Endogenous Population Dynamics and Metropolitan Cycles: Long-Term Evidence from Athens,an Eternally Mediterranean City

Natural population growth is an intrinsic property of demographic systems that depends on (spatially) non-stationary processes of fertility and mortality. Assuming distinctive demographic dynamics as a characteristic attribute of urban, suburban and rural systems, analysis of spatial variability in natural population growth delineates nonlinear stages of metropolitan expansion, possibly reflecting divergent responses to socioeconomic stimuli. The present study investigates endogenous population growth (1956–2019) and the relationship with demographic density as basic attributes of individual stages of the city life cycle in Athens (Greece), a mono-centric metropolitan region in Southern Europe. A spatially explicit analysis of natural balance rates at local scale identified two stages of growth, namely compact urbanization (mid-1950s to late 1970s)—with agglomeration strengthening the polarization in demographically dynamic and shrinking districts—and spatially decentralized suburbanization (early 1980s to late 2010s)—with a less defined role of agglomeration economies and more heterogeneous demographic processes. However, the impact of population density on endogenous growth was stronger in recent decades, suggesting how demographic dynamics may still respond to agglomeration stimuli, at least during recessions. At the same time, the spatial structure of natural balance rates became more mixed, likely reflecting the importance of heterogeneous demographic behaviors at the individual level.     

When nature rebels: international migration, climate change, and inequality

We study climate change and international migration in a two-country overlapping generations model with endogenous climate change. Our main findings are that climate change increases migration; small impacts of climate change have significant impacts on the number of migrants; a laxer immigration policy increases long-run migration, aggravates climate change, and increases north–south inequality if climate change impacts are not too small; and a greener technology reduces emissions, long-run migration, and inequality if the migrants’ impact to overall climate change is large. The preference over the policies depends on whether the policy maker targets inequality, wealth, the environment, or the number of migrants.     

Complementary Resources, Appropriability and Vertical Interfirm Relations in the Italian Movie Industry

Resource-based view research plays a prominent role in strategic management studies. In this paper we investigate the relativistic interpretation of the 'scarcity' concept, the appropriability of complementary resources, the measurability of the contribution that a specific resource brings to the overall value of the firm. The theoretical issues have been made context specific trying to show (a) how a not-scarce complementary resource like movie theatres can help build value for the distributor, mainly through the creation of reputation for the subsequent TV broadcasting; (b) that this resource can be appropriated from different companies; (c) that companies can develop different kinds of interfirm relationships in order to control complementary resources; (d) that reliable and valid parameters can be provided to measure the value of resources and the related degree of control from the distributors. Supporting empirical evidence is provided and implications for managing complementary resources are discussed.     

Tests for cointegration rank and choice of the alternative

This paper discusses likelihood-ratio (LR) tests on the cointegrating (CI) rank which consider any possible dimension of the CI rank under the alternative. The trace test and lambda-max test are obtained as special cases. Limit quantiles for all the tests in the class are derived. It is found that any of these tests can be used to construct an estimator of the CI rank, with no differences in asymptotic properties when the alternative is fixed. The properties of the class of tests are investigated by local asymptotic analysis, a simulation study and an empirical illustration. It is found that all the tests in the class have comparable power, which deteriorates substantially as the number of random walks increases. Tests constructed for a specific class of alternatives present minor power gains for alternatives in the class, and require the alternative to be far from the null. No test in this class is found to be asymptotically (in-)admissible. Some of the new tests in the class can also be arranged to give a constrained estimator of the CI rank, that restricts the minimum number of common trends. The power gains that these tests can obtain by constraining the minimum number of common trends appears to be limited and outweighted by the risk of inconsistency induced by the constrains. As a consequence, no value of the CI rank should be left untested, unless it can be excluded beyond any reasonable doubt.     

Social enterprise as a bottom-up dynamic: part 1. The reaction of civil society to unmet social needs in Italy,Sweden and Japan

Over the past decades, social enterprises have been acknowledged as key welfare actors in several EU countries. In spite of the dramatic research devoted to exploring them, several issues concerning the definition, drivers and roles played by policies in sustaining social enterprise growth are still highly contested. Drawing on the papers published in this Monographic section, the introduction to this issue reconstructs the debate that has accompanied the emergence and development of social enterprises with a view to providing evidence of the advantages of collective participation for social enterprise emergence and growth. Next, the introduction pays attention to the factors that have led to the emergence and success of social enterprises as a form of self-organization of civil society; and briefly describes the papers included in this issue.     

