1,632 research outputs found
Pietro Verri’s Contribution to the Economic Theory of the 18th Century: Commercial Society, Civil Society and Governance of the Economy
No full text'Count Pietro Verri (1728-97) - Schumpeter writes (History, p. 178) - - would have to be included in any list of the greatest economists'. Within the Milanese school, he certainly stands out, alongside with Cesare Beccaria, during one of the most interesting periods from a history of analysis point of view. Luigi Cossa's famous introduction to the study of political economy rates Pietro Verri to be inferior to Beccaria in ingenuity and scientific cultivation, but greatly to be ahead of him as an economist.1 This judgement by Cossa, in particular, seems to echo the relative position of the two men in the history of ideas, particularly after Beccaria's rise to fame with a book - On crimes and punishments - which had in fact been largely inspired by Verri himself and defended by him.2 It is proposed in the present paper to revisit some of the basic tenets of Pietro Verri's political economy, with more in view than dwell on specific intuitions and theorems: namely relate those to Verri's own - quite original - conception of the economy. The scholarly work of Pietro Verri - with a special reference to his Meditazioni sulla economia politica of 1771 - provides the first systematic contribution stemming from the quarters of Lombard enlightenment in the field of political economy, especially so if one considers that Cesare Beccaria's parallel work - namely his Elementi di economia pubblica, conceived and drafted at the same time as Verri's Meditazioni - would only be published posthumously several years later. From the vantage point afforded by Verri's political economy, we gain a considerably attractive view of the most significant elements and characteristic concepts of Lombard enlightenment during the latter half of the 18th century; Verri, moreover, as we shall see, builds on a number of them in a new and original way. This paper is aimed at discussing Verri's political economy mainly along two distinct, but related, lines. In the first place the conception of commercial society is considered such as it is treated by the author particularly in his Meditazioni. In this perspective the analysis of such issues as competition and the market or money and taxation occupy a central place. Secondly it will be necessary to emphasise that Verri's approach has little to do either with forms of pure economics on one side - largely yet to be born throughout the 18th century - or, on the other side, with such conceptions of the polis - contrariwise well alive among his own contemporaries - as are founded on a sovereign authority conceived to be situated above the law. What Verri's political economy ultimately amounts to is an economic conception of civil society. The latter has natural strong connections with his own fact-mindedness - emphasised by Schumpeter - as well as with his deep practical involvement in administrative affairs and in the reforming process taking place during the latter half of the 18th century in Milan. In our view, a thorough investigation along the mentioned lines is the precondition for an understanding of the intellectual stature and of the scholarly contribution of Pietro Verri. His main ground is distinctly analytical and only by appreciating his analysis is it possible to shed light on the meaning and intellectual significance also of his practical contributions. Moreover Verri's pronouncements on the criticism of despotic government, the relevance of intermediate powers or bodies and on multiple levels of governance will be examined in a new and original light, showing how close they are to the gist of his analysis.
Introduzione
No full textPresentazione di due volumi di Pietro Curzio e di Del Punta-Scarpelli: continuità/discontinuità tra il diritto del lavoro prima e dopo il Covi
Gli effetti distributivi dell’aumento dei prezzi dei beni energetici in Italia
No full textLa guerra in Ucraina ha esacerbato le tensioni inflazionistiche che erano iniziate in seguito alla pandemia, comportando un aumento vertiginoso dei prezzi dei beni e servizi energetici. Le caratteristiche dell’ondata inflazionistica possono però avere effetti distributivi rilevanti, dato che l’aumento dei prezzi energetici impatta diversamente su famiglie con diverso tenore d’acquisto. Facendo uso di un database che registra redditi e consumi delle famiglie italiane, in questo contributo si stima l’impatto della crescita dei prezzi energetici su disuguaglianza e povertà in Italia, tenendo anche conto delle misure di contrasto ai rincari introdotte dal governo nel corso del 2022
Renewable energy sources in Italy. Sectorial intensity and effects on earnings
No full textThe literature on renewable energy sources (RES) does not provide a shared methodology to measure the
sectorial intensity of production linked to RES. Furthermore, empirical evidence on the relationship between
RES sectorial intensity and workers’ earnings is scant. The aim of this paper is to fill in these literature gaps
providing, on the one hand, an original microdata-based methodology to measure the RES sectorial intensity,
and, on the other hand, estimating, through panel data techniques, the relationship between RES sectorial
intensity and earnings for a representative sample of Italian workers in the period 2002–2009. Focusing on the
case of Italy in the first decade of the 21th century is very relevant given that in that period Italy promoted one of
the most generous renewable support schemes worldwide. The main findings are the following: i) the RES
sectorial intensity in Italy largely increased in 2008–2009; ii) on average, the RES sectorial intensity does not
affect earnings levels; iii) remarkably, a clear skill-premium effect emerges when the RES sectorial intensity
increases
About twin primes and distribution of primes
No full textThis paper give us a demonstration of twin primes conjecture using approximation of function �(iupsilon) that we introduce in section 6. Section 1-5 give us introduction to terminology and a clarification on (iupsilon) terms. In particular section
5 is really important because of its Lemma. Section 7 reassume foregoing explanations and it give us two theorems and one corollary;the theorem 7.2 give us exact approximation of twin primes counting function
Health, Well-Being and Work History Patterns: Insight on Territorial Differences
No full textThe progressive flexibility of labour relations has not always been perceived by workers
as an opportunity, but as an ever-growing sense of precariousness. This appears all the
