THE ESTIMATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL BY ADMINISTRATIVE ARCHIVES IN A STATIC AND LONGITUDINAL PERSPECTIVE: THE CASE OF MILAN

Abstract This paper focuses on the estimation of the latent variable human capital (HC) at disaggregated level (worker) by available routinely institutional data flows. In particular we utilize the Lombardy region administrative archive ‘Employment Centers of the Province of Milan’, collecting information about careers of workers in the private sector of the Milan area, and administrative flows collecting mandatory workers' individual income tax returns, filed with the National Internal Revenue Service. First, we propose and empirically estimate HC scores in a static (referred to 2004) framework, by means of a realistic measurement model within causal relationships among endogenous and exogenous (investment) HC indicators. Furthermore, the model also specifies a set of (concomitant) indicators that, not belonging to HC investment indicators, have causal impact on endogenous variables and on HC scores, too. Second, we propose a longitudinal analysis (period 2000–2004) aimed to investigate how workers' earned income growth rates vary over workers' educational levels and other personal characteristics. The empirical results of both analyses confirm the characteristics of the Italian job market, denoted by marked inequalities, and knowledge regarding the process of school to work transition, characterized by a weak incidence of education on longitudinal trajectories of earned income.     

Resource abundance, growth and welfare: A Schumpeterian perspective

This paper takes a new look at the long-run implications of resource abundance. It develops a Schumpeterian model of endogenous growth that incorporates an upstream resource-intensive sector and yields an analytical solution for the transition path. It then derives conditions under which, as the economy's endowment of a natural resource rises, (i) growth accelerates and welfare rises, (ii) growth decelerates but welfare rises nevertheless, and (iii) growth decelerates and welfare falls. Which of these scenarios prevails depends on the response of the natural resource price to an increase in the resource endowment. The price response determines the change in income earned by the owners of the resource (the households) and thereby the change in their expenditure on manufacturing goods. Since manufacturing is the economy's innovative sector, this income-to-expenditure effect links resource abundance to the size of the market for manufacturing goods and drives how re-source abundance affects incentives to undertake innovative activity.     

Model building and estimation strategies for implementing the Balanced Scorecard in Health sector

Over last two decades, the concept of the Balanced Scorecard has had broad application by the health sector internationally, including Hospitals systems and national healthcare systems or organizations. However, the lack of literature on causal-effect relationships between different types of dimensions and indicators poses difficulty in conceptualising and implementing a quality evaluation system based on Balanced Scorecard. Methodologically, the most natural context for Balanced Scorecard conceptualization and estimation deals with Structural Equation Models with latent variables. Partial Least Squares Path Modelling has found increased applications, thanks to its ability to handle complex models. However, the lack of a global optimization criterion makes it difficult to evaluate this procedure. The aim of this article is to propose a methodological conceptualization of the Balanced Scorecard in a new context, as the Health sector, using a suitable statistical approach to estimate causal relationships among specified latent dimensions, together with a model building strategy, a necessary step when expert knowledge is too weak to build a robust and well suited model. Specifically, within the Structural Equation Models framework a two-step model building strategy is presented; the first step build the measurement models based on a clustering (around latent variables) technique and the second step build the structural model based on partial correlations and a procedure that selects the best model in terms of predictive power, measured by the mean of the R ² for the endogenous latent variables. Finally, an application based on administrative archives of Lombardy region (Italy) illustrates the presented methodology.     

