1,720,980 research outputs found
Innovations, profits and wages
No full textThis paper investigates the dynamics of wages and profits and the influence
innovation strategies have on them. The relationships between innovation,
productivity, and distribution are modeled and estimated by employing panel
data techniques. Two European innovation surveys (1994–96 and 1998–2000)
are used with data at both the country and industry levels. Innovation is found
to have positive effects on income dynamics beyond the role it has on productivity
gains; it may weaken the distribution constraint posed by the competition
between profits and wages. Profits are driven by both the Schumpeterian effects
of new products and the diffusion effects of new technologies and production
processes. Wages tend to grow faster in sectors where innovation expenditure is
higher, but the factors affecting wages are different for high- and low-innovation
sectors, suggesting that two contrasting models of technological and price
competitiveness have important distributional implications
Predicting the spread of COVID-19 in Italy using machine learning. Do socio-economic factors matter?
No full textWe exploit the provincial variability of COVID-19 cases registered in Italy to select the territorial predictors of the pandemic. Absent an established theoretical diffusion model, we apply machine learning to isolate, among 77 potential predictors, those that minimize the out-of-sample prediction error. We first estimate the model considering cumulative cases registered before the containment measures displayed their effects (i.e. at the peak of the epidemic in March 2020), then cases registered between the peak date and when containment measures were relaxed in early June. In the first estimate, the results highlight the dominance of factors related to the intensity and interactions of economic activities. In the second, the relevance of these variables is highly reduced, suggesting mitigation of the pandemic following the lockdown of the economy. Finally, by considering cases at onset of the “second wave”, we confirm that the territorial distribution of the epidemic is associated with economic factors
Confidence swings and sovereign risk dynamics
No full textThis study investigates the time-varying determinants of Italian sovereign risk using a Markov-switching structural vector autoregression, estimated on 1990–2018 monthly data. Sign restrictions are used for identification, and allow macroeconomic fundamentals and confidence-related factors to be characterized as separate and regime-dependent drivers of risk. We show that the latter becomes relevant during a crisis regime, when a negative confidence shock triggers demand-like macroeconomic disruptions, and sharp increases in sovereign spreads. Changes in fundamentals, that is, fiscal, supply and demand shocks, are unable to directly explain episodes of sovereign risk surges. Counterfactual simulations highlight the prevailing role of regime-dependent dynamics, where confidence switches tend to characterize the historical evolution of sovereign risk premia and reversals in spreads cyclicality
Se molte imprese non fanno distretto: una indagine empirica, “Quaderni di economia regionale"
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Il nuovo modello di previsione dei flussi del mercato del lavoro FGB-MDL: aspetti di metodo e di struttura
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Real rigidities, productivity improvements and investment dynamics
No full textThe theoretical literature on business cycles predicts a positive investment response to productivity improvements, a prediction we question from theoretical and empirical perspectives. We show that a short-term negative response of investment to a positive technology shock is consistent with a reasonably parameterized new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model in which firm-specific capital introduces an additional real rigidity, and monetary policy is not fully accommodative. Employing Bayesian techniques, we provide evidence that permanent productivity improvements have short-term, contractionary effects on investment. Although this result can be obtained from both firm-specific and rental capital models, only in the case of the former is the average price duration in line with the microeconometric evidence. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
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