1,720,962 research outputs found

    Non-Linear Budgetary Policies: Evidence from 150 Years of Italian Public Finance

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    We investigate the sustainability of Italy's public finances from 1862 to 2012 adopting a non-linear perspective. Specifically, we employ the smooth transition regression approach to explore the scope for non-linear fiscal adjustments of primary surpluses in response to the accumulation of debt. The empirical results show the occurrence of a significantly positive reaction of primary surpluses to debt when the debt-GDP ratio exceeded the trigger value of 110 percent. The after-threshold positive response implies that the path of Italy's fiscal policy is sufficiently consistent with the intertemporal budget constraint

    Fiscal Policy and Public Debt Dynamics in Italy

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    We examine the historical dynamics of government debt in Post-Unification Italy, from 1861 to 2009. Unit root tests for the debt-GDP ratio are unable to reject either the non stationarity or the stationarity null hypothesis. Controlling debt dynamics for fiscal feedback policies of the Barro-Bohn style, however, the debt-GDP ratio is found to be mean-reverting. Mean-reversion in the debt-GDP ratio is due not only to a nominal growth dividend, but also to a positive response of primary surpluses to variations in outstanding debt. There is indeed significant evidence that, over the history of Italy, fiscal policy makers have reacted to the accumulation of debt, taking corrective measures to rule out potential long-term sustainability problems

    A Reconstruction of the Italian Provincial Population (ca. 1770-1861): a new dataset

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    We present the first ever analysis of the provincial population in Italy since ca. 1770, using 1911 boundaries, and providing a key variable for future studies on Italian economic history. The new data reveal, in line with national figures, two distinct stages: one of low population growth before 1821, and one of higher growth after 1821. A preliminary inspection suggests that the process of Unification did not represent a significant factor of change in the demographic trends of the majority of the Italian provinces, with only a few exceptions. Rather, it seems that the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the period of Restoration constituted the key dynamics in driving population growth

    Politiche di bilancio e debito pubblico nella storia italiana: un modello non lineare

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    Are Italy’s primary-surplus policies compatible with the sustainability of government debt? We address the question by examining historical budget data in post-unification Italy, over the 150 years from 1862 to 2012. Controlling for temporary output, temporary spending and world war-time periods in assessing whether primary surpluses significantly reacted to changes in debt, we find the following results: (i) the hypothesis of nonlinearity in the surplus-debt relationship significantly outperforms the hypothesis of linearity; (ii) there exists a threshold level in the debt-GDP ratio, approximately equal to 111%, above which Italian fiscal policy makers are concerned with corrective actions to avoid insolvency; (iii) the robustly positive reaction of primary surpluses to debt beyond the trigger point ensures fiscal sustainability

    Evaluating the sustainability of Italian public finances

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    Are Italy’s primary-surplus policies compatible with the sustainability of government debt? We address the question by examining historical budget data in post-unification Italy, from 1861 to 2016. Controlling for temporary output, temporary spending and world war-time periods in assessing whether primary surpluses significantly reacted to changes in debt, we find the following results: (i) the hypothesis of nonlinearity in the surplus-debt relationship significantly outperforms the hypothesis of linearity; (ii) there exists a threshold level in the debt-GDP ratio, approximately equal to 105 percent, above which Italian fiscal policy makers are concerned with corrective actions to avoid insolvency; (iii) the robustly positive reaction of primary surpluses to debt beyond the trigger point ensures fiscal sustainability

    Debito Pubblico e sostenibilità della politica fiscale in Italia

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    Obiettivo specifico del presente contributo è quello di esaminare la dibattuta questione della sostenibilità di lungo periodo della politica fiscale in Italia. Si tratta di un tema controverso, che ha attratto a più riprese l’interesse degli storici dell’economia e dei policy maker. In questo lavoro ci si propone di analizzare le linee portanti del dibattito, assumendo come ottica privilegiata il riferimento costante alla storia “fiscale” dell’Italia e alle principali teorie economiche interpretative degli eventi

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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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