more true in a country like Italy, where the labour market has long been characterized by
some rigidity. Health is a fundamental domain of well-being and, although the relationship
between health and job insecurity has been clearly highlighted, the correct causal effect
along with differences at the territorial level have not always been brought into focus. The
aim of this paper is to provide insights on health status differentials across Italian territories,
in relation to individual working histories. To analyze the potential causal effects of
career on self-reported health (SRH) a propensity score approach, based on the inverse
probability of treatment weighing, has been used. Available data shows great differences at
territorial level: in Northern Italy, the economic conditions seem to increase the probability
of having good health, while in the other regions of Italy key factors seem to be age, children
or the sector and size of the company where an individual works. Our findings have
also shown the presence of a causal effect on the work history patterns of SRH in northern
Italy, and not elsewhere. This may imply that in an area with high occupational levels having
only a temporary employment is perceived as the merest chance, and could generate
stress both at a physical and mental level. In other areas, high unemployment levels seem
to arouse low expectations and the only fact of having a job—even if temporary—can be
perceived as a positive aspect
IRIS: a method for reverse engineering of regulatory relations in gene networks
No full textAbstract Background The ultimate aim of systems biology is to understand and describe how molecular components interact to manifest collective behaviour that is the sum of the single parts. Building a network of molecular interactions is the basic step in modelling a complex entity such as the cell. Even if gene-gene interactions only partially describe real networks because of post-transcriptional modifications and protein regulation, using microarray technology it is possible to combine measurements for thousands of genes into a single analysis step that provides a picture of the cell's gene expression. Several databases provide information about known molecular interactions and various methods have been developed to infer gene networks from expression data. However, network topology alone is not enough to perform simulations and predictions of how a molecular system will respond to perturbations. Rules for interactions among the single parts are needed for a complete definition of the network behaviour. Another interesting question is how to integrate information carried by the network topology, which can be derived from the literature, with large-scale experimental data. Results Here we propose an algorithm, called inference of regulatory interaction schema (IRIS), that uses an iterative approach to map gene expression profile values (both steady-state and time-course) into discrete states and a simple probabilistic method to infer the regulatory functions of the network. These interaction rules are integrated into a factor graph model. We test IRIS on two synthetic networks to determine its accuracy and compare it to other methods. We also apply IRIS to gene expression microarray data for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell cycle and for human B-cells and compare the results to literature findings. Conclusions IRIS is a rapid and efficient tool for the inference of regulatory relations in gene networks. A topological description of the network and a matrix of gene expression profiles are required as input to the algorithm. IRIS maps gene expression data onto discrete values and then computes regulatory functions as conditional probability tables. The suitability of the method is demonstrated for synthetic data and microarray data. The resulting network can also be embedded in a factor graph model.</p
TimeDelay-ARACNE: Reverse engineering of gene networks from time-course data by an information theoretic approach
No full textAbstract Background One of main aims of Molecular Biology is the gain of knowledge about how molecular components interact each other and to understand gene function regulations. Using microarray technology, it is possible to extract measurements of thousands of genes into a single analysis step having a picture of the cell gene expression. Several methods have been developed to infer gene networks from steady-state data, much less literature is produced about time-course data, so the development of algorithms to infer gene networks from time-series measurements is a current challenge into bioinformatics research area. In order to detect dependencies between genes at different time delays, we propose an approach to infer gene regulatory networks from time-series measurements starting from a well known algorithm based on information theory. Results In this paper we show how the ARACNE (Algorithm for the Reconstruction of Accurate Cellular Networks) algorithm can be used for gene regulatory network inference in the case of time-course expression profiles. The resulting method is called TimeDelay-ARACNE. It just tries to extract dependencies between two genes at different time delays, providing a measure of these dependencies in terms of mutual information. The basic idea of the proposed algorithm is to detect time-delayed dependencies between the expression profiles by assuming as underlying probabilistic model a stationary Markov Random Field. Less informative dependencies are filtered out using an auto calculated threshold, retaining most reliable connections. TimeDelay-ARACNE can infer small local networks of time regulated gene-gene interactions detecting their versus and also discovering cyclic interactions also when only a medium-small number of measurements are available. We test the algorithm both on synthetic networks and on microarray expression profiles. Microarray measurements concern S. cerevisiae cell cycle, E. coli SOS pathways and a recently developed network for in vivo assessment of reverse engineering algorithms. Our results are compared with ARACNE itself and with the ones of two previously published algorithms: Dynamic Bayesian Networks and systems of ODEs, showing that TimeDelay-ARACNE has good accuracy, recall and F-score for the network reconstruction task. Conclusions Here we report the adaptation of the ARACNE algorithm to infer gene regulatory networks from time-course data, so that, the resulting network is represented as a directed graph. The proposed algorithm is expected to be useful in reconstruction of small biological directed networks from time course data.</p
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