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Endogenous determination of trade regime and bargaining outcome
Get PDFWe show that whether trade is one-way or two-way depends on wage strategies adopted by trade unions. The union’s wage strategy choices themselves depend upon the conditions under which trade takes place, as well as upon the characteristics of both the labour and the product markets in the trading countries. The impact of economic integration on union choices and therefore upon both labour market and trade outcomes is shown to vary according to the nature of the prevailing trade regime. We generate testable hypotheses and discuss the implications for the development of econometric tests of these hypotheses
Lo stock di capitale fisso nelle regioni italiane. 1970 - 1994
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to estimate the series of capital stock at the regional level for Italy. Using the permanent inventory approach we obtain series for 20 regions and 17 sectors of economic activity covering the period 1970 - 1994. The first descriptive analysis presented in this paper confirms the dualistic structure of the Italian economy. Southern regions represent only 30% of total capital stock and their accumulation rate is declining. Moreover we show how the sectoral composition and change of the capital stock presents huge differences across regions
Education Growth: Some Disaggregate Evideence from the Italian Regions
Get PDFThe relationship between education and growth is examined in a sample of Italian regions. The neoclassical and Schumpeterian approaches which emphasize education growth and stock respectively as determinants of output growth are tested against each other using disaggregate data on education and capital stock. The main results are that productivity growth is influenced by the stock of education rather than its rate of growth. Tertiary education which does not promote growth in the aggregate becomes a significant growth enhancing factor if its allocation among sectors with different TFP dynamics is taken into account. In general controlling for this allocation effect reinforces the effects of education on output growth
Technological Catch-Up and Regional Convergence in Europe
Get PDFOur aim is to address the problem of measuring how much of the convergence observed across European regions is due to convergence in technology versus convergence in capital-labour ratios. To this aim, we first develop a growth model where technology accumulation in lagging regions depends on their own propensity to innovate and on technology diffusion from the leading region, and convergence in per capita income is due to both capital deepening and catch-up. We use data (1980-93) on 109 European regions. Propensities to innovate are computed by assigning each patent collected by the European Patent Office to its region of origin. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that technology differs across regions and that convergence is partly due to technological catch-up
Desperately seeking (environmental) Kuznets
Get PDFThe number of studies seeking to empirically characterize the reduced-form relationship between a country economic growth and the quantity of various pollutants produced has recently increased significantly. In several cases researchers have found evidence in favor of an inverted-U “environmental Kuznets” curve. In the case of a major greenhouse gas, CO2, however, the evidence is at best mixed. This paper attempts to shed further light on this issue by using a newly developed data set covering over one hundred countries around the world for the last twenty five years and by considering alternative functional forms together with an effort to rigorously discriminate among competing alternatives
Why Are Tourism Countries Small and Fast-Growing?
Get PDFInternational tourism is today one of the most important tradable sectors, with expenditure on tourist goods and services representing some 8% of total world export receipts and 5% of world GDP. Cross-country data for 1985-95 on tourism specialisation and economic growth reveal the following regularities: (i) many tourism countries have grown faster compared to the other countries; and (ii) they are small. We use a two-sector endogenous growth model to obtain explanatory hypotheses about these two findings. In particular, we define the conditions required for small countries to specialise in tourism and to enter the faster growth path. Our suggestion is that what matters is a country’s relative endowment of the natural resource, rather than its absolute size
Politiche non sostenibili per lo sviluppo sostenibile. Il caso del Parco del Gennargentu
Get PDFInternational experience in environmental protection planning suggests that conservation projects can be successfully realized only if associated to socio-economic promotion, while taking account of possible distortions in the distribution of benefits. Furthermore, participation of local people both in management and in planning is often indicated as crucial. In this paper we consider an unsuccessful case, the Gennargentu National Park in Sardinia. We set up and test an econometric model to explain the decision of the local communities to accept or refuse their inclusion in the Park area. Results suggest that while different perceptions of new economic opportunities can possibly influence the decision, also political and cultural motivations are significant. A strong interaction between policy makers and local people is then recommended both at policy design and implementation stages
Option values and flexibility preference
Get PDFPreference for flexibility is a behavioral attitude displayed by people that prefer reversible to irreversible actions, and that are willing to pay a premium in order to maintain the possibility of changing their decision. This paper provides a functional characterization of preference for flexibility, based on the notion of option value. The proposed theory is shown to be useful to explain the success of marketing policies that guarantee reimbursement in consumption goods and financial markets. Moreover, it is possible to interpret some "puzzles" about observed economic behavior: for example, choice of apparently inferior solutions when economic, or political, choices involve high degrees of irreversibility
In between materiality and metaphor. The ambivalence of space.
Get PDFDespite the incredible variety of dimensions and meanings, the
definitions of space appears constantly to oscillate between two different, and
apparently opposed, conceptions. On the one hand, space tends to be
considered as an objective characteristic of things. In this meaning it is mainly
related to the materiality of social life, is the empirical, «concrete», substratum
of society. On the other hand sociology has strongly emphasised the variability
and heterogeneity of this dimension. According to this second view, space is a
way of representing society. In this paper I will try to show how it is possible
to interpret this duality in terms of “individual” versus “society” or in terms of
“nature” versus “society”. In the first case objectivity of space lies in the
process of externalisation and objectification and the relationship between the
two elements can be expressed through Giddens’ concept of duality. In the
second, the “external” and “constraining” nature of space, lies outside society
and Simmel’s concept of dualism or ambivalence (tension between the
opposing nature of two elements) is a more suitable idea of relating the two
aspects of space
Efficienza dei servizi sanitari ed utilizzo ottimale delle risorse. Una applicazione al Policlinico Universitario di Cagliari
Get PDFl’applicazione del nomogramma di Barber, che può essere impiegato nel controllo della gestione di un dato reparto ospedaliero considerando le diverse
patologie (DRG) che ad esso afferiscono sia per effettuare analisi di tipo descrittivo e/o investigativo relativamente ai singoli DRG sia per
condurre indagini diacroniche finalizzate a cogliere quali siano state
le variazioni del livello di efficienza nel corso del tempo dei reparti
e/o delle varie patologie.
In ultima analisi l’utilizzazione del modello quale strumento di valutazione della gestione delle attività sanitarie