Roberta Zizza

Vertical Specialisation in Europe: Evidence from the Import Content of Exports

We use input-output tables to estimate the import content (IC) of exports for several European countries, interpreting this as a measure of internationalisation. Between 1995 and 2000 the IC grew everywhere but in France; the transport equipment sector emerged as the most internationalised one. The change we detect for a set of EMU countries is remarkable when compared with previous estimates over the 20-year period between 1970 and 1990. Italy and Germany showed very different patterns, although both started from a very low level of IC. Italy experienced the weakest growth and Germany the most sizeable rise. We argue that Italian firms might have felt less pressured to transform their organisation due to the delayed effects of the 1992 and 1995 Lira crises.

Dropping the Books and Working Off the Books

The paper empirically tests the relationship between underground labour and schooling achievement for Italy; a country ranking badly in both respects when compared to other high-income economies, with a marked duality between North and South. In order to identify underground workers; we exploit the information on individuals social security positions available from the Bank of Italys Survey on Household Income and Wealth. After controlling for a wide range of socio-demographic and economic variables and addressing potential endogeneity and selection issues, we show that a low level of education sizeably and significantly increases the probability of working underground. Switching from completing compulsory school to graduating at college more than halves this probability for both men and women. The gain is slightly higher for individuals completing the compulsory track with respect to those having no formal education at all. The different probabilities found for self-employed and dependent workers support the view of a dual informal sector, in which necessity and desirability coexist.

Capital, Labour and Productivity: What Role Do They Play in the Potential Gpd Weakness of France, Germany and Italy?

The paper analyses the recent supply side developments in France, Germany, and Italy by employing a non-parametric approach to estimate potential GDP. The analysis reveals marked heterogeneity among the three countries with regard to the contribution made by labour input. Where similarities can be found, however, are in the slowdown of accumulation activity and in the pronounced worsening of total factor productivity. The paper is rounded out by estimates of some measures of wage pressures and of profitability in order to assess the role played by the movements of relative input prices in the intensity of use of primary factors in the production process.

The Underground Economy and the Credit Market

In this paper we measure the impact of underground activities on financial deepening. Access to external finance requires entrepreneurs to disclose credible information through formal documentation. This may be impossible for many informal producers who lack a proper book-keeping system for their operations. For the same reason irregular workers may find it difficult to borrow in order to finance consumption and house purchases. Using a panel of data on Italian regional credit markets we find a strong negative correlation between outstanding credit to the private sector and the share of irregular employment. According to our estimates, a shift of 1 per cent of employees from regular to irregular work is accompanied by a decline of about 2 percentage points in business lending and of 0.2 percentage points in outstanding credit to households, both expressed as a ratio to GDP. Conversely, the feedback effects from financial deepening to the size of the informal sector are weak and not statistically significant.

Wages and Prices in Italy During the Crisis: The Firms’ Perspective

Following the two surveys carried out in 2007 and 2009 on firms’ price and wage setting practices, in June 2013 the ESCB’s Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) conducted a third survey aimed at assessing, through a harmonised questionnaire, the most important transformations under way in the national labour markets. This paper documents the results of the survey carried out in Italy. The sovereign debt crisis severely hit the Italian economy, causing a collapse in demand, increased uncertainty and difficulties in accessing external finance. Firms responded by decreasing labour input (adjusting both the intensive and the extensive margins) more often than wages. However, wage-setting practices were also affected by the new economic landscape: the percentage of workers employed in firms enacting wage freezes or cuts has steadily increased since 2010, reaching 17% of the total workforce in the sectors considered in 2013. Furthermore, a large share of companies have adapted their pricing strategy to the new economic environment; the frequency of price adjustments has increased, mainly as a reaction to stronger competition.

A measure of output gap for Italy through structural time series models

Abstract The aim of this paper is to achieve a reliable estimate of the output gap for Italy through the development of several models within the class of the unobserved component time series models. These formulations imply the decomposition of output into a trend component (the ‘potential output’) and a cycle component (the ‘output gap’). Both univariate and multivariate methods will be explored. In the former, only one measure of aggregate activity, such as GDP, is considered; in the latter, unemployment and industrial production are introduced. A comparison with alternative measures of output gap, mainly those published by international organisations, will conclude.

Le donne e l'economia italiana (Women and the Italian Economy)

I divari di genere sul mercato del lavoro, ai vertici delle imprese, nelle retribuzioni restano significativi in Italia. Nel lavoro, che sintetizza i principali risultati di un progetto di ricerca volto a individuare gli effetti economici e le principali cause di tali divari, vengono discusse alcune evidenze relative ai differenziali salariali, ai divari nei vertici e nell’accesso al credito. Tra le cause dei persistenti divari vengono individuati sia fattori di offerta (da parte delle donne), sia di domanda (da parte del mercato del lavoro). Tra i primi rilevano la scarsità di strumenti di conciliazione e l’organizzazione del lavoro, ancora poco flessibile; per alcuni aspetti, anche l’istruzione. Tra i secondi rilevano le componenti culturali e fenomeni di discriminazione “implicita�?, per cui vengono premiate sul mercato del lavoro caratteristiche più diffuse tra gli uomini, sebbene non rilevanti per il lavoro svolto. Si discutono inoltre alcune delle politiche volte a ridurre i divari: la normativa nazionale e le politiche regionali; gli incentivi all’imprenditoria femminile; una tassazione che non scoraggi il lavoro femminile. Gender gaps in the labour market, in boardrooms and in wages are still significant in Italy. This paper, which summarizes the main results of a research project aimed at identifying the economic consequences of these gaps and their main causes, presents some evidence regarding wage differentials, differences in the gender composition of boards and differentials in access to credit. The causes of these persistent gaps are found both in labour supply and demand factors. Among the former we count the dearth of policies and programmes to reconcile work and family commitments and the lack of flexibility in the workplace; education is also relevant in some respects. Among the latter, we include cultural factors and “implicit�? discrimination, i.e. when the labour market rewards traits more commonly found in men even when they have no bearing on specific job requirements. Some policies to narrow gender gaps are discussed: national and regional legislation; subsidies for female entrepreneurship; a tax system that does not discourage female labour supply.