Italy

This report offers an initial overview of the available information regarding the circumstances, nature and outcomes of the education of schoolchildren during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns of March-April 2020. Its purpose is primarily descriptive: it presents information from high quality quantitative studies on the experience of learning during this period in order to ground the examination and discussion of these issues in empirical examples. Information is presented on three interrelated topics: the nature of the educational experience during the period of lockdowns and school closures; the home environment in which education took place for the vast majority of schoolchildren; the effects on the mental health and learning outcomes for children during this period. The data come primarily from 5 countries (France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States) with additional information on some aspects for 6 additional countries (Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Finland, Italy and the Netherlands).

This report will be of interest to policy makers, academics, education stakeholders and anyone interested in a first international empirical analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the lives and education of schoolchildren.

Italy’s economy is recovering steadily from the COVID crisis, thanks to the vaccination campaign and generous fiscal support to households and firms. Risks to the outlook are large, including virus variants and the path of global interest rates. To raise growth and employment above pre-pandemic levels, the composition of public spending and taxes must improve. Together with implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which includes critical structural reforms and investments, this can help support a faster transition towards a greener, more digitised economy. Realising this will require a demanding set of legislative and administrative reforms. Improving civil justice, tax administration and public investment will be essential to raise income growth. Making more effective use of performance information and spending reviews can help reallocate public spending to the most growth-enhancing activities. Reviewing the existing stock of regulations and how they are enforced would improve the business environment. Agile recruitment and better assessing, rewarding and supporting the performance of public servants would fill growing skill gaps in the public workforce. Improving collaboration across Italy’s multiple layers of government would improve delivery of public services such as childcare and active labour market policies.

SPECIAL FEATURE: STRENGTHENING PUBLIC SECTOR EFFECTIVENESS

L'economia italiana registra una ripresa costante dalla crisi COVID-19 grazie alla campagna di vaccinazione e al generoso sostegno fiscale alle famiglie e alle imprese. I rischi per le prospettive sono notevoli, tenuto conto anche delle varianti del virus e dell'andamento dei tassi di interesse a livello globale. Per portare la crescita e l'occupazione a livelli superiori a quelli pre-pandemia è imperativo migliorare la composizione della spesa pubblica e delle tasse. Tali miglioramenti, combinati all'attuazione del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza che comprende riforme e investimenti strutturali imprescindibili, possono favorire una transizione più rapida a un'economia più verde e più digitalizzata. Per conseguire questi obiettivi saranno necessarie una serie di riforme amministrative e legislative. Il miglioramento della giustizia civile, dell'amministrazione fiscale e degli investimenti pubblici sarà essenziale per stimolare la crescita del reddito. Un uso più efficace delle informazioni sulla performance e delle revisioni di spesa può aiutare a riassegnare la spesa pubblica alle attività che favoriscono maggiormente la crescita. Il riesame delle norme esistenti e delle relative modalità di applicazione migliorerebbe il contesto imprenditoriale. Processi di assunzione più snelli e il miglioramento del sistema di valutazione, ricompensa e sostegno alla performance dei dipendenti pubblici colmerebbero le crescenti carenze di competenze che caratterizzano la forza lavoro del settore pubblico. Il consolidamento della cooperazione tra i diversi livelli del Governo italiano migliorerebbe l'erogazione di servizi pubblici quali l'assistenza all'infanzia e le politiche attive del mercato del lavoro.

CAPITOLO SPECIALE: RAFFORZARE L'EFFICACIA DEL SETTORE PUBBLICO ITALIANO

This reliable source of yearly data covers a wide range of statistics on international trade of OECD countries and provides detailed data in value by commodity and by partner country. The first four volumes each contain the tables for six countries, published in the order in which they become available. The fifth contains seven countries and the sixth volume also includes the OECD country groupings OECD Total and EU28-Extra.

For each country, this publication shows detailed tables relating to the Harmonised System HS 2012 classification, Sections and Divisions (one- and two- digit). Each table presents imports and exports of a given commodity with more than seventy partner countries or country groupings for the most recent five-year period available.

The COVID-19 crisis has provided an opportunity to rethink the Veneto Region’s economic strategy. This paper examines the links between cultural and creative sectors and the regional manufacturing economy of the Veneto Region in the North of Italy, highlighting the important role that cultural production, and in particular Venice, can play in the region’s post-pandemic recovery strategies.

