Coping Strategies in a Wealthy City of Northern Italy

The article focuses on the coping strategies of three categories of people usually considered to be at risk of becoming socially excluded — single mothers with minor children, long‐term unemployed males and foreign immigrants — in the northern Italian city of Milan. The concept of social exclusion, often used as an alternative to the concept of poverty, occasionally as its synonym, is here intended as multidimensional, dynamic and, most of all, relational. The article shows how this concept can be useful in analysing the condition of the three categories of people and how their condition is strongly related to the constraints and resources offered by the local context. Through the empirical material gathered from in‐depth interviews with the three above‐mentioned categories of people, the article first shows how these people profit from the labour market and the social services available in the city. It then analyses the role of social networks and the mechanisms behind the mobilization of people in support of the interviewees. Finally, it deals with the subjective dimension, that is, it examines whether, and to what extent, interviewees express feelings of uselessness. A visualization of the strategies will also be proposed. The empirical material will help to understand whether these people are socially excluded or not, and in which sense.     

Intergenerational risk shifting through social security and bailout politics

This paper adopts a stochastic overlapping generations framework to analyze the allocation of aggregate financial risks under different social security systems and a majority voting rule. We study whether there will be switches between pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and fully funded (FF) systems in such an economy. We show that in case of a negative aggregate shock, low-income young individuals will form a political coalition with the elderly to implement a PAYG system. PAYG scheme is shown to persist even after a good aggregate shock if the system is redistributive enough.     

The (im)possibility of ethics in the information age

This paper is concerned with the possibility that the ethical claim of the other, that sense of being bound to the other, may becoming more and more difficult to experience as information technology increasingly mediates our social being. The paper will support the supposition of Don Caputo that obligation does not emanate from codes, imperatives or moral arguments. Rather it will argue that obligation takes hold of us from within disaster. Obligation, our being bound-to, finds us when we come face to a face in disaster. The paper will argue that electronic mediation is inducing a sense of hyperreality into our world (Baudrillard). It will argue that this hyperreality is making our ethical sensibility nebulous to the point that we are not coming face to face with our obligations. An analysis of the Baring bank disaster will be used to demonstrate the point. The paper will show that Nick Leeson was in a hyperreal world in which he was not able to come face to face with the victims of the disaster. The electronic hyperreal world of financial markets, where traders deal in abstract numbers, movements on the screen, made it possible for him to look over and past the faces and proper names of the victims; their claim became diffused in the numbers on the screen, not real cash only numbers, not real people with faces and proper names, just numbers. If this supposition seems tenable what are we to do? The paper argues that we do not need more codes, imperatives or moral arguments, as such. Rather we need to keep our lives at the resolution, of faces and proper names—if obligation happens this is where it is likely to be.     

Accessing the Urban Commons Through the Mediation of Information: The Eliana Silva Occupation,Belo Horizonte,Brazil

This essay demonstrates how mediations (called Dialogues) between the University of Belo Horizonte and the residents of the Eliana Silva Occupation in that city have secured not only the right to urban land and constitutional rights that have been historically violated in Brazil, but also the right to that which is of common interest. The essay speaks to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's contention that what is common goes far beyond the provision of public services. This starting point allows us to see that urban occupations are politically empowered, to the extent that poor people consciously violate the Brazilian law governing the right of possession and ownership over urban land through creative and cooperative actions that are undertaken and extended across networks. This essay will focus on the centrality of the struggle to build a common communication platform serving to nourish social ties and sociability among those social actors who share the same human deprivation—lack of access to what should be widely available to all citizens. On the theoretical side, the essay takes Pierre Bourdieu, Bruno Latour and Milton Santos as its guides to understanding how social actors act in the struggle for socio‐spatial coexistence and urbanity.     

After Modigliani,Miller, and Hamada: A new way to estimate cost of capital

In this article, we discuss the impact of financial debt on shareholder value using a new approach that aims: (a) to explain the effect that leverage from debt has on a stock’s systematic risk, or what we shall call here “the systematic cost of leverage,” and (b) to account for default risk in the cost of equity, or what we shall call here “the cost of default.” Our assessment of systematic risk is based on a stochastic approach that is materially different from the one proposed by Hamada: the risk premium remunerates the investor for the probability of equity (expressed as market value) generating a return below that of the risk‐free rate. Furthermore, the approach we use to account for default risk is derived from reduced‐form models, but in this case, (a) we use real probabilities of default and not risk‐neutral probabilities, and (b) we extend the approach to stocks.     

