1,720,977 research outputs found
Industrial Specialization and Territorial Imbalance in the Wake of the Crisis. Some Evidence at the Level of Local Labour Systems in Italy
No full textThe evolution of the spatial distribution of industrial and service activities across Italian local labour systems before and after the Great Recession (2008-2012) are examined in this chapter. The main aim is to evaluate crisis-driven structural shifts in the regional economy. The analysis is carried out by using static and dynamic indicators of localization (Hirschman–Herfindahl index and Lawrence index) to highlight the degree of local productive specialization and the presence of agglomeration economies that can drive local labour systems’ competitiveness. The most recent crisis affected the Italian production system in its entirety, even if to different extents according to the economic sector, geographical area and firms’ characteristics. For the whole of Italy, regional specialization decreased, albeit moderately; the industry sector was hit the hardest. Focusing on geographical patterns, a North-South divide was detected: Northern districts were more specialized into industry sectors while the South confirmed its attitude towards the tertiary sector. Specialization processes and structural change involved more intensively the South: an acceleration towards tertiarization and the presence of lower frictions due to its intrinsic sectoral specialization concentrated into service and traditional low-medium manufacturing sectors can explain this trend
Introduction: Regional Analysis of Complex Socioeconomic Processes. The Role of Local Districts
No full textThis book proposes an articulated and multidisciplinary research path that introduces to the potential of adopting territorial statistics, namely those elaborated at the level of Local Labour Systems, for carrying out spatial analysis of apparent and latent interactions between socioeconomic phenomena and environmental dynamics at a sufficiently broad and efficient geographical unit of analysis. This allows to examine in a more exhaustive manner the complexity and non-linearity of several socio-economic and territorial processes and to address the multidimensional concept of sustainability from below. Studies included in this book contribute to an integrated, multidisciplinary reading that covers the three pillars of sustainability. Italy is a relevant case study in this sense and can be assumed as a paradigmatic country also for other advanced European nations that undertook territorial analysis at a very disaggregated spatial level (i.e., UK, Spain, Germany and France among others)
Income Disparities, Metropolitan Hierarchy, and the Socioeconomic Background of Italian Local Districts
No full textThis chapter evaluates short-term socioeconomic dynamics of local districts with the aim at identifying multifaceted dimensions of regional competitiveness in Italy. The spatial distribution of per worker, per head and per land value added was correlated with several predictors of the socioeconomic background of local districts. The intrinsic geography of economic development was investigated adopting a data mining approach that assesses the multiple relationship between value added and contextual variables. The spatial distribution of value added diverged along urban-rural, North-South and elevation gradients. Average district (per land) value added was highly correlated with indicators of population density and urban centrality. The joint use of value added and social indicators allows a comprehensive analysis of changes in urban spatial structures of highly divided countries
SECTORAL STRUCTURE, COMPETITIVITY AND TERRITORIAL PERFORMANCE: THE ITALIAN LOCAL LABOUR SYSTEMS AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION
No full textBy means of a shift-share analysis and focusing on employment, the local sectoral specialization and competitivity performance of 611 Italian Local Labor Systems (LLSs) were compared to national trends between 2012 and 2017. Empirical results of this study indicates that a more profitable local productive structure and productivity allowed urban centres to outperform in comparison to average national outcomes. LLSs located on the (western) coast returned a more dynamic performance than the counterparts located inland, confirming the existence of an elevation gradient in Italy affecting economic dynamics. As to the southern LLSs, the recent employment growth was characterized by territorial dynamics that faded the usual North-South divide and prove to be valuable to reduce this gap
Contextual differences, contrasting trends? Sustainable development, economic performances, and divergence in land resource depletion
No full textSpatial convergence of ecological/environmental processes has attracted an increasing interest of geo-economic disciplines and social science at large. In this perspective, a quantitative assessment of convergence (or divergence) in specific variables across space is particularly challenging in a context of global change and may contribute to delineate and clarify both linear and more complex processes of natural resource depletion and their underlying factors. In this contribution, we reviewed the theoretical notion of “convergence” in environmental processes, discussing the role of geographical scales as reflective of political, economic, and territorial heterogeneities. Convergence processes have been also disentangled according to the specific background context, and the most relevant implications for policy implementation have been finally discussed. In line with the empirical studies testing for convergence in economic and social variables, our contribution indicates that an “ecological convergence” analysis requires an integrated, multidisciplinary approach aimed at a thorough understanding of socio-environmental systems’ complexity
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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