1,720,987 research outputs found
Social Stratification of EU Countries: a multidimensional analysis
No full textEuropean countries are characterised by heterogeneous social contexts related both to structural socio-cultural framework and to social policies models. In general, Northern European countries present a lower social stratification resulting from lower income inequality, smaller gender gap and greater equal opportunities for health and other social outcomes. This is due to generous, inclusive and universal income and services policies, to a well-performing labour market and to a more equitable role of women within the family. A greater social stratification is typical of continental and Mediterranean European countries, where, especially in Southern Europe, many social benefits are related to the working status and are asymmetrically distributed among workers. However, social stratification is a multidimensional issue that amplifies the inequalities of resources and opportunities among individuals, facilitates an unfair exposure to social risks, and contributes to the verticalization of power relations. To counter this deterministic trend, EU national governments and the EU itself are called to restore more horizontal relations among individuals, by removing through the implementation of effective social protection systems, the socioeconomic obstacles to people’s full participation in the political, economic, and social life.
Designing and implementing efficient and effective social protection systems is a challenging task, and policy makers must base their decisions on the availability of updated and exhaustive analyses. Specifically, social protection systems are complex structures, thus the measurement of their performance requires the use of composite indices. Recent research carried out on social protection systems in the EU (Antonelli and De Bonis, 2019) has designed a synthetic indicator - the Social Protection Performance Index (SPPI) - to measure the effectiveness of social protection systems. The SPPI is based on a set of elementary indicators associated with seven dimensions of welfare spending. The SPPI has been modified by Antonelli and Salustri (2019) to interpret results along four dimensions, and several scoring rules have been proposed to test the robustness of the scores initially computed. Lying on these premises, the scope of this research is to improve and expand the dataset used in previous analyses and compute the scores of the SPPI in a longitudinal framework.
Specifically, the new longitudinal dataset is built using OECD and EUROSTAT data to monitor the performances of 22 European protection systems in the decade after the outbreak of the Great Recession in 2007. The monitoring exercise involves four dimensions (wellbeing, inclusion, poverty, and social security). The SPPI is computed by measuring both levels and ranks associated to the 11 elementary indexes considered in the analysis. Data are normalized using the Minmax criteria applied to the whole panel, and, when, appropriate, a truncated scoring function is used to facilitate the interpretation of the scores obtained.
Results allow to monitor the longitudinal evolution of the SSPI across 22 countries and 11 years, highlighting the structural heterogeneity that characterizes the EU countries, and how the European social protection systems reacted to the effects of the Great Recession. Furthermore, the scores computed for the SPPI are regressed over a set of structural variables (population, territory, public deficit and debt, GDP...) to test whether the performances of the European protection systems depend on territorial and economic factors rather than on political and social choices. The interpretation of the results achieved leads to the conclusion that the heterogeneity in the performances of the European social protection systems has both a horizontal and a vertical dimension, that is, lower performances may be also associated to lower capacity of representing national interests at European level. If not corrected through effective policies at European level, the dual nature of the observed social imbalances may lead to reinforcing social stratification rather than levelling the playing field, and that, in turn, may contribute to consolidate the verticalization of power relations among European countries, rather than fostering some degree of convergence. The analysis of the evidence built allows to evaluate whether the EU reaction to the outbreak of the Great Recession has led to a convergence or a divergence in the performances of the European social protection systems
La sicurezza sul lavoro in Italia. Un'analisi esplorativa
No full textNell’ultimo decennio, il tema della sicurezza sui luoghi di lavoro è stato oggetto di particolari attenzioni sia a livello accademico che istituzionale. Negli ultimi anni, poi, il Covid-19 ha contribuito a far tornare il tema della sicurezza sul lavoro ai vertici dell’agenda politica e del dibattito accademico-istituzionale, facendo emergere la necessità di programmare misure addizionali rispetto a quelle già adottate. A partire da tali premesse, obiettivo del presente lavoro è quello di identificare le eterogeneità che caratterizzano il tessuto socioeconomico e le eventuali concentrazioni del fenomeno infortunistico (e delle relative compensazioni) in particolari territori e settori di attività economica, anche tenendo conto del divario di genere, al fine di poter contribuire al disegno e alla valutazione di politiche (settoriali e place-based) dedicate ad incrementare la sicurezza sui luoghi di lavoro. Tale obiettivo è perseguito mediante l’elaborazione di una descrizione del fenomeno infortunistico e della sua articolazione territoriale e settoriale. L’esplorazione dei dati mette in luce l’esistenza di numerosi aspetti che meriterebbero ulteriori analisi sia di natura statistico-inferenziale che di natura econometrica. A partire dai risultati dell’analisi statistica, si espongono brevemente i
principali elementi che potrebbero ispirare ulteriori ricerche sul tema della sicurezza nei luoghi di lavoro in Italia e sugli argomenti ad esso connessi
