1,721,017 research outputs found
Judicial review and political partisanship: Moving from consensual to majoritarian democracy
No full textDue to the collapse of the party system during the mid-nineties, Italy represents an interesting case study to test the effects of a transition from a consensual to a majoritarian model of democracy on judicial behavior at the level of the Constitutional Court. Using a dataset of 972 cases of substantive judicial review (ricorsi in via principale) from 1985 to 2005, and proposing new measures of political alignment within constitutional review, we analyze the effect of a change in the political party system on judicial behavior. Our results show that political alignment is a stronger predictor of judicial decision making under majoritarian than consensual model of democracy
Malpractice medica: un’analisi economica
No full textSi legge continuamente sui giornali di casi di errori medici e, di recente, hanno
iniziato a diffondersi pubblicità che rivendicano i diritti del malato, proponendo
consulenti per valutare cause di risarcimento danni contro medici e ospedali. A che
cosa corrisponde veramente questo fenomeno? In Italia c’è più malasanità ora di
quanta ce ne fosse trent’anni fa? Si tratta solo di un problema di qualità dei servizi
sanitari
Judicial Review and Political Bias: Consensual vs. Majoritarian Democracy
No full textDue to the collapse of the party system during the mid-nineties, Italy represents an interesting case study to test the effects of a transition from a consensual to a majoritarian democracy on judicial behavior at the level of the Constitutional Court. Using a dataset of 853 cases of substantive judicial review (it ricorsi in via principale) from 1985 to 2005, and proposing new measures of political alignment within constitutional review, we analyze the effect of a change in the political party system on judicial behavior. Our results show that political alignment is a stronger predictor of judicial decision under majoritarian than consensual democracy
Una riflessione tra economia e diritto sulla malpractice medica: i casi di Stati Uniti e Italia
No full textIl tema della responsabilità professionale dei medici (malpractice) è connesso
a quello del ricorso sistematico al sistema legale per l’allocazione del rischio residuale
caratterizzante ogni intervento medico (diagnostico e/o terapeutico). Il diffondersi di
questo fenomeno sta modificando il rapporto medico-paziente, con pesanti ripercussioni
sui costi dei sistemi sanitari (defensive medicine), come sembra emergere da un’analisi
del mercato assicurativo statunitense per le professioni sanitarie (availability e
afforadability crisis). La realtà italiana sta iniziando a sperimentare profili critici simili. Il
presente lavoro propone un’analisi comparata dei profili economici e giuridici dell’unità
fondamentale di qualsiasi forma di organizzazione sanitaria: il rapporto medico-paziente,
visto come problema di committenza (agency model). Il venir meno, progressivamente,
anche a causa di ragioni di ordine sociale, dell’istituzione non-di-mercato costituita
dal rapporto medico-paziente ha fatto emergere, con più evidenza, l’esistenza di
un probelma last risk bearer rispetto a un esito negativo dell’intervento medico. Il lavoro
è perciò concentrato 1) sulle forme che il sistema legale ha assunto e può assumere
per a) garantire un livello efficiente di precauzione; b) ridurre le inefficienze legate ai
problemi di committenza; 2) sulla definizione e funzionamento di istituzioni terze (HMOs,
ASL) che possano ridurre i costi legati al rapporto medico-paziente
Delays in Medical Malpractice Litigation in Civil Law Jurisdictions: Some Evidence from the Italian Court of Cassation
No full textMedical malpractice law and tort reform are contentious issues. In this paper we focus on Italy as an example of a civil law jurisdiction. Italian medical malpractice law is essentially judge-made law. However, its effectiveness is likely to be curtailed by excessive delays in litigation. Several reforms have been enacted since the late 1980s to correct this situation. By making use of the decisions of the Italian Court of Cassation (which have shaped medical malpractice law) from 1970 to 2009, we show that these reforms had no general statistically significant impact on delays. Recent reduction of delays does not seem to be related to legal reforms but rather explained by other factors
Curb Your Insurance! The Impact of State Control on Medical Malpractice Premium
No full textWe study a policy aimed at reducing the insurance costs paid by local public healthcare providers.
The policy is based on enhanced monitoring of medical malpractice claims by the regional government
that rules local providers. In particular, we implement a Difference-in-Differences
strategy using Italian data at the provider level from 2001 to 2008 to evaluate the impact of
monitoring on medical liability expenditures, measured as insurance premiums and legal expenditures.
Our results show that this information-enhancing policy reduces paid premiums.
This reduced-form effect might arise by both the higher bargaining power of the demand side
or by increased competition on the supply side of the insurance market. Empirical evidence on
the post-treatment period supports the competition-channel hypothesis, as the policy reduces the
Herfindahl-Hirschman index at the insurance company level by about 30%. Validity tests show
that our findings are not driven by differential pre-policy trends between treated and control
providers
The More Public the More Private? Some Evidence from Childcare Providers
No full textWe use Italian data at the municipal level (2000-2008) to address the importance of qualitative elements when an expansive policy targeting a public service is planned. In particular, we focus on the attempt to increase the level of childcare supply at the local level. We test our hypothesis - investing in service quality (i.e. flexibility of the service such as longer opening hours or different types of attendance schemes) is as important as increasing its quantity - explaining the presence of private providers in municipalities using count data analysis. We exploit the variation in the demand for private childcare to assess how the demand responds to both changes in the quantity of public childcare (i.e. number of slots per resident children) and in the flexibility of public services. We find that when public providers are more flexible the public sector can capture part of private users. Our conclusions draw policy directions, which could be useful for other European countries that recently have tried to improve their childcare coverage as a consequence of the Lisbon targets for 2010
The Ramadan effect in the workplace
No full textUsing daily observations from Spain during the period 2003 to 2016, we leverage the solar rotation of Ramadan days to assess its impact on occupational injuries involving Muslim workers (i.e. first generation immigrants). Compared to non-Muslim first generation immigrants, we show a decrease by 4% in injuries for Muslim workers. We investigate the effects on labor market and find significant changes at the extensive margin (lower employment probability, fewer employment contracts signed) as well as in working conditions. Additionally, we show that the effect is stronger when Ramadan is more harsh (longer fasting day duration). Based on our results, it appears that reconciling religious practices with working schedules in a systematic way, may help to reduce the health and productivity costs associated to injuries
Do Fiscal Rules Matter? A Difference-in-Discontinuities Design
No full textWe evaluate the e ect of relaxing scal rules on budget outcomes in a quasi-experimental
setup. In 1999, the Italian central government introduced scal rules|also known as
the Domestic Stability Pact|aimed at imposing scal discipline on municipal govern-
ments, and in 2001 the rules were relaxed for municipalities below 5,000 inhabitants.
This institutional change allows us to implement a \di erence-in-discontinuities" design
by combining the before/after with the discontinuous policy variation. Our estimates
show that relaxing scal rules triggers a substantial de cit bias, captured by a shift
from zero de cit to a de cit that amounts to 2 percent of the total budget. The ad-
justment mostly involves revenues as unconstrained municipalities cut their real estate
and income taxation. The impact is larger if the mayor can run for reelection, the
number of political parties seated in the city council is higher, voters are older, and the
e ciency of public good provision is lower, consistently with models on the political
economy of de cit. A falsi cation test in 1999 shows that our ndings are not driven
by cities just below and above 5,000 being di erentially a ected by scal rules
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