From Cardinal to Ordinal Utility Theory

A bstract .   This paper examines the transition from cardinal to ordinal utility. We begin with the egalitarian utilitarianism of J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, in which everyone was supposed to count as one. That is their phrase to explain how the happiness of existing people was to be maximized. We compare Spencer's goal with Darwin's goal of the "general good," in which the number of perfect people was to be maximized. Spencer's goal was egalitarian, while Darwin's entailed biological perfection or hierarchy. We consider Edgeworth's hedonic calculus, in which the notion of hierarchy enters economics. For Edgeworth, agents have differential capacities for happiness. Throughout, we consider normative aspects of Darwin's work, in particular Darwin's challenge to the early utilitarianism of Mill and Spencer. We suggest that the Paretian principle returns utilitarianism to its egalitarian roots.     

MEASURING RISK IN ENVIRONMENTAL FINANCE

Abstract.  Environmental sustainability indices, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the Ethibel Sustainability Index, quantify the development and promotion of sustainable social, ethical and environmental values in the community. Moreover, such indices provide a benchmark for managing sustainability portfolios, and developing financial products and services that are linked to sustainable economic, environmental, social and ethical criteria. This paper reviews the existing data and risk indices in environmental finance. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse existing sustainability and ethical indices in environmental finance, and evaluate empirical environmental risk by estimating conditional volatility clustering that is inherent in these indices. Financial volatility models are estimated to analyse the underlying conditional volatility or time-varying risk that is inherent in alternative environmental sustainability indices. Volatility clustering is observed for most series, but some extreme observations are also evident. The log- and second-moment conditions suggest that valid inferences can be drawn for purposes of sensible empirical analysis.     

“The sweetest songs”—Ethical framing in fundraising through the agency of service users/contributors to tell their own stories

Much of the discussion on the ethics of the framing of service users in fundraising and marketing materials focuses on the ethical dilemma of whether the means of using negative framing and negatively-framed images—which it is argued are more effective at raising money—justify that end if they cause harm by stereotyping and “othering” the people so framed, rob them of their dignity, and fail to engage people in long-term solutions. Attempts to find the right balance between these two ethical poles have proved elusive. This paper posits a new ethical solution by removing these two poles from the equation and making the ethicality of fundraising frames contingent on the voice and agency of service users/contributors to tell their own stories and contribute to their own framing: as the Niger proverb says, “a song sounds sweeter from the author's mouth.”     

Condorcet meets Bentham

We show that if the statistical distribution of utility functions in a population satisfies a certain condition, then a Condorcet winner will not only exist, but will also maximize the utilitarian social welfare function. We also show that, if people’s utility functions are generated according to certain plausible random processes, then in a large population, this condition will be satisfied with very high probability. Thus, in a large population, the utilitarian outcome will be selected by any Condorcet consistent voting rule.     

企业社会责任特征对员工绿色行为的影响:基于道德决策的机制模型

员工绿色行为作为提升组织环保绩效、促进企业可持续发展的关键因素,越来越多的学者对其进行了深入探讨。然而,现有研究大多从态度、动机和领导者行为等方面考察员工绿色行为的形成过程,忽视了组织特征因素,以及员工内在的道德认知和道德情绪因素的共同作用。本文基于道德决策理论,从理性道德认知和非理性道德情绪出发,建构企业社会责任特征与员工绿色行为的关系模型,并分析员工的道德认知与道德情绪交互作用对员工绿色行为的即时影响。研究结果将从道德决策视角拓展员工绿色行为的理论版图;实践上为培育员工的生态素养、激发员工绿色行为寻求道德动力,为组织环保实践和绿色可持续发展提供管理依据和策略。     

Ethical notions and social life: some problems in the measurement of attitudes

In this paper an attempt is made to distinguish three types of ethical orientation. The first one, individually oriented ethics, consists of a set of norms regulating the social behavior of people in which the predominating norms are those which regulate behavior towards other members of small, more or less informal, groups. The second one, socially oriented ethics, does not so much evaluate the personal qualities of the individual nor the various elements of his conduct as a person, but rather the effects caused by the fact that he occupies a definite position in the social structure. Empirical data—based on Polish and American studies—support these distinctions. The third type of ethics, which emerged recently and is based on the concern about population growth, human resources, environment, etc., says that the earth is the only and common home for different social systems. It embraces also the relation of mankind to all other living creatures. This is global ethics.     

Social networks and citizen election forecasting: The more friends the better

Most citizens correctly forecast which party will win a given election, and such forecasts usually have a higher level of accuracy than voter intention polls. How do citizens do it? We argue that social networks are a big part of the answer: much of what we know as citizens comes from our interactions with others. Previous research has considered only indirect characteristics of social networks when analyzing why citizens are good forecasters. We use a unique German survey and consider direct measures of social networks in order to explore their role in election forecasting. We find that three network characteristics –  size, political composition, and frequency of political discussion – are among the most important variables when predicting the accuracy of citizens’ election forecasts.     

