Former East, Former West:Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Feminist Genealogies in Today's Europe

This paper connects current studies of post-socialist nostalgia to the issue of feminist genealogies in the contemporary European context. Studies of post-socialist nostalgia can prove significant not only for the former socialist East - to which they have traditionally been limited - but also for the “former West”, that is post-Cold War Western Europe. In the first part of my paper I draw a connection between feminist genealogies and post-socialist nostalgia in the former East, looking in particular at the phenomenon of Yugonostalgia from a gendered and feminist perspective, and taking my research on the 1978 Belgrade feminist conference Drugarica Zena/Comrade Woman as a point of departure. The narrative about Yugoslavia being closer to Western Europe and to Western European feminist movements in the 1970s, in comparison to today’s marginalization of post-Yugoslav successor states, indicates that changes in gender regimes are deeply connected to shifts in ideological and geopolitical relations, including the shifting boundaries of Europe after 1989. In the second part of this essay I transpose the study of post-socialist nostalgia to the former West. When looking more closely at Western European countries, particularly at those who had significant communist parties such as Italy and France, it is clear that even in the West certain articulations of post-socialist nostalgia for radical pasts have emerged, helping us to unravel women’s and feminist movements’ genealogies that have been made invisible. I take the case of the recent Italian movie Cosmonauta as a symptom of post-socialist nostalgia in the former West

Investor Protection and Income Inequality: Risk Sharing vs Risk Taking

This paper studies the relationship between investor protection, entrepreneurial risk taking and income inequality. In the presence of market frictions, better protection makes investors more willing to take on entrepreneurial risk when lending to firms, thereby improving the degree of risk sharing between financiers and entrepreneurs. On the other hand, by increasing risk sharing, investor protection also induces more firms to undertake risky projects. By increasing entrepreneurial risk taking, it raises income dispersion. By reducing the risk faced by entrepreneurs, it reduces income volatility. As a result, investor protection raises income inequality to the extent that it fosters risk taking, while it reduces it for a given level of risk taking. Empirical evidence from a panel of forty-five countries spanning the period 1976-2000 supports the predictions of the model.Keywords: Investor protection, income inequality, optimal financial contracts, risk taking, risk sharing.

How Does Financial Liberalization affect Economic Growth?

This paper assesses the effects of international financial liberalization and banking crises on investments and productivity in a sample of 93 countries (at its largest) observed between 1975 and 1999. I provide empirical evidence that financial liberalization spurs productivity growth and marginally affects capital accumulation. Banking crises depress both investments and TFP. Both levels and growth rates of productivity respond to financial liberalization and banking crises. The paper also presents evidence of conditional convergence in productivity across countries. However, the speed of convergence is unaffected by financial liberalization. These results are robust to a number of econometric specifications.Capital account liberalization; equity market liberalization; financial development; banking crises; growth; productivity; investments; convergence

Equities and Inequality

This paper studies the relationship between investor protection, the development of financial markets and income inequality. In the presence of market frictions, investor protection promotes financial development by raising confidence and reducing the costs of external financing. Developed financial systems spread risk among financiers and firms, allocating them to the agents bearing them best. Therefore, financial development plays the twofold role of encouraging agents to undertake risky enterprises and providing them with insurance. By increasing the number of risky projects, it raises income inequality. By extending insurance to more agents, it reduces it. As a result, the relationship between financial development and income inequality is hump-shaped. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of sixty-nine countries, as well as a panel of fifty-two countries over the period 1976-2000, supports the predictions of the model.Income inequality; financial development; capital market frictions; investor protection; instrumental variables; dynamic panel data

A Hadamard-type open map theorem for submersions and applications to completeness results in Control Theory

We prove a quantitative openness theorem for $C^1$ submersions under suitable assumptions on the differential. We then apply our result to a class of exponential maps appearing in Carnot-Carath\'eodory spaces and we improve a classical completeness result by Palais.Comment: 12 pages. Revised version. Minor changes. To appear on Annali di Matematic

The Political Cost of Reforms

This paper formalizes in a fully-rational model the popular idea that politicians perceive an electoral cost in adopting costly reforms with future benefits and reconciles it with the evidence that reformist governments are not punished by voters. To do so, it proposes a model of elections where political ability is ex-ante unknown and investment in reforms is unobservable. On the one hand, elections improve accountability and allow to keep well-performing incumbents. On the other, politicians make too little reforms in an attempt to signal high ability and increase their reappointment probability. Although in a rational expectation equilibrium voters cannot be fooled and hence reelection does not depend on reforms, the strategy of underinvesting in reforms is nonetheless sustained by out-of-equilibrium beliefs. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, uncertainty makes reforms more politically viable and may, under some conditions, increase social welfare. The model is then used to study how political rewards can be set so as to maximize social welfare and the desirability of imposing a one-term limit to governments. The predictions of this theory are consistent with a number of empirical regularities on the determinants of reforms and reelection. They are also consistent with a new stylized fact documented in this paper: economic uncertainty is associated to more reforms in a panel of 20 OECD countries.Elections, Reforms, Asymmetric Information, Uncertainty.

Developing the wider role of business in society: the experience of Microsoft in developing training and supporting employability.

The purpose of this paper is to describe Microsoft's activities in encouraging employability and to show how these activities provide strategic advantage

Financial integration, productivity and capital accumulation

Understanding the mechanism through which financial globalization affect economic performance is crucial for evaluating the costs and benefits of opening financial markets. This paper is a first attempt at disentangling the effects of financial integration on the two main determinants of economic performance: productivity (TFP)and investments. I provide empirical evidence from a sample of 93 countries observed between 1975 and 1999. The results suggest that financial integration has a positive direct effect on productivity, while it spurs capital accumulation only with some delay and indirectly, since capital follows the rise in productivity. I control for indirect effects of financial globalization through banking crises. Such episodes depress both investments and TFP, though they are triggered by financial integration only to a minor extent. The paper also provides a discussion of a simple model on the effects of financial integration, and shows additional empirical evidence supporting it.Capital account liberalization, financial development, banking crises, growth, productivity, investments

Financial Integration, Productivity and Capital Accumulation

Understanding the mechanism through which financial globalization affects economic performance is crucial for evaluating the costs and benefits of opening financial markets. This paper is a first attempt at disentangling the effects of financial integration on the two main determinants of economic performance: productivity (TFP) and investments. I provide empirical evidence from a sample of 93 countries observed between 1975 and 1999. The results suggest that financial integration has a positive direct effect on productivity, while it spurs capital accumulation only with some delay and indirectly, since capital follows the rise in productivity. I control for indirect effects of financial globalization through banking crises. Such episodes depress both investments and TFP, though they are triggered by financial integration only to a minor extent.Capital account liberalization, financial development, banking crises, growth, productivity, investments