Interaction between economic and financial development

This paper presents a model of financial and economic development which assumes the consumption of real resources by the financial sector. Financial development occurs endogenously as the economy reaches a critical threshold of economic development. Compared to financial autarky, financial intermediaries allocate savings, net of their costs of operation, to more productive investments. Whenever the technology financed by intermediaries is more capital-intensive than that operated in financial autarky, the growth effect of financial development is ambiguous. As a result, financial development may be unsustainable. However, when financial development is sustainable, the credit market becomes more competitive and more efficient over time, and this could eventually contribute to economic growth. Nonetheless, given monopolistic competition in the financial sector, the level of entry into the credit market is generally inefficient. For instance, with diminishing returns to specialisation, entrants might be too few at the early stages of economic development and too many later on.     

The emergence of career boundaries in unbounded industries: career odysseys in the Italian New Economy

The main objective of this research1 was to study boundaries to the ‘boundaryless career’ in a novel context. Our empirical study focused on career paths leading top managers to enter emergent firms. We collected data on professional histories of a sample of top managers who operated in firms listed at the ‘Nuovo Mercato’ (New Market), the Italian equivalent of the NASDAQ. We demonstrate the existence of two major kinds of boundaries: competence-based (in the form of industry boundaries) and relation-based (in the form of professional network boundaries). A second objective of our research was to identify dominant individual career logics and to connect different career logics to the boundaryless career concept. Our data reveal the dominance of the evolutionary career logic.     

Three Decades of Italian Comparative Advantages

This paper explores the structure of Italian revealed comparative advantages (RCA), focusing on the export structure itself, on its changes over time and on its degree of persistence. The analysis is developed with the use of visual statistical tools and non‐parametric statistical techniques that allow to estimate the empirical distribution of the Balassa (1965) index, and to track its dynamics during three decades, from the 1970s to the present. The main results of the analysis are that the structure of Italian RCA is highly persistent, but is changing; the structure is very different when it is examined at a macro‐regional level; the distribution is not so similar to the one of the new industrialised countries, when it is examined at a high level of sectoral disaggregation. Finally, the persistence in the pattern of RCA appears to be positively related to the presence of industrial districts in export data disaggregated at the provincial level.     

International dynamic risk sharing

In this paper we examine the implications of international risk sharing among a set of countries in the presence of market frictions which complicate the instantaneous adjustment to the first‐order conditions. We suggest approximating the consumption streams of countries belonging to the risk sharing coalition in terms of a disequilibrium dynamic model embodying forward‐looking adjustment. Econometric methods for estimating and testing the model are discussed. Empirical analysis of a set of core European countries suggests that once preference parameters are allowed to vary across countries, we are able to identify a group of nations that share risks against idiosyncratic permanent income shocks. The equilibrium position, however, is reached after a long adjustment period. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

摩根士丹利奥运后减速定式不足以左右中国经济走势

本文指出了一种历史定式：二战以来，夏季奥运会举办国的经济增长往往会在奥运会次年受到影响。那么，中国能否打破这种持续了50年的历史定式？尤其是在当前的独特背景之下——美国的经济低迷有可能更加持久。而且，就在奥运火炬熄灭之时，加息和人民币升值的滞后效应恰恰会开始对中国经济产生影响。     

Optimal monetary policy with distinct core and headline inflation rates

In a stylized DSGE model with an energy sector, the optimal policy response to an adverse energy supply shock implies a rise in core inflation, a larger rise in headline inflation, and a decline in wage inflation. The optimal policy is well approximated by policies that stabilize the output gap, but also by a wide array of “dual mandate” policies that are not overly aggressive in stabilizing core inflation. Finally, policies that react to a forecast of headline inflation following a temporary energy shock imply markedly different effects than policies that react to a forecast of core, with the former inducing greater volatility in core inflation and the output gap.     

Poverty traps and intergenerational transfers

In this paper, by adopting an OLG neoclassical growth model, we show that intergenerational transfers may trigger the take off of an economy entrapped into poverty in a twofold way: (1) by eliminating the zero equilibrium, which, under technology with low factor substitutability, is always a “catching” point, so that the economy might start converging to a positive equilibrium. In this case, the appropriate instrument turns out to be a transfer from the old to the young, while there is no room for policies redistributing in the opposite direction (i.e., a pay-as-you-go pension scheme); (2) when the rich equilibrium is unstable—which can be the case under high intertemporal elasticity of substitution of individuals—the introduction of transfers may stabilize such an equilibrium, so that the economy starts converging to it. In the latter case, both policy programs such as pay-as-you-go pension schemes or subsidies to the young may help escaping from poverty. However, we point out that in either circumstance, the “size” of transfers should be sufficiently large (and, as for pensions, not even too large), in order to avoid ineffective and useless burden on the taxpayers without triggering the take off.      

DOES INITIAL ACCESS TO BANK LOANS PREDICT START‐UPS' FUTURE DEFAULT PROBABILITY? EVIDENCE FROM ITALY

In Europe, several countries have established public loan guarantee funds throughout direct/indirect loan programs to facilitate the access of SMEs and start‐ups to bank credit. This paper investigates whether start‐ups' level of access to bank loans during the early stage represents an imprinting factor with effects on the likelihood of survival once the firm reaches maturity. We rely on a firm‐level longitudinal data set of 49,111 Italian startups born from 2003 to 2005. Implementing a 2SLS regression analysis we show that the initial level of start‐up bank debt negatively influences the probability of default controlling for firm characteristics and performance. (JEL G21, M20, H32)     

NONLINEAR INCOME TAXATION AND MATCHING GRANTS IN A FEDERATION WITH DECENTRALIZED IN‐KIND TRANSFERS*

We extend to a fiscal federalism setting the literature on redistributive in‐kind transfers in the presence of nonlinear income taxation. Local governments have a cost advantage, motivating decentralization of the in‐kind transfer. The cost structure varies across regions, and the central government cannot observe which region is which. We show that decentralized in‐kind transfers can, in this setting, be an even more important instrument for relaxing self‐selection constraints, thus, helping redistribution, than in single‐government models. We characterize the optimal marginal tax rates and matching grants. The grants have a very different structure than the one derived in earlier studies.