Search results

Traditional economic policy prescriptions proposed to address the Italian North-South divide mainly suggest that, in order to reduce unemployment and stimulate productivity, downwards wage flexibility should be guaranteed and the wage-setting model decentralised to sub-national labour markets. Contrarily, the Keynesian view suggests that higher wages and demand stimuli can engender positive effects on productivity and employment.

Applying panel structural VAR modelling to Italian regional data (1995–2019), we evaluate how wages and government expenditure impact productivity and employment dynamics.

We find that a rise in both government spending and real wages has long-lasting, positive effects on productivity and employment, even when considering centre-northern and southern regions separately.

To the best of our knowledge, this research provides new insights, particularly in the Italian context, by explicitly examining the effects of wage and fiscal policies on two significant macroeconomic variables—employment and productivity—using a novel and integrated approach. Additionally, our findings suggest that conventional policy recommendations warrant reconsideration.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.

Starting from Gino Arias’s dictum on the uselessness of international trade theory for fascism, this contribution aims to demonstrate two main points. First, the free trade attitude displayed by fascism immediately before and after the “March on Rome” clashed with its nationalist origins. The nationalist movement had supported a strong protectionist policy starting from a rejection of the main principles of marginalist theory. This explains why some issues raised by Pareto and Barone which could have been used as arguments in favor of protectionism were neglected. In turn, this impasse played a major role in the rejection of Mihail Manoilescu’s theory in the thirties. The second point concerns the possibility of some – at least relatively – free theoretical debate on international trade theory and policy. When the regime set itself a clear objective, like the reduction of trade to begin with, and then autarky, the scope for free discussion narrowed to the point of eventually closing. In this context, refusing to support the regime’s choices in economic policy meant resigning oneself to becoming an outcast. A situation offering one more tessera in the complex mosaic of relations between science and politics in authoritarian regimes.