Pension Reform and Economic Policy Constraints in Italy

The reforms of the Italian pension system approved by Parliament at the end of 1992 and in the summer of 1995 have been strongly conditioned by two goals of general economic policy: the re-equilibrium of the government budget and a new approach in the relationship between state and market. In this paper the author examines the main aspects of those reforms, analysing the consequences on the pension system of pursuing the general aims of economic policy. In particular, after having noticed the positive modifications, three criticisms are pointed out. (1) The extension of the private and funded component of old-age insurance, apart from its negative effect on the efficiency of the entire pension system, implies subsidizing above-average incomes at the expense of the lower ones. (2) The abolition of the link between real wages and pensions decided by the reforms implies a cut in the intergenerational contract which is dangerous from both an economic and a social point of view. (3) The political context has influenced some relevant technical aspects of the new pension system, causing some inconsistencies on operational grounds.     

Marginal Contributions and Externalities in the Value

Our concern is the extension of the theory of the Shapley value to problems involving externalities. Using the standard axiom systems behind the Shapley value leads to the identification of bounds on players' payoffs around an “externality‐free” value. The approach determines the direction and maximum size of Pigouvian‐like transfers among players, transfers based on the specific nature of externalities that are compatible with basic normative principles. Examples are provided to illustrate the approach and to draw comparisons with previous literature.     

Equilibrium in Continuous‐Time Financial Markets: Endogenously Dynamically Complete Markets

We prove existence of equilibrium in a continuous‐time securities market in which the securities are potentially dynamically complete: the number of securities is at least one more than the number of independent sources of uncertainty. We prove that dynamic completeness of the candidate equilibrium price process follows from mild exogenous assumptions on the economic primitives of the model. Our result is universal, rather than generic: dynamic completeness of the candidate equilibrium price process and existence of equilibrium follow from the way information is revealed in a Brownian filtration, and from a mild exogenous nondegeneracy condition on the terminal security dividends. The nondegeneracy condition, which requires that finding one point at which a determinant of a Jacobian matrix of dividends is nonzero, is very easy to check. We find that the equilibrium prices, consumptions, and trading strategies are well‐behaved functions of the stochastic process describing the evolution of information. We prove that equilibria of discrete approximations converge to equilibria of the continuous‐time economy.     

Sample size determination for 2k-r experiments with a binomial response

This paper provides closed form expressions for the sample size for two-level factorial experiments when the response is the number of defectives. The sample sizes are obtained by approximating the two-sided test for no effect through tests for the mean of a normal distribution, and borrowing the classical sample size solution for that problem. The proposals are appraised relative to the exact sample sizes computed numerically, without appealing to any approximation to the binomial distribution, and the use of the sample size tables provided is illustrated through an example.     

The enduring presence of groups and public enterprises in the Italian economy

What was the presence of the State-entrepreneur in the Italian economy in the 20th century? Which forms did it assume? What is the weight of the State-entrepreneur in Italy today? Trying to answer these questions, the author carries out an analysis through the historical method. His final thesis is that, notwithstanding the progressive pressures, which started in the 1990s, towards the privatization of national capitalism, the State-entrepreneur is still firmly present in the Italian economy, as if it had always to play a role in the country’s development. The results of the present investigation can turn out to be of interest both to scholars and to policy makers who are committed in the effective implementation of actions aiming at favouring, for the country’s welfare, a careful and balanced relationship between public and private powers.     

Hierarchical marginal models with latent uncertainty

In responding to a rating question, an individual may give answers either according to his/her knowledge/awareness or to his/her level of indecision/uncertainty, typically driven by a response style. As ignoring this dual behavior may lead to misleading results, we define a multivariate model for ordinal rating responses by introducing, for every item and every respondent, a binary latent variable that discriminates aware from uncertain responses. Some independence assumptions among latent and observable variables characterize the uncertain behavior and make the model easier to interpret. Uncertain responses are modeled by specifying probability distributions that can depict different response styles. A marginal parameterization allows a simple and direct interpretation of the parameters in terms of association among aware responses and their dependence on explanatory factors. The effectiveness of the proposed model is attested through an application to real data and supported by a Monte Carlo study.     

Sociological Knowledge of the Other: Wolff’s “Surrender and Catch” Methodology

From a sociological perspective the “surrender and catch” expression derives, of course, from the experiential and existential basis of Wolff’s epistemology and hermeneutics.“Surrender” is connected with phenomenology, and Husserl’s (as well as Schütz’s) writings, besides Scheler’s idea of a “relatively natural world view”.“Surrender and catch” is also a “sociology of understanding” a definition which recuperates the German verstehende Soziologie though it makes a distinction between “surrender” and “surrender to”. It is not just a theory, it is a methodology too, in order to understand the otherness.Wolff was a multi-facetted scholar and this affected his conceptualizations. Furthermore, his surrender is something one experiences existentially in a number of fields, from the nature of empirical research to the art of theoretical reflection, from politics to poetry, from philosophy to history to sociology.It must also be pointed out that surrender and catch are a form of protest against the status quo.     

Resolution of reliability problems based on failure mode analysis: an integrated proposal applied to a mining case study

Abstract

Reliability determines, in large part, the operational productivity. Nevertheless, a frequent problem is the absence of effective mechanisms to support maintenance management. In particular, there is a need for methodologies focused on improving the detection and analysis of risks that affect reliability. This article presents a methodological proposal for the resolution of these problems, using a high-impact failure mode analysis. The methodology is based on four phases: identification of failure modes, ranking and criticality analysis of them, identification of the root cause(s) and search for highly effective solutions. Among the variety of tools that can be used, it is proposed the use of three specific tools: Criticality Analysis, which allows discrimination and ranking of phenomena and assets; Root Cause Analysis, which focuses on the identification of the real causes of the problems; and a tool for generation of effective and efficient solutions (TRIZ), which it is not usually applied to reliability problems. The proposal is applied in a mining filtration plant, identifying and classifying current problems and generating solutions.