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Since the mid-2000s standard price-competitiveness indicators for euro-area countries have recently provided conflicting signals, particularly in Italy. The manufacturing unit labor cost (ULCM)-based indicator reports a major competitiveness loss in Italy. Owing to the internationalization of production processes and to the fading representativeness of labor on overall costs we argue that price-based measures are more appropriate than those based on ULCMs to assess external competitiveness and play a more important role in explaining export growth. Measuring non-price competitiveness and considering global value chains are also crucial to correctly identify the determinants of trade flows in the four largest euro-area countries.

Based on updated datasets of value added and of labour and capital inputs, this paper provides a reassessment of the proximate causes of Italy’s economic development since its political unification in 1861 to 2016. Italy’s pre-WWII economy featured weak productivity growth, with the exception of the Giolitti era and the 1920s. Italy then embarked on an exceptional catching-up process relative to the technological leaders during the Golden Age. Compared with the pre-WWII years, when the Italian economy was held back by slow productivity growth in the large agricultural sector, the catching-up process during the Golden Age was propelled by the rapid shift of labour out of agriculture. As in many countries, this rapid growth in productivity could not be sustained after 1973, but the further slowdown since the 1990s has been more pronounced in Italy than elsewhere. The disappointing performance of the Italian economy since the early 1990s is largely explained by slow labour productivity growth in the now dominant services sector and by sluggish aggregate total factor productivity. Labour productivity developments actually turned negative during the protracted crisis following the global financial turmoil, due to the decline in capital accumulation and in total factor productivity. Since the start of the recovery in 2013, while total factor productivity has returned to a moderately positive trend, the capital stock has not fully overcome the legacy of the crisis.

Since the mid-2000s standard price-competitiveness indicators for some European countries have been providing conflicting signals, particularly in Italy. Against a broad stability of the producer price (PPI)-based measure, the manufacturing unit labour cost (ULCM)-deflated indicator points to a major cumulated loss of competitiveness in Italy. We find that this discrepancy mostly reflects the divergence of ULCM and PPI trends in competitor countries while in Italy they have actually progressed hand in hand. Owing to the internationalization of production processes and to the subsequent fading representativeness of labour in respect of overall costs, seen to a different degree across countries, price-based indicators are arguably more appropriate than those based on ULCMs to assess external competitiveness and external performance. We provide empirical evidence that points in the same direction. In Italy ULC-based indicators play a less important role relative to price-deflated measures in explaining both export and import trends; this result does not hold for Germany and France. Moreover, a proxy for non-price competitiveness proves important in explaining Italian, German and, in particular, Spanish exports.

The paper describes the statistical system in China, with a specific focus on the quarterly national accounts and the main source data. After reviewing the progress already made to meet increasing demand for short-term indicators by domestic and international users, we focus on four key issues that remain unresolved, namely: (1) the compilation of discrete data as against the current cumulative reporting; (2) the controversial identification of moving holidays and seasonal effects; (3) the need for new and better targeted source data to monitor infra-annual developments more effectively; (4) the remaining statistical gap for a demand-based estimation of quarterly GDP. To address these questions, we concluded that basic source data and agents reporting strategies need to be carefully reviewed and the possibility considered that sample surveys may soon complement administrative registers more often than in the current practice. Room for further, major progress in the quarterly national accounts of China could be limited in the very short term and the main pitfalls currently affecting source data must therefore be addressed as a matter of urgency.

In this paper, we investigate whether the completion of the Single Market Programme has enhanced competition on the product markets across European countries, while taking into account the companion structural reforms undertaken by the member countries. In particular, since the Single Market Programme went hand in hand with major reforms in the labour market and in the institutional setting of important industries (i.e. network industries), we test for a break in both mark-ups and the division of rent between capital and labour. For this purpose we encompass efficient bargaining in the labour market in both our theoretical and empirical model. Using industry data for ten EU countries we find that, without controlling for changes in the rent sharing, mark-up estimates tend to increase in the 1990s. However, once we assume efficient bargaining in the labour market, mark-ups remain virtually unchanged or even decrease in some sectors or groups of countries; the result stems from the declining shares of rents accruing to workers owing to a decline in their bargaining power. Without controlling for this development, a rise in firms� profitability due to rent reallocation could be wrongly interpreted as an increase in market power. At the industry level the evidence is particularly strong for high and medium-tech manufacturing, for construction and for those activities that went through deep institutional changes and privatization programmes.

Developments in the real-estate sector are of crucial importance for the business cycle and financial stability. This study analyses developments in the Italian housing market on the basis of both real and financial variables. Following the sharp contraction of the market during the financial crisis and the more general fall in economic activity, a few signals suggests that the recession in the housing market is easing somewhat. However, the degree of uncertainty remains considerable. In recent months the ratio between the flow of bad debts to total outstanding loans to households and construction firms has reached the highest levels since the beginning of the decade. The paper also investigates three issues of a more structural nature. First, it examines the performance and the regulatory framework of real-estate investment funds in Italy. Second, it analyses the main characteristics of the taxation of residential housing, with reference to ownership, rentals and transactions. Finally, the paper estimates the impact on residential house prices of the growing demand for housing services by immigrants.

Assembling information from several sources and a drawing on specially designed new survey, this paper finds that the shortfall in the supply of child care facilities remains large with respect to potential demand but is less severe with respect to the effective demand by households in Italy. Controlling for individual characteristics and local external environment, empirical evidence points to the key role played by the cost-quality schedule in supporting formal care. Local governments exert a significant influence on this factor through multiple channels, such as the intensity of regulation on quality standards, the degree of flexibility in the service provision, and the financing and tariff policies. These channels differ widely across geographical areas. The local set-up can give rise to contrasting effects on both the profitability of private childcare providers, who hardly fill the potential gap in the public network, and on household demand, which could benefit to a limited extent from a greater availability of facilities in case these are of unsatisfactory quality.