1,721,223 research outputs found
Il sistema scolastico italiano e le prospettive di riforma
No full textQuesto scritto intende offrire una sintetica descrizione dell’articolato processo di riforma che interessa il sistema dell’istruzione in Italia ed alcuni spunti d’analisi. Lo studio, circoscritto all’istruzione primaria e secondaria, è così strutturato: di seguito, vengono fornite alcune informazioni quantitative sull’argomento; nel paragrafo 2 viene presentato il quadro dell’istruzione in Italia quale emerge dalle riforme messe in atto del passato Governo di centro-sinistra; infine, il paragrafo 3 guarda ad alcune prospettive di riforma, che sembrano indirizzare l’azione del nuovo Governo
The future of work in the Sharing Economy : market efficiency and equitable opportunities or unfair precarisation?
No full textThis critical and scoping review essay analyses digital labour markets where labour-intensive services are traded by matching requesters (employers and/or consumers) and providers (workers). It focuses on digital labour markets which allow the remote delivery of electronically transmittable services (i.e. Amazon Mechanical Turk, Upwork, Freelancers, etc.) and those where the matching and administration processes are digital but the delivery of the services is physical and requires direct interaction. The former broad type is called Online Labour Markets (OLMs) and is potentially global. The latter broad type is termed Mobile Labour Markets (MLMs) and is by definition localised.
The essay defines and conceptualises these markets proposing a typology which proves to be empirically valid and heuristically useful. It describes their functioning and the socio-demographic profiles of the participants, reviews their economic and social effects, discusses the possible policy implications, and concludes with a research agenda to support European level policy making. It alternates the discussion of ‘hard’ findings from experimental and quasi-experimental studies with analysis of ‘softer’ issues such as rhetorical discourses and media ‘hyped’ accounts. This triangulation is inspired by, and a tribute to, the enduring legacy of the work of Albert O. Hirschman and his view that ideas and rhetoric can become endogenous engines of social change, reforms, and policies. This essay tries to disentangle the rhetoric with available empirical evidence in order to enable a more rational debate at least in the discussion of policies, if not in the public arena. To do so, an in depth analysis of 39 platforms was undertaken together with a formal review of 70 scientific sources. These two main sources have been integrated with: a) an exploration of 100 media accounts (business press, newspapers, magazines, and blogs); b) 50 reports and surveys produced by ‘interested parties’ (industrial associations, platforms own reports and public relation materials, think tanks with a clear political orientation, NGOs, trade unions, etc.); and c) about 200 indirectly relevant scientific contributions and policy reports (used as sources to contextualise and integrate the above sources, and to derive theoretical and interpretative insights).
While the evidence is limited and inconclusive with respect to various dimensions, the findings of this essay show, among other things, that: a) individuals engage in these activities primarily for money, for a large segment of them this work is their primary source of income, and most are under-employed and self- employed and fewer are unemployed and inactive; b) matching frictions and hiring inefficiencies are widespread and even the OLMs are far from being globalised online meritocracies; c) a behavioural approach to big data exploration should be further applied because there is emerging evidence of heuristic and biases contributing to hiring inefficiencies
Taxation, cost of capital and investment: do tax asymmetries matter?
No full textThis paper provides new evidence on the effects of taxes on the cost of capital and investment based on panel data of 634 Italian firms for the period 1982-1998. In order to reduce the measurement error of the user cost, tax asymmetries are carefully taken into account by using the Shevlin-Graham methodology to proxy the marginal tax rate. The econometric analysis shows that the user cost (and hence taxes) is a relevant determinant of investment behavior (with an estimated elasticity of investment with respect to the user cost of capital which ranges from -0.199 to -0.217). However the careful modeling of tax asymmetries does not significantly improve the statistical performance of the investment model. Possible explanations are discussed with reference to similar findings in Devereux, Keen and Schiantarelli (1994)
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
The Pilot of Limited Change. Mohammed VI and the Transition in Morocco
No full textIn this chapter I analyze the role played by Mohammed VI in the process of transition from the autocratic regime of Hassan II. In particular, I argue that Mohammed VI has guaranteed his country only a limited transition: in fact, although the adoption of the 2011 constitution is effectively a sign of greater democratization of the country, for the time being Morocco continues to be a hybrid regime, in which the king remains the fulcrum of the political
and institutional system. Accordingly, this chapter proceeds as follows. In the first part I examine the move from the autocratic regime of Hassan II to the hybrid regime of Mohammed VI. I then indicate the reasons that led part of the Moroccan people to demonstrate against the regime in February 2011, and the measures by which the king managed to calm the protest demonstrations. Afterwards, I show that the constituent process was driven by Mohammed VI and was characterized by some major democratic deficits. I then examine the new arrangements introduced by the 2011 constitution to regulate the form of
government including, in particular, the rules on the division of powers between the sovereign and the head of government. I show that, despite what is formally stated in the constitution, Morocco has not become a parliamentary monarchy. Subsequently, I underline that for the moment the head of government, Abdelilah Benkirane, has not established himself as a serious “counterweight” to the king, and that the process of constitutional
implementation is proceeding quite slowly
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
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