1,721,524 research outputs found
Food history and gastronomic traditions of beans in Italy
Full text linkBeans have been regarded primarily as a staple food for peasants, an affordable protein source for the mass, and a symbol of rustic simplicity by writers of all ages. Among legumes, the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) probably plays the leading role in typifying these attributes. This species has also shown a remarkable ability to spread around the globe and to replace similar local species in virtually all the cuisines of the world, being nowadays embodied in the gastronomy of several countries. Attitudes toward beans are changing recently, and this legume is no longer considered as only the meat of the poor. This review aims to present a critical overview of the history and role in the gastronomy of common bean and other main cultivated legumes in Italy. After presenting the origin of common bean and its name, and the impact of its introduction to Europe, this contribution discusses the gastronomic history of beans in Italy and the role that socio-cultural differences have played in shaping the use of beans, the conservation of landraces, and food diversity. Finally, perspectives are discussed considering the recent trends in gastronomy and food tourism
Institutional quality and access to financial services: Evidence from European transition economies
Full text linkPurpose: This paper outlines an analytical framework for estimating households' access to formal credit across European transition economies shortly after the onset of the global financial crisis. This study considers along with the individual-level socio-economic and demographic characteristics also the perceived quality of the institutions. We want to assess whether an adequate policy-level intervention to promote financial inclusion should account for the individual's subjective evaluation of the political situation in their own country as well as their personal experience of corruption.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper identifies the main determinants of financial inclusion using European microdata (LiTS II). In order to estimate individuals' access to formal financial markets, we construct a bivariate probit model to account for joint access to short-term and long-term credit products (Mohieldin and Wright, 2000).
Findings: The results show that improving people's access to financial markets across European regions requires a set of interventions at the institutional and local levels to link up policies of financial inclusion and financial integrity.
Originality/value: The paper contributes to the existing literature by identifying a number of key causes of financial inclusion and how institutional quality (corruption crimes) may affect the levels of financial access in a country
Liquidity shocks, banking system failures and supranational lending of last resort facilities
No full textIn a small open economy with a high share of short term foreign currency denominated debt the arrival of some negative information on banks' investment returns may lead to severe bank runs. We analyse how a supranational institution which acts as an international lender of last resort can cope with banking crises by guaranteeing run-proof bank deposit contracts
An open economy model with currency substitution and real dollarization
No full textPurpose - The paper aims at developing a theoretical model for de facto dollarized small open economies focusing on currency substitution and nominal wages indexation to the exchange rate. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis is performed in a general equilibrium "New Open Economy Macroeconomics" framework with nominal rigidities and imperfect competition in the nontraded good sector. Findings - The paper finds that a dollar-indexed economy with low degrees of payments/financial dollarization could experience higher costs in terms of exchange rate and output fluctuations when nominal shocks dominate real shocks, making stabilization programs more difficult to achieve in a rapid and less costly way. Practical implications - The speed of adjustment of macro variables is faster in the highly dollarized economy as a response. A higher level of financial dollarization increases the frequency of domestic prices and wages revisions to nominal exchange rate shocks. This might explain, in turn, why nominal disturbances are shorter lived in the higher dollarized economies, and the asymmetry between financial and real dollarization Originality/value - Contrary to the "conventional wisdom" that predicts a positive relationship between the degrees of dollarization and the exchange rate pass-through, our model shows that the degree of dollarization and the degree of dollar indexation are not necessarily the same or even correlated. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Public Corruption: A Study across Regions in Italy
No full textThis work explores the determinants of public corruption using a regional panel dataset on crimes perpe-trated in Italy by public officials against the public administration in combination with a set of demographicand socio-economic variables. The results suggest that both the size and the composition of public spend-ing at the local level explain corruption. We also find that regions where social capital is higher are morelikely to face a lower incidence of corruption crimes. Moreover, regions which have historically placed lessimportance on rooting out corruption may be stuck in a vicious circle of higher levels of corruption
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
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