Employment and productivity. The role of the tax wedge.

After the economic crisis, many countries aim at reducing unemployment and foster productivity. To address these issues one of the most common policy indications recommends lowering the tax wedge on labour in order to increase employment and growth. As a consequence, a review of the empirical studies focused on the relation between tax wedge, employment and productivity is an useful and demanding exercise, especially in those European countries where the topic is on the front page of the domestic policy debate because the productivity growth is low and the tax wedge on labour is high.    &nbsp

Tax wedge, employment and productivity: micro and macro evidence

2009 - 2010In this paper I investigate the effect of the tax wedge on productivity and employment. The first chapter presents an overview of existing literature, both at micro and macro level. The second chapter analyzes the effect of the tax wedge on total factor productivity. Using plant-level data referred to a sample of OECD countries, I find that the tax wedge has a negative effect on productivity at the firm level, especially with regard to the small ones. Moreover, the results suggest that the manufacturing sector is relatively more affected by introductions or increases of the tax wedge on labour income, while, among the countries involved in the sample, Italy is relatively more affected by changes in the tax wedge. The third chapter examines, for the Italian case, the impact of the tax wedge on private employment with data disaggregated at region/sector level. The results show that the tax wedge has a negative effect on private regional employment, especially with regard to the northern regions. In particular, building and construction is the sector that experiences the most negative employment effect due to introductions or increases in the tax wedge. [edited by author]IX n.s

Record of Jurassic mass transport processes through the orogenic cycle: Understanding chaotic rock units in the high-pressure Zermatt-Saas ophiolite (Western Alps)

The eclogite facies Zermatt-Saas ophiolite in the Western Alps includes a composite chaotic unit exposed in the Lake Miserin area, in the southern Aosta Valley region. The chaotic unit is characterized by a block-in-matrix texture consisting of ultramafic clasts and blocks embedded within a carbonate matrix. This unit overlies massive serpentinite and ophicarbonate rocks and is unconformably overlain by layered calcschist. Despite the effects of subduction and collision-related deformation and metamorphism, the internal stratigraphy and architecture of the chaotic unit are recognizable and are attributed to different types of mass transport processes in the Jurassic Ligurian-Piedmont Ocean. This finding represents an exceptional record of the preorogenic history of the Alpine ophiolites, marked by different pulses of extensional tectonics responsible for the rough seafloor topography characterized by structural highs exposed to submarine erosion. The Jurassic tectonostratigraphic setting envisioned is comparable to that observed in present-day magma-poor slow- and ultraslow-spreading ridges, characterized by mantle exposure along fault scarps that trigger mass transport deposits and turbiditic sedimentation. Our preorogenic reconstruction is significant in an eclogitized collisional orogenic belt in which chaotic rock units may be confused with the exclusive product of subduction-related tectonics, thus obscuring the record of an important preorogenic history. \ua9 2017 Geological Society of America

The role of structural inheritance in continental break-up and exhumation of Alpine Tethyan mantle (Canavese Zone, Western Alps)

The Canavese Zone (CZ) in the Western Alps represents the remnant of the distal passive margin of the Adria microplate, which was stretched and thinned during the Jurassic opening of the Alpine Tethys. Through detailed geological mapping, stratigraphic and structural analyses, we document that the continental break-up of Pangea and tectonic dismemberment of the Adria distal margin, up to mantle rocks exhumation and oceanization, did not simply result from the syn-rift Jurassic extension but was strongly favored by older structural inheritances (the Proto-Canavese Shear Zone), which controlled earlier lithospheric weakness. Our findings allowed to redefine in detail (i) the tectono-stratigraphic setting of the Variscan metamorphic basement and the Late Carboniferous to Early Cretaceous CZ succession, (ii) the role played by inherited Late Carboniferous to Early Triassic structures and (iii) the significance of the CZ in the geodynamic evolution of the Alpine Tethys. The large amount of extensional displacement and crustal thinning occurred during different pulses of Late Carboniferous–Early Triassic strike-slip tectonics is well-consistent with the role played by long-lived regional-scale wrench faults (e.g., the East-Variscan Shear Zone), suggesting a re-discussion of models of mantle exhumation driven by low-angle detachment faults as unique efficient mechanism in stretching and thinning continental crust. Keywords: Alpine Tethys, Western Alps, Jurassic ophiolite, Structural inheritance, Continental break-up, Mantle exhumatio