Regional Disparities in Europe

In the last decades, and particularly in the Nineties, The European Economy has been widely characterised by regional disparities. This paper aims to evaluate if different regional economic structures, such as productive mix and labour market composition, contribute to this disparities and to what extent they prevent the convergence and/or favour divergent clusters of regions. To this purpose we shall apply a multivariate analysis method, named STATIS, to a set of regional characteristic indicators that will allow us to estimate some latent factors which are able to measure the regional differences and their dynamic.european regional differences; multivariate analysis; STATIS

Regional differences in the European labour market

The European economy is characterised by marked regional differences. In this paper we shall propose some direct methods, using variables of the labour market, of economic branches value added to measure such differences and their evolution in time. In the first section we shall analyse regional disparities in unemployment, employment and the participation rate, while in the second section we shall implement a method of dynamic multivariate analysis -STATIS- in order to study the evolution of the regional structure of the European economy and labour market in the first-half 90's by using a set of regional (NUTS 1) economic indicators.

Istituzioni, Diseguaglianza ed Economia Sommersa: quale relazione?

In this paper, we investigate on the determinants of the size of shadow economy (SE) in Latin America. While the analysis of economic causes of SE has been extensively studied in literature, here we offer a wider prospective. In addition to overall economic development, unemployment rate, and marginal tax rate, we examine the relationships of SE with institutional indicators and income inequality. We find empirical evidence to state that the institutional background is essential to explain the size of SE; income inequality is weakly correlated with SE; the level of GDP is correlated positively with SE as percentage of official economy.Institutions, Shadow economy, Inequality, Latin America.

Inequality in Developing Economies: The Role of Institutional Development

This paper studies the distributive impact of institutional change in developing countries. In such economies, property rights systems may preserve the interests of an influential minority, who can control key-markets, access to assets and investment opportunities, especially if they enjoy disproportionate political power. We test this hypothesis using cross-section and panel data methods on a sample of low- and middle-income economies from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Results suggest that: (a) increasing property rights protection increases income inequality; (b) this effect is larger in low-democracy environments; (c) few countries have developed political institutions capable of counterbalancing this effect.Inequality, developing economies, institutions, property rights, democracy.

Sovereignty: Permanence or Spectral Comeback?

The debate on globalisation has in large part been shaped by Western modern political geography. The map of the world is ordered around sovereign states, their borders and relationships. The subject of this geography is the sovereign state, which occupies the whole scene: relevant international relations are inter-state relations. It was Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth that provided us with the most vivid picture: according to Schmitt this world was the miracle of jurists. The state, i.e. sovereignty, kept civil war at bay, while ensuring healthy relationships between politics and economics. Politics ensured order and guaranteed the relative independence of economic interests, while at the same time offering its services in terms of order, stability and security. It is an idealised image of the world that rests on the evident removal of colonialism, which, however, is allowed to surface precisely in The Nomos of the Earth, where Schmitt speaks of the lines of amity as the boundaries between this ordered nomos and the lands to be conquered. Furthermore, this image of the globe is the one that was later used to measure the disruption caused by globalisation. According to this narrative the Economic overpowers the Political when the state ceases to be centre stage. Hence the task is to identify a new order able to restore the primacy of the Political over the Economic, or, conversely, to proclaim the extinction of the Political along with that of the state, which means assuming the economic order as the order of the world

Introduzione all’economia politica dell’organizzazione: nozioni ed applicazioni

Questo lavoro ha lo scopo di offrire una serie di nozioni introduttive allo studio dell’economia politica dell’organizzazione. L’esame della nascita, della progettazione e della conduzione efficiente delle organizzazioni economiche seguirà l’approccio dell’economia dei costi di transazione, dando enfasi all’organizzazione come alternativa al mercato, dotata dell’autorità come strumento di governo delle transazioni alternativo al prezzo

Strumenti d’incentivo e modelli di gestione del personale volontario nelle organizzazioni non profit

Questo lavoro prova ad offrire soluzioni ai problemi legati alla complessa gestione dei volontari nel mondo non profit, considerando il ciclo di vita del lavoratore volontario, dalla selezione alla definizione del ruolo e della mansione ai meccanismi d’incentivo e di valutazione.Il modello d’agente utilizzato, riconducibile al lavoratore volontario è quello del “non egoista per simpatia”. È inoltre scopo di questo lavoro considerare le conseguenze, in termini di soluzioni organizzative, derivanti da una corretta gestione di tali risorse umane

Asociaciones de servicio, desarrollo y desigualdades.

The essay utilizes the new institutional approach and relational development to explain the regional differences: it explains the role of historical factors, that of the subjective expectations and the relative multiple links of complementarity. In this framework, service associations and its networks can work as intermediate institutions of local development. In fact they can help to create and accumulate in this context, “virtuous” immaterial infrastructures. It includes service associations, networks and social capital to explain development routes and to eliminate inequality traps. Case studies in Latin America suggest virtuous or vicious examples.El ensayo utiliza el enfoque neoinstitucional y el relacional al desarrollo para explicar las diferencias territoriales: se evidencia el papel de los factores históricos o de las expectativas subjetivas y aquel de los relativos vínculos múltiples de complementariedad. En este framework, las asociaciones de servicio y sus redes pueden funcionar como instituciones intermedias del desarrollo local: pueden contribuir a crear y a acumular en un contexto, infraestructuras inmateriales “virtuosas”. Se engloban asociaciones de servicio, redes y capital social para explicar itinerarios de desarrollo, y para eliminar trampas de desigualdad. Experiencias en América Latina sugieren ejemplos virtuosos o viciosos

Asociaciones de servicio, desarrollo y desigualdades.

The essay utilizes the new institutional approach and relational development to explain the regional differences: it explains the role of historical factors, that of the subjective expectations and the relative multiple links of complementarity. In this framework, service associations and its networks can work as intermediate institutions of local development. In fact they can help to create and accumulate in this context, “virtuous” immaterial infrastructures. It includes service associations, networks and social capital to explain development routes and to eliminate inequality traps. Case studies in Latin America suggest virtuous or vicious examples.El ensayo utiliza el enfoque neoinstitucional y el relacional al desarrollo para explicar las diferencias territoriales: se evidencia el papel de los factores históricos o de las expectativas subjetivas y aquel de los relativos vínculos múltiples de complementariedad. En este framework, las asociaciones de servicio y sus redes pueden funcionar como instituciones intermedias del desarrollo local: pueden contribuir a crear y a acumular en un contexto, infraestructuras inmateriales “virtuosas”. Se engloban asociaciones de servicio, redes y capital social para explicar itinerarios de desarrollo, y para eliminar trampas de desigualdad. Experiencias en América Latina sugieren ejemplos virtuosos o viciosos

How did the Great Recession affect Gender disparity in Europe? An analysis by a Multidimensional Deprivation approach

This paper analyses how the Great Recession affected the gender disparity in material and social deprivation in Europe. We propose multidimensional non-monetary indexes of absolute and relative (i.e. using peer comparisons) deprivations estimated on data from the European Quality of Life Survey for the waves 2007 and 2011. We find that the Great Recession decreased gender disparity over all the dimensions of deprivations. By applying a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we estimate that this decline of gender gap has depended on a reduction of the difference in characteristics between genders that has more than offset an increase of gender discrimination