« A loyal MR reader | Main | Mobsters, Unions, and Feds »
Italy, until recently
In Italy until recently, you could not get your hair cut on a Monday. You could not close a bank account without paying a hefty fee. You could not sell your motorbike unless a notary drew up some tortuously worded contract.
That is from The Financial Times, 28 February 2007, p.13.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 30, 2007 at 05:42 AM in Law | Permalink
Comments
All true. And it's still illegal to bake fresh bread on Sunday.
Posted by: Filter at Mar 30, 2007 6:00:30 AM
Is it still true that you can't buy Fish and Chips in England on a Sunday?
Posted by: dearieme at Mar 30, 2007 6:10:56 AM
Together with the good reforms FT cited, the italian government decided that:
- the prepayment of a mortgage should be always possible without paying a fee
- telecoms cannot ask customers a top-up fee when buying credit for their mobile calls
I think that the government should have rather promoted competition between banks and between teelcoms. You may say that limiting the world of possible variations on mortgage contracts and top-up fees is a way to promote competition. Anyway I am not surprised that some of the telecoms that abolished their top-up fees increased the fees for calls.
Posted by: Ctrl_F9 at Mar 30, 2007 7:51:54 AM
What a revolution! The government is doing almost nothing to liberalize municipal utilities, true socialist entities. Mobile telecom operators, meanwhile, are revising their fees upwards, banks will soon do the same on mortgages. Italian government is just playing with liberalization. We're still waiting the pension system overhaul, whereas hard left and unions want to cut pension age. Italy, where the market has no citizenship...
Posted by: Phastidio at Mar 30, 2007 8:22:30 AM
My admittedly limited experience in Italy is that it has lots and lots of
laws and no one pays any attention to any of them.
Posted by: Tarzilla at Mar 30, 2007 9:25:11 AM
Tarzilla - yes and no. Unfortunately, many professionals likke
doctors and dentists can avoid paying much of their taxes,
as an example.
Italy: the monestary is poor, but the monks are rich.
Posted by: glenn at Mar 30, 2007 9:30:04 AM
Its not so crazy you cant get a haircut in Italy on Mondays. I don't know if that was law or just a common practice. But in many good salons in the US, Canada and the UK this is the same - they are closed. The rest of us get 2 days off a week, they get two off as well just they are Sunday and Monday.
Perhaps the author only goes to Supercuts to get their hair 'done'
Having went to business school in Milan I can attest to the Italians superhuman levels of red tape but there are 100 examples better than haircuts.
Posted by: Ed Scissorhands at Mar 30, 2007 9:44:52 AM
That's still Brazil, except for the hair cut part. There are hairdresses open all night in red-light district for those in need.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at Mar 30, 2007 10:01:53 AM
All the barbershops in my neck of Massachusetts are closed on Mondays. But then, all the barbers here are from Italy.
Posted by: Grant at Mar 30, 2007 4:40:24 PM
Italy is like a giant counterexample to theories that claim that some relatively fine-tuned mix of formal, well-functioning political and market institutions has to be in place before growth can happen.
Posted by: Kieran at Mar 31, 2007 12:17:09 AM
Nike Air Jordan Founded by a kicks fanatic, Nice Kicks is a private company and a very unique workplace. We are on a fun - but important - mission: to hook people up with unique kicks no one else has. We can supply quality Nike Air Jordan Series with competitive prices, We only sell authentic Nike Air Jordan shoes.
Posted by: Jason.W at Aug 8, 2007 9:35:48 AM
tibet tour by local tibet travel agency.Tibet Tour is a tour operator based in Lhasa,Tibet. offers tibet travel service.Welcome to visit tibet.We live here and know this land - the mountains, roads, lakes; the people, religion, culture; the hotels, restaurants, museums, little shops; etc. We will give you up-to-date tibet tour information- not old tibet travel "tips" in tibet travel books .Come on,visit tibet with us.
Posted by: Waitfor at Aug 8, 2007 9:36:46 AM
Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more.
office relocation
meet new friends
physical access control
logistics
adv88
china garment wholesale
fingerprint authentication
garment factory in china
Posted by: fastway at Sep 20, 2007 11:55:01 PM
大家好，我是臺灣人，從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國，環境很陌生，感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過，我是一個優秀的徵信工作者，希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站，認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 1, 2008 10:55:42 PM
Great share!
Posted by: monitor at Aug 28, 2008 12:22:38 AM
Want to go to tibet tour? You can rely on us! We are expert in tour in tibet. based in Tibet 15 years experience, 600 private groups operated! So join us for your wondrous tibet travel!
Posted by: tibet tours at Nov 16, 2008 10:42:57 PM
