One of the most challenging themes for economists and social scientists today is to explain why some countries grow faster than others and how a sustainable economic development takes place in some countries and not in others. Adam Smith observed that some nations are richer even if not all the individuals in that society work, whereas other nations are extremely poor even if all the individuals work. He attributed most of the output differences among countries to better organization and labour division. Recently, there has been burgeoning literature in this field but theories and empirical analyses about economic growth significantly diverge. The process of globalisation and the development of the knowledge society have raised new challenges both for the explanation of persistent differences in growth rates and per capita incomes and for the choice of appropriate policies to foster growth.
Labour market - which has to be considered as a social institution in order to be deeply understood - seems to be one of the most important factors for economic growth since the latter is mainly determined by labour productivity. In turn, labour productivity growth has to be explained; and, in this case as well, theories and empirical evidences diverge significantly. Recently, the mainstream recipe to foster labour productivity growth has been labour flexibility: "putting the right workers in the right place and the wrong workers out of wrong place". However, in the European Union, where in the last decade labour market was subject to radical reforms which increased labour flexibility, one can still observe in many countries high unemployment rates and low labour productivity.
At the same time, economic growth remains largely unexplained if one considers only labour and capital accumulation; total factor productivity seems to come into play. Human capital and technological innovation have often been seen as the drivers of TFP, but these in turn have to be explained, and the greatest source of long run growth seems to be found in the "black box" where institutions and economic public policies play the most important role. Indeed, economic institutions - widely defined as web of rules patterning the interaction between economic agents and the mechanism of resources allocation - allow better comprehension and deeper explanation of the process of economic growth and of the cross - country variation in the level of income per capita. The 2008 Conference of EAEPE in Rome will address, in a broad sense, such themes and will contribute to the debate on economic growth and development, through a multidisciplinary, institutional and evolutionary perspective.
Labour market - which has to be considered as a social institution in order to be deeply understood - seems to be one of the most important factors for economic growth since the latter is mainly determined by labour productivity. In turn, labour productivity growth has to be explained; and, in this case as well, theories and empirical evidences diverge significantly. Recently, the mainstream recipe to foster labour productivity growth has been labour flexibility: "putting the right workers in the right place and the wrong workers out of wrong place". However, in the European Union, where in the last decade labour market was subject to radical reforms which increased labour flexibility, one can still observe in many countries high unemployment rates and low labour productivity.
At the same time, economic growth remains largely unexplained if one considers only labour and capital accumulation; total factor productivity seems to come into play. Human capital and technological innovation have often been seen as the drivers of TFP, but these in turn have to be explained, and the greatest source of long run growth seems to be found in the "black box" where institutions and economic public policies play the most important role. Indeed, economic institutions - widely defined as web of rules patterning the interaction between economic agents and the mechanism of resources allocation - allow better comprehension and deeper explanation of the process of economic growth and of the cross - country variation in the level of income per capita. The 2008 Conference of EAEPE in Rome will address, in a broad sense, such themes and will contribute to the debate on economic growth and development, through a multidisciplinary, institutional and evolutionary perspective.
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