Resourceful Sensemaking: Overcoming Barriers between Marketing and Design in NPD

New product development (NPD) success depends on the capacity of different functions to effectively collaborate. In particular, while recent studies have highlighted the importance of marketing and design working together, research suggests this relationship is often fraught with conflict due to different “thought worlds.” However, empirical research also identifies that the solution lies not in reducing the psychological distance between the two functions, but in the sensemaking practices used by designers and marketers to expand each other's understanding of the potential NPD solution. This process is known as resourceful sensemaking, and it refers to practitioners’ capacity to transform knowledge with the aim of expanding each other's horizons to ensure better team outcomes. Drawing on 71 interviews with designers and marketers in Australia and New Zealand, we examine how each function strategically deploys knowledge of the other to improve NPD outcomes. Building on the sensemaking literature, we demonstrate that while still drawing on different thought worlds, the inputs of both designers and marketers are necessary for effective NPD. We also identify that both are capable of creating a common framework of meaning through three resourceful sensemaking practices: exposing, co‐opting, and repurposing. Moreover, we identify the need for resourceful sensemaking that results in horizon‐expanding discourse among those involved in NPD. These practices are found to enable marketers and designers to expand the range of considerations and inputs into NPD; help organizations reconcile either/or dualisms; and lead them to identify unmet consumer needs, which result in the creation of innovative products. This paper thereby advances understanding of interfunctional coordination in NPD, integration of design into NPD, and sensemaking more broadly.     

Corporate taxes, growth and welfare in a Schumpeterian economy

I take a new look at the long-run implications of taxation through the lens of modern Schumpeterian growth theory. I focus on the latest vintage of models that sterilize the scale effect through a process of product proliferation that fragments the aggregate market into submarkets whose size does not increase with the size of the workforce. I show that the following interventions raise welfare: (a) granting full expensibility of R&D to incorporated firms; (b) eliminating the corporate income tax and/or the capital gains tax; (c) reducing taxes on labor and/or consumption. What makes these results remarkable is that in all three cases the endogenous increase in the tax on dividends necessary to balance the budget has a positive effect on growth. A general implication of my analysis is that corporate taxation plays a special role in Schumpeterian economies and provides novel insights on how to design welfare-enhancing tax reforms.     

Industry and the Family: Two Engines of Growth

We generalize the class of endogenous growth models in which the scale of the economy has level rather than growth effects, and study the implications of different demographic and technological factors when both fertility choice and research effort are endogenous. The model incorporates two dimensions of technological progress: vertical (quality of goods) and horizontal (variety of goods). Both dimensions contribute to productivity growth but are driven by different processes and hence respond differently to changes in fundamentals. Specifically, while unbounded vertical progress is feasible, the scale of the economy limits the variety of goods. Incorporating a linearity in reproduction generates steady-state population growth and variety expansion. We thus have two engines of growth generating dynamics that we compare with observed changes in demographics, market structure, and patterns of growth. Numerical solutions yield the important insight that, while endogenous, fertility responds very little to industrial policies. Demographic shocks, in contrast, have substantial effects on growth.     

Labor Income and Predictable Stock Returns

We propose a novel economic mechanism that generates stock returnpredictability in both the time series and the cross-section.Investors’ income has two sources, wages and dividendsthat grow stochastically over time. As a consequence the fractionof total income produced by wages fluctuates depending on economicconditions. We show that the risk premium that investors requireto hold stocks varies with these fluctuations. A regressionof stock returns on lagged values of the labor income to consumptionratio produces statistically significant coefficients and largeadjusted R²s. Tests of the model’s cross-sectional predictionson the set of 25 Fama–French portfolios sorted on sizeand book-to-market are also met with considerable support.     

Market for Information and Identity Disclosure in an Experimental Open Limit Order Book

This paper analyses the effects of pre‐trade transparency on market quality in an experimental open limit order book preceded by a market for information. The design of the trading game is akin to the system in use in an increasing number of financial markets. We find that the disclosure of traders' identities reduces the incentive to acquire information, liquidity and volatility. We also show that a positive relation exists between the proportion of traders buying information and liquidity. The results are consistent with a standard model of price formation where the number of informed traders is endogenous .     

Una nota su operazioni associative,trasformate integrali e problemi di caratterizzazione in statistica

In questa nota si studia una equazione funzionale che ha interessanti applicazioni al Calcolo delle Probabilità. Si illustrano due possibilità applicative:

1. la scelta del nucleo delle trasformate integrali;
2. la caratterizzazione di opportune classi di variabili casuali.

     

Un teorema limite locale per somme di numeri aleatori scambiabili

In questa nota viene presentata una condizione affinché valga la convergenza locale verso la gaussiana nel caso di numeri aleatori scambiabili.