Valuing and Integrating Informal Care as a Core Component of Long-Term Care for Older People: A Comparison of Recent Developments in Italy and Spain

The international long-term care (LTC) debate has recently been focusing on how to strengthen home care provision. In this regard, a major role has been played by informal care and how to best integrate it in a holistic care approach. Italy and Spain, usually labeled as “familialist” or “family-based” care models, have been promoting national reforms or actions to support the integration of “informal” actors into the overall LTC system. Through a comparative review of recent trends observed in the two care regimes, this article aims at contributing to improve our cross-national understanding of how LTC is changing across Europe, identifying the basic approaches adopted in Italy and Spain and highlighting both their strengths and drawbacks.     

Sue Kenny,Marilyn Taylor,Jenny Onix and Marjorie Mayo: Challenging the Third Sector: Global Prospects for Active Citizenship

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Modified first-difference estimator in a panel data model with unobservable factors both in the errors and the regressors when the time dimension is small

Panel data models with factor structures in both the errors and the regressors have received considerable attention recently. In these models, the errors and the regressors are correlated and the standard estimators are inconsistent. This paper shows that, for such models, a modified first-difference estimator (in which the time and the cross-sectional dimensions are interchanged) is consistent as the cross-sectional dimension grows but the time dimension is small. Although the estimator has a non standard asymptotic distribution, t and F tests have standard asymptotic distribution under the null hypothesis.     

The asymmetric impact of the pandemic crisis on interest rates on public debt in the Eurozone

The outbreak of Covid-19 has played the role of a ‘game changer’ in the way countries of the Eurozone have faced the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis. This paper investigates what has happened to the interest rates of the sovereign bond in selected countries of the Eurozone during 2020. While the pandemic crisis can be interpreted as a symmetric shock, we found some important asymmetric consequences both in the sovereign bond market and the credit default swap market. Even though the European Central Bank (ECB) has played a fundamental role in easening tensions, especially with the announce of the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), countries with a higher pre-Covid level of the debt-to-GDP ratio have been found to undergo a significant jump in interest rates and a greater perceived risks of default. Important policies implications emerge in relation to the future role of the ECB.     

A sustainable urban regeneration project to protect biodiversity

Urban Ecosystems - The sustainable urban redevelopment project to protect biodiversity was developed to regenerate the external spaces of an ancient rural farmhouse, Villa Framarino, in the...     

Social work and social control in the penitentiary system: an empirical study in northern Italy

In Italy there is a prison and probation system based on a rehabilitative model, which is connected with social policies and entrusts relevant tasks to the helping professions. Among these, social work is affected by changes in social policies, marked by the influence of neoliberal thought. Contemporary sociological studies highlight the transition from a model mainly focused on ensuring social welfare, to a model in which the dominant interest is to increase effective social control. In this transition there has been an impoverishment of social protection for the most vulnerable segments of the population. This article presents the results of a qualitative research study carried out in northern Italy, among professionals working in the penitentiary sector (mainly social workers). Research has focused on the representations of the respondents on specific issues, including: the relationship between the crisis of the welfare state and the penal-welfare system; the culture of control and the changes in the role of social workers. Results show, inter alia, that social workers reject punitive responses, especially those towards the most disadvantaged social groups. Moreover, in this crisis of the welfare state and the rehabilitative model, political ideals, felt by the entire professional community, seem to be lacking.     

Capital‐skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis

The supply and price of skilled labor relative to unskilled labor have changed dramatically over the postwar period. The relative quantity of skilled labor has increased substantially, and the skill premium, which is the wage of skilled labor relative to that of unskilled labor, has grown significantly since 1980. Many studies have found that accounting for the increase in the skill premium on the basis of observable variables is difficult and have concluded implicitly that latent skill‐biased technological change must be the main factor responsible. This paper examines that view systematically. We develop a framework that provides a simple, explicit economic mechanism for understanding skill‐biased technological change in terms of observable variables, and we use the framework to evaluate the fraction of variation in the skill premium that can be accounted for by changes in observed factor quantities. We find that with capital‐skill complementarity, changes in observed inputs alone can account for most of the variations in the skill premium over the last 30 years.     

Asylum seekers in Europe: the warm glow of a hot potato

The Common European Asylum System calls for increased coordination of the European Union (EU) countries’ policies towards asylum seekers and refugees. In this paper, we provide a formal analysis of the effects of coordination, explicitly modelling the democratic process through which policy is determined. In a symmetric, two-country citizen-candidate setup, in which accepting asylum seekers in one country generates a cross-border externality in the other, we show that coordination is desirable. Internalizing the externality leads to a welfare improvement over the non-cooperative outcome. However, contrary to suggestions by many observers, we show that allowing for cross-country transfers in the cooperative outcome leads to a welfare inferior outcome because the possibility of compensation exacerbates strategic delegation effects.