近朱者赤:伦理型领导如何影响员工内部揭发意向?

鉴于员工内部揭发能有效阻止企业中的非伦理行为,很多研究开始关注员工内部揭发问题。本研究着眼于员工内部揭发的伦理性,认为伦理型领导能够降低员工的道德推脱意识,从而正向影响员工内部揭发意向;员工感知的社会责任感正向调节伦理型领导对员工道德推脱的作用。本文通过三个阶段的数据收集,得到232套有效问卷。实证结果表明:(1)伦理型领导能够显著正向影响员工内部揭发意愿;(2)道德推脱在伦理型领导和内部揭发间起中介作用;(3)员工感知的企业社会责任对道德推脱在伦理型领导与内部揭发之间的间接关系起到调节作用,也即只有当员工感知到企业承担更多的社会责任时,伦理型领导通过道德推脱影响员工内部揭发意向的中介作用是显著的。本文在理论上丰富了伦理型领导与员工内部揭发之间作用机制的研究,对有效促进组织内部揭发的途径有重要启示作用。     

Safety margins versus profit maximization

Under uncertainty, firms risk bankruptcy. We ask, in symmetric duopoly with stochastic demand, what happens when one firm minimizes the probability of negative profits while the other maximizes expected profits. When fixed costs are small, a firm can reduce the likelihood of negative profits. However, under a large fixed cost, the chance of negative profits increases upon deviation from a profit‐maximizing strategy. In any event, if one firm adopts a safety‐first strategy, the other firm has higher profits and a better survival chance by maximizing expected profit. Finally, we compare a profit maximizing to a safety‐first strategy in relation to ownership and control in firms.     

Empirics of the Identification of Social Interactions; An Evaluation of the Approaches and Their Results*

Abstract. Over the last decade, the study of social interactions in economic decision making has become an important area of research. The main objective of this paper is to survey the extent to which recent empirical contributions have succeeded in overcoming the identification problems as first formulated by Manski (1993). This discussion is followed by a comparison of empirical studies in three key areas of research: neighborhood effects, substance use among teenagers, and peer effects among university roommates. Finally, I discuss questions like: Can economists restrict attention to a specific subcategories of social interactions? How do we define social groups, and what is the importance of social interactions for public policy?     

Socioeconomic inequality in health-related behaviors: a lifestyle approach

The adoption of certain behaviors—like smoking or physical activity—is recognized as a major factor affecting health. Analyzing the social determinants of these behaviors, then, should be considered an important goal, since it may improve our understanding of the more general phenomenon of health inequalities. In this paper we analyze the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health-related behaviors among the Italian population aged 18–74 in 2004/2005. Using large-scale sample survey data and a Weberian lifestyle approach, we first identify an ordered multidimensional space of health-related behaviors, and partition this space into a meaningful set of discrete regions representing a fine-grained taxonomy of health lifestyles. Then, we use regression analysis to determine if, and to what extent, the identified lifestyles are associated with SES. Using level of education as an indicator of SES, we find that the propensity to adopt healthier lifestyles exhibits a positive educational gradient, whereas the probability of following less healthy lifestyles is inversely associated with the level of education. We conclude that, in general, focusing on health lifestyles—i.e., on combinations of multiple health-related behaviors—instead of single behaviors may lead to a better understanding of health-related practices and their relationship with socioeconomic status.     

Evaluation of a Flemish Active Labour Market Policy in the framework of the European Social Fund. Results and challenges

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the “Work Experience for Young Persons” (WIJ) programme, which was implemented in Flanders between 2015 and 2018. The WIJ programme is partially financed through the European Social Fund (ESF) and targets unqualified, young, and unemployed people with the aim of facilitating their entry to the labour market. The programme involves a trajectory of intensive guidance that includes labour market orientation and coaching as first phase, plus competence strengthening activities as second phase. This analysis is based on the Flemish Public Employment Service’s administrative data sources, which allows us to exploit detailed information on previous labour market history. We apply Coarsened Exact Matching to evaluate the WIJ’s impact on young unemployed people specifically in terms of their probability of being employed, unemployed or inactive, and of re-entering into education. Our results suggest that those who have participated in the WIJ programme have lower employment and education probabilities with respect to those who participated in the standard activities proposed by the public employment service. However, we found a positive employment effect if we only consider those who participated in the standard trajectory, i.e. those whose WIJ intervention lasted fewer than 14 months; this means that the negative effects are driven by those young individuals following the extended trajectories.     

