and high-technology capital. Indeed the answer to these questions can lead to better assessment of the economy’s long run pace of economic growth and rate of technological advance. The standard neoclassical approach provides a comprehensive and consistent framework to capital measurement (OECD, 2001a and b) and allows several possibilities about the choice of different depreciation patterns, effi ciency decay profi les and rate of returns. But the identifi cation of the most appropriate measure of capital services (to be used in productivity analysis) requires a sensitivity analysis to test the responsiveness of capital input to the above different assumptions. In this paper, we illustrate the methodology adopted by the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in calculating capital input for productivity measure and we address the following issues: How much sensitive is the measure of capital services to different age-effi ciency and age-price profi les? What is the infl uence of different rates of return (exogenous versus endogenous)? Do ICT and Non-ICT capital services react in a different way to the assumptions on age-effi ciency and age-price profi les? And on different rates of returns? And fi nally, what is the contribution of technological assets to the growth of capital services? Here we provide some evidence for the Italian economy over 1980–2003 at the aggregate and industry level for a detailed asset type classifi cation system. Our main fi ndings are: i) the various measures of capital services do not differ substantially with respect to the choice of

Produttività, nuove tecnologie e divari regionali in Italia

The requirements of the current “knowledge-based economy” and the contribution of Information and Communication Technology (Ict) to socio-economic change are very likely to have a significant impact upon regional differentials in the European Union. So far, however, it is rather unclear whether the new paradigm will spur greater socioeconomic cohesion or, on the contrary, stronger territorial polarisation. This paper focuses on the distribution of Italian Ict – producing small and medium enterprises and on the relationship between some structural variables – regional location and industrial sector – and labour productivity levels. The aim is to shed some light on the role that Tic productions might have with respect to the regional divide of the Italian economy, traditionally among the most striking in the European area.