Gente di Roma: an exercise of dérive by Ettore Scola

This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the city film Gente di Roma by Ettore Scola [Roma Cinematografica (Production), & Scola, E. (Director). (2003). Gente di Roma [Motion picture]. Italy: Istituto Luce] through a combined focus which mingles tourism studies and cultural studies, in particular through theories on psychogeography formulated by the Situationist International, Erving Goffman's idea on front and back regions and Rojek and Urry's process of indexing and dragging. In the movie, the representation of travel aims at depicting the identity of Rome through an exercise in ‘dérive’ and a long journey by bus. This is aimed at exploring the identity of the metropolis, which here is considered in its postmodern version, revealing its fluidity and mutability. The changes that are affecting Rome have to do with the contribution of immigrants, suggesting how the mobility of people is currently provoking mobility in identity too.     

The representation of travel and identity in Bernardo Bertolucci's The sheltering sky

This study aims to analyse the representation of travel in movies by analysing Bernando Bertolucci's movie [Aldrich, W., Thomas, J. (Producers), & Bertolucci, B. (Director). (1990). The sheltering sky [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros]. Filmic travelogues are intended here as illustrations of a process of discovery and transformation of identity from a post-modern perspective. The questioning of the self happens through a journey to a timeless place which managed to preserve a sense of the past. The characters' transformation from tourists to travellers and nomads becomes a kind of pilgrimage in search of authenticity. In this perspective, the desert comes to represent a more general emptiness surrounding and inside the characters. The theories formulated by Bauman, Urry, MacCannell and Wang are central to this analysis, including the subjects of the quest of authenticity, the distinction between travellers and tourists and the files of representation.     

The auctioneerless economics of Axel Leijonhufvud: the 'dark forces of time and ignorance' and the coordination of economic activity

Leijonhufvud focuses his analysis on the coordination of economicactivities. In a world tossed and torn by ever new episodesof instability, macroeconomic theory must finally admit andproperly analyse the limits of collective and individual rationality.Starting from the system's coordination, Leijonhufvud underlinesthe crucial role of information, learning and institutions.Coming to individual choice, he unremittingly rejects unboundedrationality. Methodologically, however, his use of general equilibriumas a benchmark seems to have conditioned his analysis. In bringingto light the ‘dark forces of time and ignorance’,Leijonhufvud himself seems to have fallen under the influenceof the siren represented by general equilibrium theory.     

Delegation of Contracting in the Private Provision of Public Services

We use an incomplete-contract approach to compare contracting out by a public sector agency with the delegation of contracting out to a public-private partnership (PPP) that is a joint venture between private and public sector agents. The PPP maximizes a linear combination of profit and social benefit. Such delegation may be desirable to curb innovations that reduce the cost of provision but also reduce social benefit. Delegation may be undesirable for innovations that increase social benefit but also raise costs. Our results are explained in terms of the shadow cost of public funds and the negotiating stance of the PPP.     

Endogenous skill heterogeneity and inflation

This paper examines the implications of ex ante skill heterogeneity for long run inflation. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model in which there are two types of labor (skilled and unskilled), two types of capital (human and physical), and money is introduced via a cash in advance constraint on consumption purchases. Skill heterogeneity is characterized in terms of (i) a parameter governing the ease with which the two types of labor can be substituted for each other in production; and (ii) the “productivity” of human capital in the production of skill. The model includes the accumulation of human capital which in turn creates skill heterogeneity among workers through an efficiency wage mechanism. Numerical experiments indicate that there is a range of parameter estimates in which the Friedman Rule may not be optimal. Furthermore, our quantitative experiments also indicate that there is a range of parameter values in which a greater degree of skill heterogeneity may be associated with a greater preference for inflation. Empirically, we also find that the inflation and heterogeneity correlation is positive.     

The influence of positive affect on consideration set formation in memory-based choice

Although prior research has examined whether positive affect can impact consideration set size in stimulus-based choice, unknown to this point is whether affective influences also characterize memory-based consideration processes. This distinction is important insofar as consideration in memory-based choice entails psychological processes (including those involving the accessibility of brands) that are unique to choice undertaken in memory-based settings. Experiment 1 provides an initial demonstration of positive affect’s ability to shape memory-based consideration by documenting that positive (versus neutral) affect leads to larger consideration sets. Two additional experiments extend these findings by showing that the influence of positive affect on consideration set size is moderated by characteristics of brands (typicality) and consumers (regulatory focus). Experiment 2 demonstrates that this increase in memory-based consideration set size is attributable to a greater number of atypical, but not typical, brands being considered under positive affect. Experiment 3 documents the moderating effect exerted by consumers’ regulatory focus by showing that the ability of positive affect to increase consideration set size is more likely for consumers high (but not low) on promotion focus. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed as are suggestions for future research.     

Comparing the impact of management on public and private sector nurses in the UK,Italy, and Australia

The research examined the impact of management upon employee outcomes (perceptions of discretionary power, well-being, engagement, and affective commitment), comparing public and private sector nurses in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Overall, 1,945 nurses participated in a self-report survey within these core- and laggard-New Public Management countries. While management influenced employee outcomes for each country, there were significant differences between the public and private sectors, with private sector nurses reporting higher perceptions of outcomes. Importantly, nurses’ engagement was affected by management practice for each country. This study raises important implications for nurse managers, especially public sector managers, described within.     

The Renaissance of Geopolitics in Post-1989 Italy

The revival of geopolitics in post-1989 Italy is at once a rather straightforward and perplexing matter. On the one hand, the renewed appeal that geopolitical thinking has enjoyed in International Relations (IR) circles has been well documented and could hardly be downplayed. On the other hand, however, the recourse to geopolitics has often boiled down to an undifferentiated and often convoluted use of its terms, approaches and theories. In this article we argue that the rationale of such a revival has been less to import geopolitical knowledge into IR and more to confer legitimacy and respectability to the analyses put forward by scholars and practitioners. It is no chance, in fact, that the geopolitics-inspired academic discourse has been progressively recognised as a way, if not the way, to discuss international affairs in post-1989 Italy. The central puzzle to be investigated behind the revival of geopolitics in Italy is thus how such a discourse has managed to gain and retain a powerful status in Italian IR academia and, most importantly, why.     

Using Remote Sensing for Agricultural Statistics

Remote sensing can be a valuable tool for agricultural statistics when area frames or multiple frames are used. At the design level, remote sensing typically helps in the definition of sampling units and the stratification, but can also be exploited to optimise the sample allocation and size of sampling units. At the estimator level, classified satellite images are generally used as auxiliary variables in a regression estimator or for estimators based on confusion matrixes. The most often used satellite images are LANDSAT-TM and SPOT-XS. In general, classified or photo-interpreted images should not be directly used to estimate crop areas because the proportion of pixels classified into the specific crop is often strongly biased. Vegetation indexes computed from satellite images can give in some cases a good indication of the potential crop yield.