Identifying Service Market Reform Priorities in Italy

Italy’s labor productivity in market services has declined since 2000, underperforming manufacturing and peer European countries, especially in strongly regulated sectors. A model of monopolistic competition is used to identify which service sectors would benefit more from removing entry and/or exit barriers. Using Italian firm-level data, the paper finds that sectors with high markups, such as professional services, would primarily benefit from removing entry barriers. Sectors with a large mass of unproductive firms, such as retail, would instead benefit from removing exit barriers. Policy recommendations to improve efficiency are outlined in relation to the sectoral priorities identified in the data.

Temporary Employment, Demand Volatility, and Unions: Firm-Level Evidence

This article investigates the effect of workplace unionization and product market volatility on firms’ propensity to use temporary employment. Using Italian firm-level data, the authors show that volatility has a positive impact on the share of temporary contracts. The baseline estimates for the impact of unions are inconclusive, but a clear pattern emerges when a specification including an interaction term with volatility is used. This approach allows a richer characterization of the impact of workplace unionization, which is positive for low levels of volatility and negative for high levels. The authors discuss various direct and indirect mechanisms to explain this novel finding. Furthermore, they find that these effects hold only for cases in which the employer does not provide training for temporary workers, whereas temporary contracts with training provisions are not affected by unions, volatility, and their interplay.

The relationship between management accounting systems and ERP systems in a medium-sized firm: a bidirectional perspective

The relationship between ERP systems and MAS is a relevant topic for accounting scholars. This relationship has often been studied by observing the influence of the implementation of ERP systems on MAS in terms of its impact on accounting tools, available information or the accountant's role. A limited number of studies have explored, instead, the inverse relationship, namely that one concerning the way MAS can influence the design, the implementation and the use of ERP systems. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap. The bidirectional relationship between ERP systems and MAS is analysed through a case study, carried out in a medium-sized Italian firm. The findings show that the context, in this case a medium-sized firm, can play a relevant role in influencing the way the ERP system implementation affects the MAS, especially with regard to the controller's role and tasks. At the same time, they also shed light on how the existing MAS, as well as the one which is influenced by the implementation of the ERP system, can shape the customization and the use of the ERP system.