  The mutual feedback between star formation and nuclear activity in large
spheroidal galaxies may be a key ingredient to overcome several difficulties
plaguing current semi-analytic models for galaxy formation. We discuss some
observational implications of the model by Granato et al. (2003) for the
co-evolution of galaxies and active nuclei at their centers and stress the
potential of the forthcoming surveys of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect on
arcminute scales, down to $\mu$K levels, to investigate the early galaxy
formation phases, difficult to access by other means.
