Standard costs of regional public rail passenger transport: evidence from Italy

ABSTRACT

The paper estimates the standard cost in Italian regional public rail passenger transport services (LPTR), depending on service characteristics. The results highlight the crucial role of: number of seats per ride, commercial speed, service size and length of rail tracks. The model also shows the positive link between investment in rolling stock and the unit cost of the service. Finally, based on the empirical evidence, we propose regulatory adjustments to accomplish policy targets regarding the fair allocation of public LPTR funds to Regions and Local Authorities and a more efficient use of (scarce) local and national public resources.     

Regional consumption dynamics and risk sharing in Italy

In this paper, we propose a new method for investigating consumption insurance. Differently from the existing literature, we use error correcting VAR models in order to capture simultaneously the occurrence of risk sharing against permanent and transitory shocks. The proposed method is applied to the case of Italian regions. Empirical results obtained over the 1960–2001 period reveal that contrary to previous findings, Italian regions seem to shield against permanent shocks other than transitory ones. Although some biases are detected in the allocation process of resources, deviations from full consumption insurance are not as relevant as claimed in the previous literature on the Italian regions.     

No news is costly news: The link between the diffusion of the press and public spending

This paper studies the link between the diffusion of news and spending decisions. We exploit a dataset of Italian Regions from 1984 to 2008, approximate the spread of information with the diffusion of newspapers, and estimate the effect of the news before and after 1995. In fact, in the mid-90s two reforms introduced the direct election of the governor, autonomous taxing powers and incentives for fiscal discipline at the regional level in Italy. We test the following hypotheses, derived from the theoretical literature: 1) the diffusion of newspapers affects public expenditures close to elections; 2) the more newspapers are diffused, the larger is the reduction of the electoral cycle; 3) before the reform were implemented, the diffusion of newspapers constrained the increased size of expenditures by reducing the positive variation of capital expenditures; 4) after the reform were implemented, the diffusion of newspapers leaves unaffected the size of expenditures by reducing both the positive variation of capital expenditures and the negative variation of current expenditures. The empirical analysis confirms the expectations; the results, moreover, are robust to alternative categorizations of the press and indicate a larger effectiveness of the diffusion of local press.     

西部高校教师人力资源开发的制度分析

高校教师人力资本积累不足已成为西部高校发展的致命瓶颈,这是西部高校教师人力资源开发的制度供给失衡即非正式约束陈旧、正式约束短缺和实施机制匮乏的“三缺”状态造成的。因此,西部高校应尽快转变人才观念,增强人力资本意识,进行非正式约束创新、正式约束强化和实施机制的完善。这是西部高校积聚教师人力资本,实现可持续发展的根本路径。     

Patents, firm size and financial constraints: an empirical analysis for a panel of Italian manufacturing firms

The paper empirically investigates the issue of financial constraintsto investment, focusing on its relationship with innovationactivities. The study is based on the analysis of a cross-industriespanel of 804 Italian companies, observed through the years 1995–2000.The main objective of the study is to highlight whether thereare financial determinants underlying the strong bias of patentingactivity towards larger companies in the Italian economy. Byapplying a dynamic panel analysis, we found that only the firmsshowing lower financial constraints are able to keep a sustainedpatenting profile through time. Our evidence suggests the existenceof an imperfect capital market in the Italian economy, particularlyin the case of medium-sized companies, which tend to delay inefficientlythe start of in-house R&D activities.     

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants exhibit high intergenerational mobility and no less opportunity than natives to achieve high schooling degrees. These findings suggest a rejection of the failed assimilation hypothesis. Additionally, we evaluate different patterns by time of arrival, Italian region of origin and language spoken at home.     

Performance of value- and size-based strategies in the Italian stock market

This paper investigates the performance of size- and value-based strategies in the Italian stock market in the period 2000–2018. Previous research argued the impossibility to define properly value-sorted portfolios due to the inaccuracy of book-to-market ratios available for Italian listed stocks. Using more accurate data, we implement portfolios sorting based on value and growth stocks, to assess the relevance of the value factor in the Italian stock market. We find that the capital asset pricing model fails to explain the cross-section of returns on the different strategies while the Fama and French three-factor model provides a better fit. The results show that all three factors are significant in explaining Italian stock returns during the sample period. Unlike previous studies, which either found no value effect at all or no clear-cut results when testing the book-to-market variable, we find that the value factor is statistically significant and the associated risk premium is of a considerable size.     

