Pensions reforms,workforce ageing and firm-provided welfare

This paper investigates the impact of an exogenous increase in the legal retirement age on the firms’ propensity to provide welfare services voluntarily to their employees. To this purpose we exploit a unique information derived from the Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted in 2015 on a large and representative sample of Italian firms. Applying different regression models we show that firms which were forced to give up previously planned hirings because of the Law 201/2011 (the so-called ‘Fornero pension reform’), increased the probability of providing welfare services at workplace. By referring to the sociological, human resource management and economic literature we then argue that a sudden increase in the legal retirement age may motivate the employers to establish welfare schemes as a way to cope with an ageing workforce. Our findings also hold when propensity score matching methods are used in order to control for sample selection issues.     

Die Kurve des Geldnutzens und die Theorie des Sparens

Ohne ZusammenfassungÜbersetzt von Hans Fried, Wien     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungÜbersetzt von Hans Fried, Wien.     

Das Sparen in der Individualwirtschaft

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von M. St. Braun, WienAus dem Russischen übersetzt von A. GerschenkronAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Erich Allina     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von M. St. Braun, WienAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von E. Allina, WienAus dem Russischen übersetzt von A. GerschenkronÜbersetzt von Paul Brüll, Wien.     

The collective voice of unions and workplace training in Italy: New insights from mixed methods

Using a three-phase approach that combines quantitative (pooled OLS, fixed effects and IV) with qualitative (semi-structured interviews) analyses, we find that in Italy, workplace unions are more likely to enhance training when they sign a firm-level agreement and when they can get access to external funds for financing. We also identify three channels: what we call a ‘maturation effect’, double-track communication and watch-dog function. We argue that these results are consistent with the idea that the impact of workplace unions on training depends on the empowerment of its collective voice within an institutional framework that does not fit either of the standard models provided by collective and liberal market economies.     

Family Firms and Labor Productivity: The Role of Enterprise‐Level Bargaining in the Italian Economy

We investigate the role of Italian firms in labor productivity performance. We find that family‐owned firms have lower labor productivity than their non‐family counterparts. In a second step, we estimate the role of firm‐level bargaining (FLB) to determine whether family‐controlled firms that adopt this type of bargaining may partially close the gap in terms of labor productivity with their non‐family competitors. Our results, obtained through IV estimation to control for endogeneity bias, suggest that enterprises under family governance achieve significant labor productivity gains—greater than those achieved by their non‐family counterparts—when they adopt firm‐level bargaining.     

Reputazione e credibilità di una minaccia in un gioco di contrattazione

Il presente articolo tratta di giochi di contrattazione in cui due giocatori cooperano al fine di trarne un mutuo beneficio. Se un giocatore devia dalla strategia cooperativa l'altro pone in essere una minaccia precedentemente annunciata a titolo di ritorsione. Questo modello cerca di formalizzare il concetto di efficacia e credibilità di una minaccia. Si prende poi in considerazione la reputazione di un giocatore, la quale influenza la decisione di attuare una minaccia incrementando la funzione di utilità di colui che la pone in essere. La velocità di ritorsione e la rapidità di percezione dell'inganno mostrano come un giocatore può deviare dalla strategia cooperativa vanificando gli sforzi di ritorsione del giocatore ingannato.

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Summary This paper deals with bargaining games in which two players cooperate for the purpose of obtaining mutual benefits. If one player deviates from the cooperative strategy, the other then carries out a threat previously announced for the purpose of retaliation. Reputation of a player is considered, which influences the decision of implementing a threat by causing an increasing of the utility function of the punishing player. Speed of retaliation and swiftness of detection of cheating show how a player can deviate from the cooperative strategy vanishing the efforts of the punishing player.

     

Management and performance of Non-Profit Institutions: finding new development trajectories—evidence from Italy

This work tries to deal with Non-Profit Institutions (NPIs) recent challenges, addressing a potential response to the need of managerial approaches and schemes to improve the comprehension of the phenomenon. In particular, the main aim is to identify the prevailing trajectories on which to build a potential theoretical “virtuous” management model. In this perspective, using a statistical analysis on a small case study, the research proceeds to test the coherence of theoretical insights with a possible multifaceted pattern for NPIs in which professionalization, civic-engagement and accountability represent the three fundamental dimensions of what could be defined as “The Cuboid of NPIs Management”.