Democratic Punishment and the Archive of Violence: Punishment,Publicity and Corporal Excess in Antebellum New York

Nineteenth century American prisons were paradoxical institutions. Porous and impermeable, transparent and opaque, open to public view and occluded from sight; prisons clearly functioned as containers for raw coercion even as they were paraded as paragons of democratic transparency. How did New York State navigate between these countervailing positions and how did officials explicate the difference between them? In this essay I focus on the representation of institutional violence as a problematic of governance, I consider its impact on the development and transformation of public authority and track the role of state actors in navigating the scandals, crises and opportunities it engendered.     

Corporate governance and management practices: stakeholder involvement, quality and sustainability tools adoption

Local public services are the field in which New Public Management (NPM) and Public Governance issues are most in evidence. The local public services are characterized by the rethinking of the role played by local government in the provision of services. An evolution has taken place. From a traditional configuration in which local public services were managed by local governments they moved to a configuration where a separation has taken place between the local government role (which continues to be the guarantor of the satisfaction of public needs) and the role of local public utilities (LPUs) (responsible for delivering the services). This transformation implies both the delegation of resources and authority to lower organisational levels within the public sector and the reconfiguration of accountability chains between the state institutions and the society. In recent years, an intense debate has developed regarding the introduction of new tools and control systems. Particular attention has been paid to planning and control systems, human resources management systems, and performance management systems, leaving a few pioneers to develop their analysis on corporate governance mechanisms with regard their relationships with both the external (stakeholders) actors and the internal (management) ones. On one hand, the OECD wrote guidelines in order to ensure good corporate governance practices, focusing on relations with stakeholders. On the other hand, the dialogue between corporate governance and stakeholders has been already tackled by a number of International organizations guidelines or principles, following a debate on corporate governance that has progressively combined a stakeholder perspective with a more classic shareholder-maximizing model of governance. This article contributes to the debate on the stakeholder involvement process. By means of both a theoretical discussion and an empirical research conducted on 37 Italian LPUs, this paper attempts to analyse specific management tools which can be used to improve the quality of corporate governance in LPUs, by extending the stakeholder involvement. Some NPM’s tools, such as quality standards and sustainability tools imply an effort to offer new forms of organizational behaviour in the decision-making processes (i.e. the choice of the performance indicators and the reporting tools) and to create a dialogue between the enterprise and its stakeholders. In particular, in our study we focus on the adoption of quality standards (ISO 9000 and Customer Satisfaction) and sustainability tools (sustainability reports and ISO 14000 standard) as NPM’s tools to facilitate the stakeholder involvement practices.     

Economic Growth and Welfare in a Neoclassical Overlapping Generations Growth Model with Minimum Wages and Consumption Taxes

We examine the effects of minimum wages on both the long‐run per worker GDP and welfare in the textbook Diamond style overlapping generations economy. In addition, we assume the existence of unemployment benefits financed at a balanced budget with consumption taxes. Under suitable conditions, it is shown that a regulated‐wage economy with unemployment performs better than a competitive‐wage economy with full employment in the long run. Moreover, a welfare‐maximizing minimum wage exists. Our findings may have interesting policy implications.     

An Assessment of the Psychometric Properties of Italian Version of CPGI

The aim of this study was to adapt to the Italian context a very commonly used international instrument to detect problem gambling, the canadian problem gambling index (CPGI), and assess its psychometric properties. Cross-cultural adaptation of CPGI was performed in several steps and the questionnaire was administered as a survey among Italian general population (n = 5,292). Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was 0.87 and can be considered to be highly reliable. Construct validity was assessed first by means of a principal component analysis and then by means of confirmatory factor analysis, showing that only one factor, problem gambling, was extracted from the CPGI questionnaire (an eigenvalues of 4,684 with percentage of variance 52 %). As far as convergent validity is concerned, CPGI was compared with Lie/Bet questionnaire, a two-item screening tool for detecting problem gamblers, and with both depression and stress scales. A short form DSM-IV CIDI questionnaire was used for depression and VRS scale, a rating scale, was used for rapid stress evaluation. A strong convergent validity with these instruments was found and these findings are consistent with past research on problem gambling, where another way to confirm the validity is to determine the extent to which it correlates with other qualities or measures known to be directly related to problem gambling. In sum, despite the lack of a direct comparison with a classic gold-standard such as DSM-IV, the Italian version of CPGI exhibits good psychometric properties and can be used among the Italian general population to identify at-risk problem gamblers.