Financial constraints on sport organizations’ cost efficiency: the impact of financial fair play on Italian soccer clubs

We analyze the effect of the introduction of stricter financial constraints on the trade-off between sporting and economic results. We apply a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier model to a sample of Italian Serie A teams, i.e. first division, over the period 2005–2015 to evaluate the variation in soccer clubs’ cost efficiency following the application of the UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) principles in 2010. FFP imposes stricter financial regulation as a requirement for a club to be admitted to Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) tournaments. Firstly, we find that FFP does not improve the average efficiency of the Italian first division teams. Secondly, we show that FFP has contributed to leveling the playing field, reducing the gap in terms of efficiency between top teams and lower-tier teams.

Abbreviations: FFP: Financial Fair Play; UEFA: Union of European Football Associations; DEA: Data Envelopment Analysis; SFA: Stochastic Frontier Analysis     

Rethinking the import-productivity nexus for Italian manufacturing

We provide evidence on the firm level productivity effects of imports of intermediates. By exploiting a large panel of Italian manufacturing firms, we are able to separately explore the role of importing from high and low income countries. Importing does not permanently affect the firm productivity growth. This finding holds both when we test for the import entry by means of Propensity Score Matching techniques and when we analyse the import intensity within a dynamic panel data model framework. On the contrary, we confirm the existence of self-selection into importing. Also, our evidence supports the learning-by-exporting effects in Italian manufacturing and we prove that this result is robust to the control of firm import activity.     

Testing for changing shapes of income distribution: Italian evidence in the 1990s from kernel density estimates

By using nonparametric methods, this paper estimates the distribution of both household and size-adjusted real income in Italy between 1987–1998. Because of data sparseness in the distribution, an adaptive bandwidth is used, while to account for sample design a weighting variable is incorporated in the estimation procedure. The time invariance and the presence of modes in the distributions are tested by means of a nonparametric test and a bootstrap test, respectively. The empirical results suggest that the Italian income distribution significantly changed over time. During the eighties the density shifted rightwards, positively affecting the well being of a large fraction of Italian households. The 1993 recession altered the shape of income distribution increasing inequality and polarisation, and the following period of slow recovery did not show significant changes in the shape of distribution in terms of relative income with a consequent permanence of inequality. The polarisation of the distribution is more noticeable for size-adjusted income rather than whole household income, reflecting the influence of family size on income shape.Jel classification: C14, D31, I30The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Italian Ministry of the Universities and Scientific Research (MIUR). We would like to thank two anonymous referees, Nicholas Longford, Aman Ullah and participants of the International workshop on Income Distribution and Welfare, Milan, May 2002 for their useful comments and suggestions. Obviously we are the solely responsible of any further error and omission.First version received: January 2002/Final version received: January 2003     

The impact of fiscal policy announcements by the Italian government on the sovereign spread: A comparative analysis

This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of fiscal policy announcements by the Italian government on the long-term sovereign bond spread of Italy relative to Germany. After collecting data on relevant fiscal policy announcements, we perform an econometric comparative analysis between the three administrations that followed one another during the period 2009–2013. The results indicate that only fiscal policy announcements made by members of Monti's cabinet had a significant impact on the Italian spread. We argue that these findings may be partly explained by a credibility gap between Monti's technocratic administration and Berlusconi's and Letta's governments.     

Investment–productivity dynamics and distribution dynamics in a multisector economy: some theory and an application to Italian regions

In this paper, we study the investment–productivity dynamics in the Framework Space, presented by Böhm and Punzo [Cycles, Growth and Structural Change, Routledge, London (2001) 47], as the distribution dynamics of the production sectors of an economy. We apply such theoretical framework to data from Italian regions to identify differences in sectoral behaviors both within and across regions. Our main findings are: sectors within a region generally follow different regime dynamics; Southern Italian regions are generally characterized by higher degrees of heterogeneity in sectoral growth behaviors and of regime instability. Also, we find support to the hypothesis of a positive relation between this type of instability and unemployment, as argued by the Neo-Austrian theory of structural dynamics.     