Increasing productivity at farm level is a key policy objective across most countries and fundamental to the overall performance of agricultural and food systems. This paper applies dynamic statistical methods to farm level data in order to identify the determinants of farm performance over time, in terms of productivity and measures of local sustainability. The analysis sheds light on the effects of policies on productivity, and the links between productivity and sustainability outcomes. It draws on key findings from seven case studies: crop farms in Australia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (England and Wales); and dairy farms in the Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway, with different sample periods, from the most recent three decades to the last five years. A key finding is that policy changes increasing the degree of decoupling of payments have a positive impact on productivity. Furthermore, with the right incentives, productivity growth can be more locally sustainable insofar as farms can produce more output with less inputs that harm the environment. The detailed background work on the seven samples of crops and dairy farms in the above countries is available in OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Paper N°165.

This paper provides detailed farm level data evidence on the dynamics of farm performance from case studies covering crop farms in Australia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (England and Wales), and dairy farms in the Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway, with different recent sample periods of five to thirty years. An increase in productivity over time is common to all countries and most crop farm classes, but productivity dynamics vary significantly. In Australia, strong productivity growth among the most productive crop farms has led to an increase in the gap between the highest and lowest performing farms; whereas in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, productivity growth was weak among the most productive crop farms and the lowest performing farms closed the productivity gap. Productivity also increased among dairy farms, with an increasing gap between the most and the least productive farm classes in the three sample countries. The impact of policy changes on performance dynamics is analysed for decoupled payments in France and England, and dairy payments in the Czech Republic. The main findings across countries and policy implications are discussed in OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Paper N°164.

This paper investigates whether and how worker composition, ownership and management affect the productivity of firms. To this aim, we use a dataset obtained by integrating the micro-data drawn from Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted by Inapp in 2010 and 2015 on a representative sample of Italian limited liability and partnership firms, with the AIDA archive containing comprehensive information on the balance sheets of almost all the Italian corporations. We apply different regression models and the findings reveal that a higher share of skilled workers within firms and more experienced managers are associated with higher productivity levels. In addition, firms run by managers with higher education are more likely to introduce innovation. Finally, family ownership and the coincidence of management with ownership are negatively related with firm productivity.

Questo rapporto fornisce un’indagine approfondita sulle caratteristiche delle startup innovative in Trentino, area montuosa e ad alto reddito situata nel Nord-Est d’Italia. È parte di una serie di rapporti tematici elaborati dal Centro OCSE di Trento per lo Sviluppo Locale sul panorama delle startup nelle regioni italiane. Rappresenta un primo tentativo di analisi degli effetti della strategia italiana per le startup innovative a livello regionale, e segue la pubblicazione OCSE del 2018 “La Valutazione dello Startup Act Italiano”, che adottava una prospettiva nazionale. Il Trentino vanta la più alta densità di startup innovative sul totale delle nuove imprese presenti a livello locale rilevata tra le regioni italiane. Tuttavia, la propagazione delle startup a livello territoriale è avvenuta in modo disomogeneo, con una forte concentrazione nelle aree urbane. Inoltre, tra i fondatori delle startup trentine le donne e i giovani sono gruppi meno diffusi rispetto alla media nazionale. Il dinamismo delle startup, in particolare i tassi di crescita e di mortalità, l’adozione delle tecnologie emergenti e la propensione all’utilizzo degli incentivi nazionali sono altri aspetti al centro di questo studio, che si conclude con una serie di raccomandazioni a favore dei decisori politici basate sull’osservazione delle evidenze empiriche.

Sound and timely data and statistics are essential for designing better policies for better lives. When the right data are available and used by policy makers, they play a crucial role in managing crises, as revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are also indispensable for transparent and accountable delivery of policies and services and to guide business and investment decisions in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The first 2021 edition of the OECD’s Data for Development Profiles is a unique source of information and insights on how members of the Development Co-operation Committee (DAC) allocate official development assistance (ODA) to statistical capacity development and strengthening data ecosystems in low and middle income countries. By providing a comprehensive overview of members’ data and statistical policy priorities, strategies, funding, delivery modalities and partnerships, the profiles serve as a baseline for co-ordinating international support and highlight ways forward for greater impact and effectiveness.

Increasingly frequent and severe droughts are threatening Italy’s agricultural sector. With climate change forecast to accelerate these trends, the sector must build long-term resilience. This will require better planning and preparing for, absorbing the impact of, and recovering from droughts, as well as more successfully adapting and transforming in response to these events. Recent positive developments include improved data collection on water supplies and agricultural damage and loss from natural hazards to better inform water management and investment decisions; strengthened commitment to ex ante risk management frameworks; and more participatory approaches for water management. Nevertheless, the agricultural policy portfolio currently underemphasises investments in on-farm preparedness and adaptation, in favour of coping tools such as insurance. Further efforts to build agricultural resilience could benefit from a holistic, long-term sectoral risk management strategy; an evaluation of the trade-offs between spending on risk coping tools versus investments in natural hazard preparedness and measures to mitigate their impacts; and more explicit consideration of farmer demographics and capacities in policy design.

