ACTIVITIES

The fRDB Annual European Conferences are based on reports prepared by teams composed of senior academicians, professional economists operating in international organisations and advisors to policy-makers. The team members work in close co-operation with the Fondazione, which co-ordinates the various working groups. The topics of the conferences are defined in the framework of a two-year plan of the Fondazione’s activities.

The fRDB Workshops envisage the presence of experts from countries that have recently implemented important reforms of its social welfare system and labour market. The experts are asked to describe these experiences, devoting particular attention to policy implementation and enforcement issues, including the gathering of the necessary social consensus around the reform package.

The aim is to draw positive lessons to be borne in mind when reforming the Italian labour market and social welfare system. However, in some cases, even negative lessons are proposed as experiences not to be repeated in Italy. Experts come from national administrations or research centres involved in the monitoring and evaluation of reforms.

• In the area of Milan, there is a considerable concentration of labour economists, particularly among PhD students and junior faculty members, scattered around the various universities and research institutes located in and around the city. The MILLS aim at exploiting the potential of such concentration, by encouraging cooperation and interactions. The MILLS adress in particular young researchers since they have an opportunity to present their work in progress and receive comments and feedback from colleagues. These seminars take place in a very informal context with no overlappings with the regular departmental seminars of the sponsoring universities.The MILLS are jointly organised by:

• IGIER–Bocconi
• Università Cattolica
• Università degli Studi di Milano

and co-sponsored by Fondazione Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti.

Organization

The MILLS usually take place once per month. The location rotates among the organising institutions (Bocconi, Statale e Cattolica). The local organisers are responsible for advertising the details of the location and for providing instructions about how to reach it.

Advertisement and calendar

The MILLS are advertised through a mailing list, kept and updated by the organizers. Besides, each university uses its regular procedures to advertise the seminars internally. The Fondazione Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti hosts on its web site a dedicated page for the MILLS. Here, one can find past presentations and the updated calendar of upcoming seminars.

Those interested in receiving information about the MILLS are invited to contact fRDB by sending an email to info@frdb.org

The Rodolfo Debenedetti Lectures are public lectures by leading scholars on cutting edge topics of the economic research. The main purpose of these events is to present to a non-technical readership new and evolving research on topics, such as:

• the implications of the ageing of populations;
• long-term trends in income distribution;
• the changing size and composition of welfare states in an integrated Europe;
• labour market reforms and the transitions across employment, unemployment and inactivity, as well as the spread of temporary work;
• international and regional migration;
• the future of trade unions and collective bargaining;
• the political economy of social welfare reform.