Location,internationalization and performance of firms in Italy: a multilevel approach

Competition is increasingly global. However, location still matters: often firms cluster in the same geographic areas in order to exploit locational externalities and improve their competitiveness. This article analyses how Italian firms' performance, proxied by their propensity to export, depends both on geographical and institutional context and on individual characteristics. Using a multilevel approach, we estimate and distinguish the effect of individual (firm level) and context (province level) variables on the performance of internationalized Italian firms. We show that both firms and province heterogeneity shape the results.     

The effect of the war risk: a comparison of the consequences of the two Iraq wars

This paper measures the effect of the two Iraq wars on some Italian and US financial variables using the heteroskedasticity-based estimation technique (Rigobon and Sack, NBER WP No. 9640, 2003). Our results show that it is not possible to trace a general pattern in the behaviour of the international markets following a period of political and economic instability such as a war. The risk of war caused significant effects on financial markets in 2003; no effect appeared in 1990. The results underline a similar response between the different countries we analyse. Both Italian and American markets reacted in a similar way to both wars.     

Exposure to corruption and political participation: Evidence from Italian municipalities

This paper aims to study the effects of exposure to corruption on all the aspects of political participation. Focusing on Italian municipalities in the period 1999–2014, we generate a daily and local measure of exposure to corruption, screening newspaper articles of the main Italian press agency. We concentrate on local elections and, in an event-study analysis, we find three main results. First, corruption exposure affects citizens' participation in election by reducing voter turnout. Second, corruption impacts on politicians’ participation: the number of candidates and electoral lists decreases after a scandal and candidates with political tenure are more likely to run. Finally, these changes affect local political outcomes as tenured politicians are more likely to be elected, while freshmen lose ground. These results suggest that exposure to corruption has general and negative effects on political participation, leading people to lose interest in politics.     

Testing the ‘Quiet Life’ Hypothesis in the Italian Banking Industry

In this paper we test the so‐called ‘quiet life’ hypothesis (QLH), according to which firms with market power are less efficient. Using data on the Italian banking industry for the period 1992–2007, we apply a two‐step procedure. First we estimate bank‐level cost efficiency scores and Lerner indices. Then we use the estimated market power measures, as well as a vector of control variables, to explain cost efficiency. Our empirical evidence supports the QLH, although the impact of market power on efficiency is not particularly remarkable in magnitude.     

Pareto's ‘Chronicles’ in Relation to his Sociology

The ‘second series’ of the Giornale degli Economisti commenced in 1890 and established itself as the leading Italian vehicle for the dissemination of the new marginalist economics. From 1891 it also included a special feature entitled ‘cronaca’, which critically chronicled practical developments in Italian public policy, public finances and the state of the economy. Vilfredo Pareto was the regular author of the chronicles between 1893 and 1897. This study provides the context necessary for an appreciation of the juxtaposition evident in Pareto's chronicles between his radical-liberal critique of leading Italian politicians and his relatively gentle commentary on some Italian leaders associated with the extreme left. It also identifies attributes from Pareto's chronicles that extended, albeit in a modified form, to his 1916 Trattato di Sociologia Generale. In both instances: the actual political world is characterised on a similar basis; criticism is undertaken on a brutal, sarcastic and often polemic manner; and the left–right political divide is treated as a relatively low-order issue.     

Credit demand and supply shocks in Italy during the Great Recession

In this article, we use Structural VAR analysis to disentangle credit demand and supply shocks and their effect on real economic activity in Italy during the 2008 to 2014 crisis period. The three endogenous variables considered are the loan interest rate, the loans growth rate and the employment to population ratio. The data are observed at annual frequency for each of 103 Italian provinces. The empirical evidence suggests that the variance of the shocks varies across four Italian macro-regions: North, Centre, South and Islands, and hece heteroscedasticity is used to identify (ex ante) the structural shocks. Sign restrictions are used to interpret shocks ex post. The empirical findings suggest a prominent role of credit supply shock in shaping real activity dynamics and also that credit crunch hits the North of Italy less than the remaining macro-regions, especially the South of Italy.     

促进我国区域间产业资本转移的税收政策研究

现阶段我国区：域经济发展仍不协调．东部地区的产业资本向中西部转移尚存制度上的障碍。文章基于东部产业资本向中西部转移的动机分析,对我国现行税收政策在促进区域间产业资本转移的效果进行评价,为有效促进我国区域间产业资本转移。提出尽快在中西部全面实施资源税改革、落实增值税扩围和增加对中西部产业的流转税优惠以及推进消费税、个人所得税和企业所得税改革等政策建议。