Governments around the world have adopted unprecedented policies to deal with COVID-19. This paper zooms in on business shutdowns and investigates their effectiveness in reducing mortality. We leverage highly granular death registry data for almost 5,000 Italian municipalities in a diff-in-diff approach that allows us to mitigate endogeneity concerns credibly. Our results, which are robust to controlling for a host of co-factors, offer strong evidence that business shutdowns are very effective in reducing mortality. We calculate that the death toll from the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy may have been about twice as high in their absence. Our findings also highlight that timeliness is key – by acting one week earlier, the death toll may have been reduced by up to an additional 25%. Finally, shutdowns should be targeted. Closing service activities with a high degree of interpersonal contact saves the most lives. Shutting down production activities – while substantially reducing mobility – only has mild effects on mortality.

Questo rapporto analizza la dimensione territoriale della produttività nelle cooperative italiane, segmento che esprime una quota relativamente ampia dell’occupazione nazionale. Le cooperative assolvono a un’importante funzione anticiclica nella creazione di occupazione durante le crisi. Dopo la pandemia, potrebbero contribuire in misura significativa a un riorientamento dell’economia verso modelli maggiormente improntati all’inclusività e allo sviluppo sostenibile. In futuro, un rafforzamento dei livelli di produttività potrebbe favorire le cooperative nel perseguimento delle loro finalità di natura economica e sociale. Nell’analizzare la produttività nelle cooperative italiane, questo rapporto adotta un approccio incentrato sulla dimensione territoriale, date le loro numerose interdipendenze con le comunità locali. Le evidenze emerse mettono in luce i fattori locali maggiormente correlati alla prevalenza e alla produttività delle cooperative tra le regioni, i settori economici e nelle diverse classi dimensionali d’impresa. Un confronto con le imprese italiane non cooperative, così come con le imprese spagnole, cooperative e non, consente di osservare come i livelli di produttività varino a livello territoriale e tra diversi tipi di imprese osservati. Questo rapporto utilizza l’approccio analitico sviluppato dallo Spatial Productivity Lab dell’OCSE.

This report explores the spatial dimension of productivity in the co-operatives of Italy, a country where they make up a relatively large share of total national employment. Co-operatives play a countercyclical role in job creation during crises. In a post-pandemic world, they could make a major contribution to steering the economy towards inclusiveness and sustainability. Productivity growth ensures that co-operatives can achieve both economic and social goals in the future. This report applies a place-based approach to investigate the issue of productivity in co-operatives, given their many interdependencies with local communities. Novel evidence points to the local factors that are linked with the concentration and productivity of co-operatives across regions, sectors and firm size classes in Italy. A comparison with other Italian firms as well as with Spanish co-operatives and other Spanish firms serves to illustrate how productivity performance varies across space and firm types. This report constitutes an empirical test for the analytical approach developed by the OECD Spatial Productivity Lab.

Cette base de données annuelles couvre un large éventail de statistiques sur le commerce international des pays de l'OCDE. Elle constitue une source fiable de données en valeur par produit et par pays partenaire. Chacun des trois premiers volumes des Statistiques du commerce international par produit présente les statistiques relatives à six pays, celles-ci étant publiées dès réception des données. Les quatrième et cinquième présentent sept pays et le sixième volume porte sur cinq pays ainsi que les deux groupements de pays de l'OCDE ; OCDE Total et UE28-Extra.

Pour chaque pays sont présentés des tableaux se référant aux sections et divisions de la classification Système Harmonisé SH 2012 (une et deux positions). Chaque tableau permet de visualiser à la fois les importations et les exportations des cinq années les plus récentes par produit pour plus de soixante-dix pays partenaires ou groupes de pays partenaires.

This reliable source of yearly data covers a wide range of statistics on international trade of OECD countries and provides detailed data in value by commodity and by partner country. The first three volumes of International Trade by Commodity Statistics each contain the tables for six countries, published in the order in which they become available. The fourth and fifth contain seven countries and the sixth volume includes five countries as well as the OECD country groupings OECD Total and EU28-Extra.

For each country, this publication shows detailed tables relating to the Harmonised System HS 2012 classification, Sections and Divisions (one- and two- digit). Each table presents imports and exports of a given commodity with more than seventy partner countries or country groupings for the most recent five-year period available.