Mending Nets in the South: Anti-poverty Policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain

The marginal role of social assistance and the absence of minimum income programmes have long been thought to constitute defining characteristics of the southern European model of welfare. Nevertheless, over the 1990s significant innovations in this field have taken place. The paper aims to contribute to the analysis of recent developments by critically examining the experience of anti‐poverty policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It is argued that the “patchiness” of safety nets in southern Europe is due to a unique set of constraints, the most relevant of which are the role of families and the “softness” of state institutions. A review of national profiles reveals that new policies introduced in all four countries mark progress towards redressing some of the historical imbalances of that welfare model. In particular, fully fledged minimum income schemes now operate in Portugal and in certain Spanish regions, while an experiment involving a number of Italian municipalities is still in progress. In spite of this, the paper concludes that social safety nets in southern Europe remain frail in terms of institutional design as well as political support and legitimacy.     

A non linear wavelet based estimator for long memory processes

Two wavelet based estimators are considered in this paper for the two parameters that characterize long range dependence processes. The first one is linear and is based on the statistical properties of the coefficients of a discrete wavelet transform of long range dependence processes. The estimator consists in measuring the slope (related to the long memory parameter) and the intercept (related to the variance of the process) of a linear regression after a discrete wavelet transform is performed (Veitch and Abry, 1999). In this paper its properties are reviewed, and analytic evidence is produced that the linear estimator is applicable only when the second parameter is unknown. To overcome this limitation a non linear wavelet based estimator - that takes into account that the intercept depends on the long memory parameter - is proposed here for the cases in which the second parameter is known or the only parameter of interest is the long memory parameter. Under the same hypothesis assumed for the linear estimator, the non linear estimator is shown to be asymptotically more efficient for the long memory parameter. Numerical simulations show that, even for small data sets, the bias is very small and the variance close to optimal. An application to ATM based Internet traffic is presented.Financial support from the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MIUR), also in the context of the COFIN 2002 ALINWEB (Algorithms for the Internet and the Web) Project, is gratefully acknowledged.     

Prescribing the Families Own Dysfunctional Rules as a Therapeutic Strategy*

The use of paradox-strategy in therapy is motivated by the fact that many families request help but at the same time seem to reject all offers of help. The therapist may be drawn into a game in which every effort on his part to act as an agent of change is nullified by the family group. In systemic terms these contradictory attitudes derive from the dynamic equilibrium existing between the tendency toward change, which is implicit in the request for help at one level, and the tendency toward homeostasis which at another level imposes the repetition of the family's habitual rules of interaction. The coexistence of these forces can entangle the therapist in the family's paradoxical logic of “help me to change, but without changing anything.” By accepting the contradiction facing him and by “uniting” himself with this within the family, the therapist puts himself into a position opposite to that which the family expects. His response to the family's paradoxical request is a paradox, or counterparadox, because it creates the contradictory communication typical of rigid family systems. By prescribing its own dysfunctional rules to the family, the therapist can stimulate the tendencies toward change present in the family system.     

Modelling the quality of work in the Italian social co-operatives combining NPCA-RSM and SEM-GME approaches

The objective of this paper is to describe and analyse with appropriate statistical models the links between work quality latent factors. Due to the complexity of the task, the analysis is carried out through a two-step approach:

• In the first step, we construct some multidimensional measures of the subjective quality of work, using nonlinear principal component analysis (NPCA) and Rasch analysis with the Rating Scale Model (NPCA-RSM);

• In the second step, we adopt a Structural Equation Model based on generalized maximum entropy (SEM-GME) to integrate the measures achieved with the previous step and to evaluate the relationships between the subjective work quality latent factors.

Therefore, the novel aspects of this paper are the following: (i) The integration between the NPCA-RSM and SEM-GME, which allows reduction of the variables analysed and evaluation of the measurement errors; (ii) The formalization of a Job Satisfaction Model for the study of the relationships between the subjective work quality latent factors in the Italian social services sector.     

Labour Mobility in Italy: An Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACT: In this paper the author presents a model of unemployment inflows and outflows for the Italian labour market. The flows that the author attempts to estimate are the unemployment inflows and outflows from and to employment. The aggregate estimation suggests that a crucial role is played by the aggregate demand and wage variables, and by the structural change variable. The paper also presents intersectoral estimations of SURE, which take into consideration the flows between Industry and Services. The results are along the lines of those obtained at the aggregate level. An important factor which should be underlined, however, is the asymmetric pattern of the wage variable in the industrial and services sector.     

Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?

During the last 30 years US citizens experienced, on average, a decline in reported happiness, social connections, and confidence in institutions. We show that a remarkable portion of the decrease in happiness is predicted by the decline in social connections and confidence in institutions. We carry out our investigation in three steps. First, we run a happiness regression that includes various indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions, alongside with own income, reference income, and the usual socio-demographic controls. We find that indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions are positively and significantly correlated with happiness. Second, we investigate the evolution of social connections and confidence in institutions over time, finding that they generally show a declining trend. Third, we calculate the variation in happiness over time as predicted by each of its statistically significant correlates, finding that the decrease in happiness is mainly predicted by the decline in social connections and by the growth in reference income. More precisely, the sum of the negative changes in happiness predicted by the reduction in social connections and the increase in reference income more than offsets the positive change predicted by the growth of household income. Also, the reduction in happiness predicted by the decline in confidence in institutions is non-negligible, although substantially smaller than the one predicted by either social connections or reference income.     

Implementing lean information management: the case study of an automotive company

Worldwide modern organisation is continuously crossed by a great number of information but frequently information is not accurate, the needed information is not generated or it cannot be easily identified and, more, the information cannot flow through the whole organisation. This paper proposes the application of lean thinking in the field of information management. In the areas of manufacturing and production, the lean thinking is well known but usually the importance of a holistic approach is neglected and the improvement involves only the production and logistic areas and there is not a specific focus on the lean information management. We applied lean thinking to information management in order to improve the performance of an automotive company. We analysed the as-is company condition, we identified the present muda and we introduced the necessary changes. Then, we verified the modification efficiency through the calculation of a performance index. The paper proposes an interesting and exhaustive case of lean information management application and it highlights the possible improvement of such approach. The results of this study are not sector specific: they are not only applicable by other automotive industries, but they can also be extended to many other sectors.     

The Easterlin paradox and the decline of social capital: An integrated explanation

During the most recent decades people in the US have reported both a stagnant or even declining subjective well-being, as Easterlin (Easterlin, R.A., 1974. Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: David, P.A., Melvin, W.R. (Eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth. Academic Press, New York, pp. 89–125) originally observed, and deterioration in their social and family ties, as Putnam (Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling Alone. Simon&Schuster, New York) has claimed. The paper proposes an integrated explanation of these two stylised facts by extending the analysis of the relative income explanation of the Easterlin paradox to social relationships as enjoyable ends of choice. Drawing on the evidence-based results of psychology, the paper constructs a model whose premises are (i) that individuals produce social relationships by means of relational ability, (ii) that this ability is primarily shaped during infancy, and (iii) that commercial pressure on children to consume in competition with others may displace the enjoyment of social relationships. The model is thus also able to explain the case of rich countries, like Sweden, that devote relatively more human and material resources than the US to children and adolescents, and that experience both increasing subjective well-being and improving social capital.