Citizen involvement in promoting sustainable mobility

This article proposes a methodology for promoting public involvement in the planning process for the promotion of sustainable mobility. The concept of the focus group (FG) is widened and a method based on holding larger groups defined as mega focus groups (MFG) is proposed. These MFG allow all sections of society to be represented in the participation process, thereby involving the population at a strategic level in subjects of general interest to society and later, holding smaller FGs on more specific subject matters (tactical level).The advantage of the larger MFG over the smaller FG is that they can obtain more information (between 40 and 60 people take part) from easily run meetings (similar to the FG). The MFG also provide a territorial representation of peoples’ opinions and serve as a mechanism for selecting the participants in the smaller focus groups. The information extracted from both the MFG and FG about people’s perceptions of sustainable mobility provides the background to the design of pilot surveys on urban mobility. For a better understanding of the development of this method and its possible applications in any town or city the article includes its practical application in the medium sized city of Santander (Northern Spain).     

Tax Incentives and Household Investment in Complementary Pension Insurance: Some Recent Evidence From the Italian Experience

We show by a simple difference‐in‐difference methodology that, contrary to prior research, robustly raising the deductibility limit associated to pension fund holdings in Italy did not succeed in boosting households’ contributions to this form of savings. Some other empirical findings also suggest that this policy measure may have not even increased the average amount of first‐time contributors to such funds. In view of the specific features of the Italian market for complementary insurance (relatively young and less developed), these empirical results might be of interest to policymakers acting in countries with similar features (for instance, some of the more recent EU members).     

Lombard Enlightenment and Classical Political Economy

Abstract

This paper discusses the formative steps of ‘Classical’ Political Economy under the joint influence of the Italian and Scottish Enlightenment. Pietro Verri is a leading figure of the Italian Enlightenment and he belongs to the Lombard branch of the Italian School of Political Economy (sometimes named ‘School of Milan’) during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Schumpeter's treatment of the ‘School of Milan’ describes Pietro Verri as ‘the most important pre-Smithian authority on Cheapness-and-Plenty’. A careful canvass of the texts substantiates Schumpeter's suggestion. Verri stands out as a key figure in the transition from Physiocracy to the Smithian system.     

Horizontal mergers and product quality

We study the effects of a horizontal merger when firms compete on price and quality. In a Salop framework with three symmetric firms, several striking results appear. First, the merging firms reduce quality but possibly also price, whereas the outside firm increases both price and quality. As a result, the average price in the market increases, but also the average quality. Second, the outside firm benefits more than the merging firms from the merger, and the merger can be unprofitable for the merger partners, i.e., the “merger paradox” may appear. Third, the merger always reduces total consumer utility (though some consumers may benefit), but total welfare can increase due to endogenous quality cost savings. In a generalized framework with n firms, we identify two key factors for the merger effects: (i) the magnitude of marginal variable quality costs, which determines the nature of strategic interaction and (ii) the cross‐quality and cross‐price demand effects, which determines the intensity of price relative to quality competition. These findings have implications for antitrust policy in industries where quality is a key strategic variable for the firms.     

SCALE ECONOMIES AND HETEROGENEITY IN BUSINESS MONEY DEMAND: THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE

This paper investigates the demand for money by firms and the existence of economies of scale in the Italian manufacturing industry. We estimate a model for cash elaborated by Fujiki and Mulligan using a different estimation procedure from the previous literature. We then introduce an iterative procedure based on backward exclusion of firms from model estimation which points out the high heterogeneity of Italian companies in money demand. Our estimates show that the Italian manufacturing industry, considered as a whole, does not enjoy scale economies in money demand. However, our iterative procedure points out that the cause of this result has to be ascribed to small firms which are characterized by thin cash money holdings and a consequent very modest opportunity cost.     

Competition for Power and Altruism

The paper analyzes the trade-off between power and altruism by using an experimental framework which involved a group of experimental agents, undergraduate students of the University of Siena. The results show that the introduction into the experimental structure of a tournament for the power appreciably altered the behaviour of agents. More specifically the degree of altruism, measured by the dictator offers, significantly decreased when the agents were able to trade altruism for power. The results were more clear-cut and robust in the case of the dictator game, but also in the case of the ultimatum game the introduction of the tournament for power altered the behavior of subjects. A significant gender effect emerged.     

Effect of Risk Aversion on the Incentive to Share Information

To the current state of knowledge the explanation of stock market behavior raises difficult theoretical problems. In this paper a critical review of the theoretical research on the issue is made. The traditional adaptive characterization of rationality is criticized, and it is proposed that a new theoretical framework, namely the projectual characterization of rationality, might be the right perspective from which to look at the thing. The empirical implications of this new approach, and its implications in terms of testable propositions are at the moment poorly understood, however; some suggestions for future research, both theoretical and empirical, are provided. [G14]     

The quality of service desired by public transport users

This article describes the methodology used to study the quality of service desired by users of a public transport system. The desired quality is different from the perceived quality because it does not represent the daily experiences of the users, but rather what they desire, hope for or expect from their public transport system. This is why it is important to study the desired quality, knowledge of which gives local authorities the background information for personalised marketing policies based on the user’s requirements rather than their daily perceptions. The methodology goes through several stages, such as the use of focus groups to choose the most important variables for the users, the design and use of unlabelled stated preferences surveys and the calibration of discrete choice models. All of these help determine the weight of the most relevant variables. The analysis is carried out with different categories of users and potential users (those people not currently using public transport).Waiting time, cleanliness and comfort are shown to be the public transport variables that users most valued, but the degree to which they are valued varies according to the category of user. Variables such as driver kindness, bus occupancy and journey time are generally given less weight. The first two vary little by user category, but some variability appears for journey time.For potential users the more important variables when defining expected quality from public transport are waiting time, journey time and above all, level of occupancy. They consider the other variables to be of little importance when defining an efficient public transport service.In order to improve service quality and attract more passengers to public transport in general, the application of this methodology provides the authorities and operating companies with useful information to plan personalised marketing policies specifically directed at different categories of users and potential users of public transport.