1,725 research outputs found
Thomas Bartholin De anatome practica ex cadaveribus morbosis adornanda consilium, Traduzione e cura di Martina Elice, Introduzione di Massimo Rinaldi
No full textA simple model of trading and pricing risky assets under ambiguity: any lessons for policy-makers?
No full textThe 2007-2008 financial crisis has made it painfully obvious that markets may quickly turn illiquid. Moreover, recent experience has shown that distress and lack of active trading can jump 'around' between seemingly unconnected parts of the financial system contributing to transforming isolated shocks into systemic panic attacks. We develop a simple two-period model populated by both standard expected utility maximizers and ambiguity-averse investors who trade in the market for a risky asset. We show that, provided there is a sufficient amount of ambiguity, market breakdowns where large portions of traders withdraw from trading are endogenous and may be triggered by modest re-assessments of the range of possible scenarios on the performance of individual securities. Risk premia (spreads) increase with the proportion of traders in the market who are averse to ambiguity. When we analyse the effect of policy actions, we find that when a market has fallen into a state of impaired liquidity, bringing the market back to orderly functioning through a reduction in the amount of perceived ambiguity may cause further reductions in equilibrium prices. Finally, our model provides stark indications against the idea that policy-makers may be able to 'inflate' their way out of a financial crisis. 'The trading of legacy loans and securities continues to reveal systematic underpricing at issuance of once seemingly benign risks-credit, liquidity, counterparty, and even sovereign risks […] Until these assessments are more clearly refined and more broadly understood, we are likely to observe elevated levels of volatility and unwillingness by many investors to participate in certain asset markets at virtually any price.' (Warsh, 2009, emphasis added)
GOVERNANCE AND SELECTIVITY IN MULTILATERAL AID ALLOCATION
No full textLa tesi si incentra sulle questioni legate alla distribuzione degli aiuti multilaterali allo sviluppo; in particolare due temi sono affrontati: la selettività degli aiuti e la qualità della governance. L’elaborato si basa sulla letteratura concernente l’efficacia e la distribuzione degli aiuti ed unisce quest’ultima alla letteratura sulla political economy delle organizzazioni internazionali e sulla good governance. Attraverso un’analisi econometrica si intende capire se le organizzazioni multilaterali hanno a cuore la qualità della governance del paese ricevente al momento dell’allocazione degli aiuti. Con un modello GMM-Diff che adopera sia strumenti interni che esterni, si evidenzia come l’interesse per la governance da parte delle istituzioni multilaterali non sia solo retorica, come invece appare da uno studio preliminare. Inoltre, attraverso l’analisi di un panel a tre dimensioni, la tesi monitora l’applicazione della selettività degli aiuti. Viene rigettata l’ipotesi di un aumento della selettività e si evidenziano margini per un miglioramento dell’efficacia allocativa degli aiuti. Le agenzie multilaterali devono cercare di distribuire gli aiuti con criteri diversi da quelli di natura geopolitica.The thesis examines the allocation of multilateral aid flows with respect to two current issues of the development agenda: the selectivity of aid and the quality of governance. The dissertation brings together three strands of the relevant literature: firstly, the reference literature relating to aid effectiveness and aid allocation, which is then followed by the literature on good governance and, lastly, on the political economy of international organizations. We carry out an econometric study to understand whether international organizations care about the recipients’ performance on governance. With a GMM-Diff methodology using both internal and external instruments we show that the focus on governance by multilateral bodies is not only rhetoric, as it appears at first glance. Moreover, we explore how the selectivity of multilateral aid varies over time by employing a three-dimensional panel. Our analysis rejects the hypothesis of increasing selectivity and confirms that there is room to improve on the allocation of aid. Multilateral institutions need to strengthen their efforts to allocate aid on criteria other than political-strategic ones
Comment on [A modified goal-directed protocol improves clinical outcome in intensive care unit patients with septic shock patients: a randomized controlled trial.]