Welfare state and social spending: assessing the effectiveness and the efficiency of European social policies in 22 EU countries
Full text linkThis paper aims at analysing the effectiveness and the efficiency of social public expenditure in 22 European countries. We present a basic theoretical framework connecting the choice of the level of social protection to the median voter’s preferences and the inefficiency of expenditure. To test it against real data, we construct performance and efficiency indicators. While the existing literature measures the performance of social policy restricting the analysis to its impact on inequality and the labour market, our index summarises the outcomes achieved in all sectors of social protection (family, health, labour market elderly, disabled, unemployment, inequality). Based on this, we find that the ranking of countries differs from those found in the literature. We then put together performance and the amount of expenditure needed to achieve it (to better compare countries, we use social public expenditure net of tax and transfers), constructing efficiency indicators and a production possibility frontier through the FHD method. We find that efficiency is not related to the size of public intervention. Rather, our results suggest that population size and the type of the welfare system might be more relevant factors: small countries tend to be more efficient than large ones and targeting all sectors of social policy tends to be more efficient than concentrating on some areas only
Inequality, welfare policies and macroeconomic sustainability of public finances
No full textInequality is a complex multidimensional challenge affecting human well-being. It goes beyond the income distribution issue also involving other social elements- health, gender, religion, environment etc.- causing disparities of opportunities which are still widespread within and between countries.
In recent decades, several socio-economic factors as the globalisation, the economic crisis, the covid-19 pandemic, the technological development and the massive use of mobile technology, the policy shocks as the Ukrainian war, have contributed to increase inequalities. Against this background, the political need to reduce inequalities, together with the EU public finance constraints, raises the issue of the macroeconomic sustainability of redistributive welfare policies.
This book provides a multilevel analysis concerning several domains of inequality with a focus on the macroeconomic sustainability of public finances.
In the first Chapter, Antonelli and Salustri present an analysis of social stratification of European countries through a multi-criteria analysis. The authors show a general improvement of the observed performances of social policies in Europe and some degree of convergence of the EU social protection systems in the period 2007-2017. Cross-sectional analysis suggests positive significant correlation between social protection systems and macroeconomic performances.
Antonelli and Marini (Ch 2) propose a new composite health status indicator for Italian regions. The analysis of the health status inequality between regions is associated to an empirical analysis on the socio-economic and the policy variables at regional level. The cross-section investigation confirms that health status is correlated to the regional policy framework as the characteristics of the Regional Health Systems.
The Ch 3 (Castaldo and De Bonis) contains a twofold empirical analysis. First, the authors test for the existence of a Kuznets curve. Second, they find that the change in the employment share of the high-tech sector is the main driver of the Kuznets swing deriving policy implications.
The Ch 4 (Salustri, Locatelli, Apolloni) highlights that, despite the opportunities of innovation and development opened up by the space economy and the space-borne Earth Observations, many regions cannot follow spatial innovation patterns, and that, in turn, may exacerbate inequalities both between and within regions.
Germani and Castaldo (Ch 5) propose an empirical investigation on the relationship between economic inequality and environmental crime in Italy showing that, at regional level, economic inequality leads to higher rates of environmental crime. With the adoption of appropriate policies, economic growth may provide an opportunity to increase economic prosperity, lower economic inequality and decrease environmental crime.
In Ch 6 De Bonis, on the background of the relationship between public finance constraints and public social spending, highlights the debate on the European fiscal rules. The author points out that, from a theoretical point of view, growth models consider wealth as the pivot variable, while, from a practical one, the debt to GDP ratio alone is not a good predictor of sovereign crises.
Within the framework of the macroeconomic sustainability of social public policies, Conflitti and Maggi (Ch 7) provide empirical evidence for the debt management theory in order to smooth deficit over time. The authors present an empirical analysis for the Italian case showing that a mixed composition between short term conventional bonds (small share), long term conventional bonds (large share) and inflation indexed bonds (relevant share) provides an insurance against unexpected macroeconomics shocks
SIN GOODS TAXATION: AN ENCOMPASSING MODEL
Full text linkWe analyse optimal sin taxes. After identifying the distinctive features of sin goods, we develop a simple, encompassing framework that allows to treat the main models found in the literature as subcases. We derive the optimal sin tax rates, also considering the subsidisation of healthy goods. We then discuss the Pareto-improvement result obtained in the theoretical literature, confronting it with the debate on the regressivity of this kind of taxation. We highlight the crucial role of the interaction of tastes, self-control problems and poverty when deriving policy conclusions from theoretical models
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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