Microfinance and social capital formation- a social network analysis approach

The microcredit program has emerged as an important poverty alleviation strategy over the last three decades, and several studies have examined its economic impacts on the community well-being. However, far too little attention has been paid to the effects of micro credits on community social connection and solidarity. This paper aims to examine the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore the impact of the rural microcredit fund on community social capitals. In doing so, the data on interactions of four rural development groups' members before and after the microcredit project implementation were collected using participatory workshops in Neyzar village of Qom province in Iran. The data were analyzed by Ucinet software, and the socio-graphs were produced by the NetDraw application. The results show that, more people have been involved in the social interactions after the project implementation and there was statistically significant increase in density and decrease in centralization of cooperation network. Furthermore, there were no important distinctions in centrality of people with various educational levels before and after the project implementation. Overall, it can be concluded that, the microfinance initiative considerably promotes the community social capital and participation in the rural development activities. Moreover, the SNA techniques are applicable as an impact assessment tool to investigate changes in community social capital.     

Pope Francis on Overcoming Exclusion: A Theological Vision with Economic and Social Implications

The ethical imperative to overcome exclusion is a key component of the social teachings and advocacy efforts of Pope Francis. At the very core of the pastoral and social vision he proposes is a drive to resist the global trend toward growing inequality and to encourage greater solidarity, which includes extending economic opportunities much more broadly. Even more vehemently than his papal predecessors, Francis insists on prioritizing the concrete well‐being of people facing hardship and oppression, so that nobody is relegated to the category of “the throwaway.” While the theme of mercy (a “soft” virtue, inasmuch as it involves voluntary action to overcome indifference and suffering) is prominent in many of his ethical appeals, Francis notably displays a distinctive structural analysis (a “hard” diagnostic tool) when addressing injustices in the global economy. The plights of victims of human trafficking, of global climate change, of restricted work opportunities due to globalization, and other causes of human suffering are best analyzed with ample attention to structures that require transformation. While economists and sociologists may be less interested in the underlying moral anthropology and spirituality that grounds the social teachings of Francis, it is undeniable that a coherent social vision undergirds the insistence of the Jesuit pope on greater social inclusion—a vision that applies to the full range of economic, environmental, and social issues. These concerns are on especially full display in two major teaching documents of Francis: his 2013 exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. In each, the pope employs an astute structural lens that reveals injustices and allows him to propose strategies to overcome inequality and exclusion.     

The trade-off between the net present cost of a project and the probability to complete it on schedule

In this article we consider the probability of not completing a project on schedule (or the risk of delays) and its effect on the net present cost of the project. We propose an efficient frontier that points out to management the trade-off between low risk, early start schedules and high risk, late start schedules. Early start schedules minimize the risk of delays at the cost of early investment in project activities and material. Late start schedules delay capital outlays while increasing the risk of not completing the project on its due date.The methodology developed in this study is aimed at strategic level decision making. At this level, decisions are based on incomplete information that calls for stochastic analysis and the introduction of uncertainty. Uncertainty in project management is introduced through stochastic activity duration and stochastic lead times of resources required for the project. The commonly used CPM analysis ignores those aspects of uncertainty. PERT analysis does consider the stochastic nature of activity durations but computes only the probability to complete the project on a given date for a single schedule.A crucial decision at the strategic level of project management is when to schedule activities with high value-added. The decision makers have to trade-off the advantages of delaying such activities, thus reducing the net present cost of the project, with the disadvantages associated with increasing the probability of not completing the project on time.The number of feasible schedules in a real project is typically large and exact analysis of all possible schedules is difficult to perform, if not impossible. This article presents a heuristic procedure that generates an efficient frontier representing the risk of delays versus the net present cost of the project. The efficient frontier is a decision aid for the manager who has to choose the appropriate schedule for the project.Most computer packages for project management are based on CPM (especially packages for personal computers). Our heuristic procedure is designed to be used as an extension to CPM analysis. The procedure starts with the early start schedule developed by CPM and, using the computed slacks, tries to delay activities with high value-added one at a time. At each iteration a Monte-Carlo-type simulation is used to approximate the probability of not completing the project on time. This probability is stored along with the net present cost of the project. The result of the analysis is a set of points on the plane representing the probability of not completing the project on time versus the net present cost of the project. Each point corresponds to a specific schedule. Management can choose the most appropriate schedule for implementation based on its attitude towards risk and its financial policy.A simple example is used to illustrate the heuristic procedure. In the example, a project with six activities and two types of resources is analyzed. Five schedules are generated with net present cost ranging from $45,000 to $8,191,000 and the probability of not completing the project on time ranging from 0.0001 to 0.75. Our experience with a real project of 400 activities is reported as well.The heuristic procedure can be implemented easily on advanced “Fourth Generation” packages for project management such as IBM's Application System (AS) or Metier's Artemis system. The heuristic procedure can also be implemented on personal computers by processing the output of any CPM package by the special subroutine that is developed in this study.