In recent years, internal migration in Italy has declined markedly, notwithstanding the widening of the North-South gap in terms of unemployment rates and real income. Here, the extent to which the housing market has contributed to the decline is examined. Preliminary to this analysis, differentials in the cost of housing between the macro-areas of the country are estimated using data on the market price of houses located in 96 provincial capitals. Econometric evidence is provided supporting the view that the North-South housing price differential is a notable factor in explaining the falling pattern of mobility. The positive impact on migration from the South to the North of a wider gap in the two areas in terms of income and employment prospects has been offset by the housing price differential, which has steadily risen at least from the mid-1980s onwards. Yet, a considerable share of the decrease in mobility remains unexplained, possibly owing to the heterogeneity in the composition of migration flows across different cohorts.

Using the 1985-99 "WHIP" data, we find a sizable amount of downward wage rigidity in Italy, with a prevalence of real over nominal rigidity. The results hold when real rigidity is identified either with reference to collective bargaining dispositions or to price inflation. Consistently with the labour market reforms of the early 1990s, downward rigidities have become less important over time, with the reduction in real rigidities more than offsetting the rise in nominal rigidities. We also find that downward wage rigidities are positively related to labour reallocation and local unemployment rates, hinting at the macroeconomic relevance of our estimates. Copyright 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2007.

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The paper uses questions included in the 2010 wave of the Bank of Italy's Survey on Household Income and Wealth to investigate the role of family transmission of values. It presents three main empirical findings. First, the paper shows that a number of attitudes (generalized and personalized trusting behaviour, risk and time preferences) and outcomes (female labour force participation, fertility, entrepreneurship, productivity) are associated with the values received. Second, it documents that values received from parents are correlated with the values transmitted to descendants. Third, by using respondent moving patterns, the paper highlights that values received are slowly changing even after a discontinuity in the reference environment. Comparisons between first-and second-generation movers suggest that what matters for breaking the family chains are the formative years, when young people somehow strike a balance between the values transmitted by their parents and what they experience in the (possibly different) environment where they grow up.

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Introduction 2 Broad factors behind Italian unemployment 3 A benchmark identification of structural unemployment 4 The sVAR approach 4.1 The stylised model 4.2 Preliminary univariate testing 4.3 Empirical evidence: VAR estimates 4.4 The impulse response functions 5 Reconstructing unemployment 6 Concluding remarks References Figures Appendix 1 The solution of the model Appendix 2 Data sources Appendix 3 Univariate pre-testing Appendix 4 Introducing a fifth shock European Central Bank Working Paper Series

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In 2015 Italy adopted two different policies aimed at reducing labour market dualism and fostering employment: a generous permanent hiring subsidy and new regulations lowering firing costs and making them less uncertain. Using microdata for Veneto and exploiting some differences in the design of the policies, we evaluate the impact of each measure. Both contributed to double the monthly rate of conversion of fixed-term jobs into permanent positions. Moreover, around 40 per cent of new total gross hires with permanent job contracts occurred because of the incentives, whereas 5 per cent can be attributed to the new firing regulations . The new firing rules also made firms less reluctant to offer permanent job positions to yet untested workers. The possibility of benefitting from the incentives in case of a conversion also boosted temporary hiring, as it allowed firms to test for the quality of a job match.