No full textINTRODUCTION: The application in clinical practice of evidence-based guidelines for the management of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock is still poor in the emergency department, while little data are available for patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an in-hospital sepsis program on the adherence to evidence-based guidelines and outcome of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to the ICU.METHODS: This prospective observational cohort study included 67 patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to a multidisciplinary ICU at a University Hospital from January 2005 to June 2007. Compliance to 5 resuscitation and 4 management sepsis interventions and in-hospital mortality were measured following an educational program on sepsis for physician and nurses of all hospital departments and hospital implementation of a specific protocol for recognition and management of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock, including an early consultation by a skilled 'sepsis team'.RESULTS: During the study period, the compliance to all 9 interventions increased from 8% to 35% of the patients (P < 0.01). The implementation of resuscitation and management interventions was associated with a lower risk of in-hospital mortality (23% vs 68% and 27% vs 68%, P < 0.01). In the latter 2 semesters, after activation of the 'sepsis team', in-hospital mortality of ICU septic shock patients decreased by about 40% compared with the previous period (32% vs 79%, P < 0.01).CONCLUSIONS: In our experience, an in-hospital sepsis program, including education of health-care personnel and process-changes, improved the adherence to guidelines and the survival rate of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock admitted to the ICU
Ambiguity in asset pricing and portfolio choice: a review of the literature
No full textWe survey the literature that has explored the implications of decisionmaking under ambiguity for financial market outcomes, such as portfolio choice and equilibrium asset prices. This ambiguity literature has led to a number of significant advances in our ability to rationalize empirical features of asset returns and portfolio decisions, such as the failure of the two-fund separation theorem in portfolio decisions, the modest exposure to risky securities observed for a majority of investors, the home equity preference in international portfolio diversification, the excess volatility
of asset returns, the equity premium and the risk-free rate puzzles, and the occurrence of trading break-downs
I lavoratori delle piattaforme
No full textPrincipali evidenze emerse dai dati dell’indagine Inapp - Plus sui lavoratori delle piattaforme in Italia. In particolare, i temi affrontati riguardano le caratteristiche quantitative e qualitative di tali soggetti, le forme di organizzazione e valutazione del lavoro, le proposte di regolazione del fenomeno.principali evidenze emerse dai dati dell’indagine inapp - plus sui lavoratori delle piattaforme in italia. in particolare, i temi affrontati riguardano le caratteristiche quantitative e qualitative di tali soggetti, le forme di organizzazione e valutazione del lavoro, le proposte di regolazione del fenomeno. i lavoratori delle piattaforme francesca della ratta-rinaldi massimo de minici
Keeping a foot in both camps: Sustainability, city branding and boundary spanners
No full textThis study critically examines sustainable development (SD) within the contemporary practices of city branding,
a prominent business philosophy that underpins market-led development strategies of urban areas. In pursuing
uniqueness, different cities often seem to hint at the very same themes of differentiation, and this reflects the
tendency to embrace pre-given sets of place-development discourses. This work casts a critical perspective on SD
as one of the global passe-partout themes that has become particularly prominent in contemporary city-brand
management practices. In particular, the theory-practice gap in city branding for SD is emphasized and interpreted
through the lens of glocalization theories. This viewpoint identifies responsibilized boundary spanners as
agents located between the global and local levels that act as mediators in multi-stakeholder networks, ultimately
fostering capacities to implement collective actions in city-branding practices
Monitoring and numerical modelling of riverbank erosion processes: a case study along the Cecina River (central Italy)
No full textRiverbank retreat along a bend of the Cecina River, Tuscany (central Italy) was monitored across a near annual cycle (autumn 2003 to summer 2004) with the aim of better understanding the factors influencing bank changes and processes at a seasonal scale. Seven flow events occurred during the period of investigation, with the largest having an estimated return period of about 1·5 years. Bank simulations were performed by linking hydrodynamic, fluvial erosion, groundwater flow and bank stability models, for the seven flow events, which are representative of the typical range of hydrographs that normally occur during an annual cycle. The simulations allowed identification of (i) the time of onset and cessation of mass failure and fluvial erosion episodes, (ii) the contributions to total bank retreat made by specific fluvial erosion and mass-wasting processes, and (iii) the causes of retreat. The results show that the occurrence of bank erosion processes (fluvial erosion, slide failure, cantilever failure) and their relative dominance differ significantly for each event, depending on seasonal hydrological conditions and initial bank geometry. Due to the specific planimetric configuration of the study bend, which steers the core of high velocity fluid away from the bank at higher flow discharges, fluvial erosion tends to occur during particular phases of the hydrograph. As a result fluvial erosion is ineffective at higher peak discharges, and depends more on the duration of more moderate discharges. Slide failures appear to be closely related to the magnitude of peak river stages, typically occurring in close proximity to the peak phase (preferentially during the falling limb, but in some cases even before the peak), while cantilever failures more typically occur in the late phase of the flow hydrograph, when they may be induced by the cumulative effects of any fluvial erosion
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