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This paper studies the long term consequences on workers' labour earnings of the credit crunch induced by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. We study the evolution of both employment and wages in a large sample of Italian workers followed for nine years after the start of the crisis. We rely on a unique matched bank-employer-employee administrative dataset to construct a firm-specific shock to credit supply, which identifies firms that, because of the collapse of the interbank market during the financial crisis, were unexpectedly aected by credit restrictions. We find that workers who were employed before the crisis in firms more exposed to the credit crunch experience persistent and sizable earnings losses, mainly due to a permanent drop in days worked. These effects are heterogeneous across workers, with high-type workers being more affected in the long run. Moreover, firms operating in areas with favorable labor market conditions react to the credit shock by hoarding high-type workers and displacing low-type ones. Under unfavorable labor market conditions instead, firms select to displace also high-type (and therefore more expensive) workers, even though wages do react to the slack. All in all, our results document persistent eects on the earnings distribution.

More than five years after the start of the Sovereign debt crisis in Europe, its impact on labour market outcomes is not clear. This paper aims to fill this gap. We use qualitative firm-level data for 24 European countries, collected within the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) of the ESCB. We first derive a set of indices measuring difficulties in accessing the credit market for the period 2010-13. Second, we provide a description of the relationship between credit difficulties and changes in labour input both along the extensive and the intensive margins as well as on wages. We find strong and significant correlation between credit difficulties and adjustments along both the extensive and the intensive margin. In the presence of credit market difficulties, firms cut wages by reducing the variable part of wages. This evidence suggests that credit shocks can affect not only the real economy, but also nominal variables.

Measuring employment and unemployment is essential for economic policy. Internationally agreed measures (e.g. headcount employment and unemployment rates based on standard definitions) enhance comparability across time and space, but changes in real labor markets and policy agendas challenge these traditional conventions. Boundaries between different labor market states are blurred, complicating identification. Individual experiences in each state may vary considerably, highlighting the importance of how each employed or unemployed person is weighted in statistical indices.

This work compares cooperatives to other firms along two lines: (1) a description of structural development and (2) a comparison of the strategies in response to the changes in the competitive envinronment in the last decade. Between 2001 and 2009 Italian cooperatives have maintained a dimension significantly greater, labour productivity and labour costs lower and profit margins similar to those of other types of firms. A survey conducted on a sample of cooperatives located in the region of Emilia-Romagna shows that the cooperative system adapted its strategies to the new context in the same way as the other firms did. Cooperatives are still more focused on core business and differentiate less their product; this exposes them more to price competition.

This analysis aims at studying joblessness and the effect of the economic crisis at the household rather than the individual level. With respect to the main European countries, in Italy the jobless household rate is lower because of the larger household size (the more adults present the lower the risk of joblessness) and the greater propensity to link household formation to employment status. The effects of the economic crisis on the labour market have led to an increase in the jobless household rate. However this increase has been lower than expected, thus suggesting that Italian households have partly absorbed the negative shocks in the labour market. Within households, the job loss is mostly related to young people still living with their parents, reflecting an employment protection system that is segmented on a generational basis.

In questo lavoro, mediante l’utilizzo di un ampio campione di individui tra i 25 e i 54 anni, si analizza la partecipazione al mercato del credito e la vulnerabilità finanziaria per classe di reddito tra il 2005 e il 2011. Nel periodo considerato la percentuale di individui che detenevano un debito di almeno 75 mila euro è aumentata, prevalentemente per il rallentamento del ritmo di rimborso del debito. La dinamica è stata eterogenea tra le classi di reddito: i nuovi indebitati appartenevano prevalentemente ai decili di reddito più elevati; il rallentamento nel ritmo di rimborso è stato più accentuato per le fasce di reddito medie e basse. Nel periodo sono aumentate le difficoltà nel pagamento del debito: i tassi di anomalia nel quintile più povero della popolazione erano 10 volte più elevati di quelli nel quintile più ricco; tale divario si è ampliato con la crisi. Nostre stime mostrano che l’instabilità del reddito accresce significativamente l’insorgenza di difficoltà finanziarie. Tuttavia, l’elevata concentrazione del debito presso le classi di reddito più ricche ha contribuito a contenere la rischiosità complessiva. In this work, through the use of a large sample of individuals between 25 and 54 years, we analyze the participation in the credit market and the financial vulnerability by income class between 2005 and 2011. In the period considered the percentage of individuals holding a debt of at least 75 thousand euros increased, mainly due to the slowdown in the repayment rhythm of the debt. The dynamics were heterogeneous among the income classes: the new indebted persons belonged mostly to the higher income deciles; the slowdown in the repayment rhythm was more pronounced for the middle and lower income brackets. Difficulties in the payment of the debt increased during the period: the anomalous rates in the poorest quintile of the population were 10 times higher than those in the richest quintile; this gap has widened with the crisis. Our estimates show that income instability significantly increases the onset of financial difficulties. However, the high concentration of debt among the wealthiest income classes helped to contain the overall risk., Moneta e Credito, V. 67, N. 268 (2014)

We show that in the US, the UK, Italy and Sweden women whose first child is a boy are less likely to work in a typical week and work fewer hours than women with first-born girls. The puzzle is why women in these countries react in this way to the sex of their first child, which is chosen randomly by nature. We consider two explanations. As Dahl and Moretti (2008) we show that first-born boys positively affect the probability that a marriage survives, but differently from them and from the literature on developing countries, we show that after a first-born boy the probability that women have more children increases. In these advanced economies the negative impact on fertility deriving from the fact that fewer pregnancies are needed to get a boy is more than compensated by the positive effect on fertility deriving from the greater stability of marriages, which is neglected by studies that focus on married women only.