The origins of the public debt of Italy: Geographically dispersed interests?

In this paper we reconstruct the macro regional government deficits of Italy and find that the aggregate deficit resulting from our estimates captures quite well the entire dynamics of the Italian national public deficit. This new data set shows that the ultimate cause of the accumulation of public debt of Italy lies in the extraordinary fiscal imbalance of the Southern regions. The new data allow us to test empirically a simple Common Pool model, augmented by a variable measuring the political influence of each macro region in the Government, to verify the existence of a geographically dispersed interests issue for the Italian case. Our measure of political influence turns out to significantly explain the regions’ deficits also when controlling for population and income gaps. In addition, using a J-test approach, we find that including the predictions of the Common Pool–Pork Barrel regional model into a general model of the Italian national deficit turns out to greatly increase its explanatory power. The results call for deep institutional reforms of the fiscal decentralization so far implemented in Italy.     

Decentralization and growth: Do informal institutions and rule of law matter?

We develop a model of the interactions among decentralization, informal institutions and the rule of law. The model sheds light on the ambiguous empirical results reported in the literature regarding the growth effects of the policy of devolving fiscal responsibility to local governments. We find that the distribution of civicness within a country determines the magnitude of the effects of decentralization on its regional convergence, as well as whether decentralization fosters or dampens the country’s national growth. We perform a series of simulated “reforms” using Monte Carlo methods parameterized using OECD countries data set. We then test our findings using a panel data set of 23 OECD countries covering the period 1975–2010. We find that the short and the long run growth effect of decentralization policy depends on the size of the policy reform and can range from extremely negative to positive depending on the rule of law, the level of social capital and its regional dispersion, in line with the model predictions.     

How Far is Campania from the Best-Performing Region in Italy? A Territorial-Divide Analysis of Separate Waste Collection

Social Indicators Research - The aim of this paper is to investigate the divides in separate waste collection (SWC) between Campania and Veneto from a twofold perspective that considers both...     

Social work online: a recognition of experiences and practices in Italy

ABSTRACT

‘The Internet is the fabric or our lives’ [Castells, M. (2001). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 1] – but which are the weaves that nowadays connect Italian social workers into such a fabric? Herein we aim at answering this question through a survey of on-line resources, nodes and practices of e-Social Work in Italy. We shall be discussing ICT impact on the Italian context, and the utilization of ICT by Italian social workers, in order to build up the internal and external factors that determine the current utilization levels of these emerging tools within the professional community. A review of the major on-line social work portals will identify their key features and peculiarities and aim to provide an overview of the substance and current on-line functions of Italian social work, with a summing-up of criticalities and opportunities that might prompt reflection on possible future developments.     

Differences in wage determination in the Eurozone: A challenge to the resilience of the common currency

Different developments in wages and unit labor costs across countries can reduce the synchronization of business cycles within a currency area and therefore be a potential source of asymmetric shocks and/or asymmetric response to a common shock. In this paper, we use novel econometric methods to identify differences and similarities in wage determination across Eurozone countries. Results show that wages have different determinants across euro area countries, among which two relatively distinct groups can be identified. In particular, wages in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland behave more similarly, are less sticky and respond more to macroeconomic conditions than those in the group composed of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland. Moreover, the equilibrium wage has been affected by a structural change contemporaneous to the international financial crisis. Finally, structural reforms since the euro crisis have contributed to make labor market structures in Eurozone countries more similar, which contributed to improve the resilience of the Eurozone, but the job is not completed yet.     

A Method for Measuring International Openness

The Author illustrates a method for measuring international openness by bringing forward some examples. The index proposed measures the capacity of countries for a given phenomenon, adjusted for their weight in the phenomena concerned. In this study, the Index is applied to measure the degree of openness to international migration in a number of world countries. Beyond migration, the Index can be applied to other transferable phenomena, such as trade, foreign direct investment, and so on.     

Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the Italian Version of the Homosexuality Scale of the Trueblood Sexual Attitudes Questionnaire

The aim of the present study was to translate the Homosexuality scale of the Trueblood Sexual Attitudes Questionnaire into the Italian language and to assess its factor structure and psychometric properties in Italian psychology students. The questionnaire was originally developed and validated in U.S. college students, and later in Turkish social work students, showing high internal consistency. It measures attitudes toward several sexual practices and behaviors, regarding self and others. Particularly, the Homosexuality scale measures attitudes toward different sexual and romantic practices with people of the same sex. A total of 199 Italian psychology students participated to the study, and they were administered the Italian translation of the scale. We applied exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed that the scale has high internal consistency, and that the original two-factor model accounting for attitudes toward self and others fits the data well. Implications for education and assessment in student populations are discussed.     

The Evolution of the Occupational Structure in Italy, 2007–2017

Social Indicators Research - Many advanced economies have experienced significant job polarization in the last decades, with an increase in the employment share and relative wage of both low-wage...