TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bugamelli, Matteo
AU  - Schivardi, Fabiano
AU  - Zizza, Roberta
TI  - The Euro and Firm Restructuring
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14454
PY  - 2008
Y2  - October 2008
DO  - 10.3386/w14454
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14454
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14454.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Matteo Bugamelli
Bank of Italy
Via Nazionale 91
00184 Rome
Italy
E-Mail: matteo.bugamelli@bancaditalia.it

Fabiano Schivardi
Luiss and EIEF
Viale Romania 32
00182 Roma
Italia
E-Mail: fabiano.schivardi@gmail.com

Roberta Zizza
Bank of Italy
Via Nazionale 91
00184 Rome
Italy
E-Mail: roberta.zizza@bancaditalia.it
M1  - published as Matteo Bugamelli, Fabiano Schivardi, Roberta Zizza. "The Euro and Firm Restructuring," in Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi, editors, "Europe and the Euro" University of Chicago Press (2010)

M3  - presented at "Europe and the Euro", October 17-18, 2008
AB  - We test whether and how the adoption of the euro, narrowly defined as the end of competitive devaluations, has affected member states' productive structures, distinguishing between within and across sector reallocation. We find evidence that the euro has been accompanied by a reallocation of activity within rather than across sectors. Since its adoption, productivity growth has been relatively stronger in country-sectors that once relied more on competitive devaluations to regain price competitiveness. This effect is robust to potential omitted-variable bias and correlated effects. Firm-level evidence from Italian manufacturing confirms that low-tech businesses, which arguably benefitted most from devaluations, have been restructuring more since the adoption of the euro. Restructuring has entailed a shift of business focus from production to upstream and downstream activities, such as product design, advertising, marketing and distribution, and a corresponding reduction in the share of blue collar workers.
ER  -