Ownership, Scale Economies and Efficiency in the Italian Water Sector

The Italian water sector is characterized by the presence of several water companies, with different ownership types; Fabbri and Fraquelli (Empirica 27:65–82, 2000) and Antonioli and Filippini (Util Policy 10:181–187, 2001) have analyzed the presence of economies of scale and scope in the sector while Abrate et al. (Journal of Productivity Analysis 35:227–242, 2011) have assessed the role of the heterogeneity in this sector. In recent years, the Italian water sector has been subject to a large reorganization, following the implementation of the EC Directive 60/00 for the harmonization of the pricing rules and polluting principles of the Member States. However, the reorganization of the sector is far from being accomplished, and the Italian water companies still face strong regulatory uncertainty associated with the absence of an independent authority. The lack of clear regulatory principles and the presence of almost 100 different companies managed differently across the territory requires the re-analysis of the possible sources of inefficiencies, in order to understand what kind of policy measures might be implemented to improve the performance of the water utilities and take them into account when the final tariff is fixed. This paper estimates a stochastic frontier to empirically investigate the main sources of inefficiency for a sample of 65 Italian water companies. First, this paper investigates whether a positive relationship exists between the firm’s ownership type and efficiency by using different estimation methods; second, this paper investigates whether the presence of economies of scale in the Italian water sector still exist after the merging process that recently took place as part of the sector reorganization. The estimation results show that ownership is not related to the firm’s performance and that the Italian water sector is still characterized by the presence of economies of scale. This result indicates that local communities may benefit from merging into larger water districts.     

Social preferences and lying aversion in children

While previous research has shown that social preferences develop in childhood, we study whether this development is accompanied by reduced use of deception when lies would harm others, and increased use of deception to benefit others. In a sample of children aged between 7 and 14, we find strong aversion to lying at all ages. Lying is driven mainly by selfish motives and envy. Children with stronger social preferences are less prone to deception, even when lying would benefit others at no monetary cost. Older children lie less than younger children and use self-justification to lie.     

Traditiovations: Creating innovation from the past and antique techniques for rural areas

Many agricultural activities are today considered unsustainable for the presence of a large number of externalities involving environment and human health. Almost paradoxically, the future of a modern agriculture seems to be linked also to a return to the past and to a re-appropriation of marginalized, ignored or lost traditions on the base of local cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. These clusters of traditions may represent a precondition to innovate and foster local development generating, thanks also to the support of science and research, innovative practices and techniques deriving from past traditional knowledge or re-invented techniques. Critical analysis and validation of these antique practices by science and research are the prerequisite for the development of Traditiovations: in this article two examples of such Traditiovations are identified and described in which practices and techniques, deriving from historical or past traditional knowledge, show the capability to operate as innovations, despite their apparently obsolete and out-of-date features, in production and management.     

The New Division of Labor in the Globalized Economy: Women’s Challenges and Opportunities

The way in which the new international division of labor (NIDL) in the globalized economy affects gender inequalities has not been sufficiently explored yet. The body of literature on commodity chains that has attempted to assess the welfare effects of the NIDL, especially in less developed countries, has paid sparse attention to gender issues. Globalization has entailed the deverticalization of commodity supply chains and the emergence of highly concentrated financial groups and transnational companies linked to a network of firms operating as affiliates and suppliers, namely the global commodity chains. The NIDL could worsen gender inequality, due to the particular organizational strategies in global commodity chains that privilege power, instead of trust and market exchange, as the major form of governance and means for resource allocation. Because women represent the poorest swathe of the world’s population, they suffer the most from the growing wealth inequality and the concentration of power produced by the NIDL. Moreover, because of the traditional sexual division of labor and because of their low status in society, women are the most harshly exploited subjects in the system. The general conclusion of the paper is that in the NIDL the main means of resource allocation are not competitive markets, as often suggested by the GCV literature and mainstream economics, but are instead power relations that ultimately stem from the patriarchal culture of violence and domination.     

The New Division of Labor in the Globalized Economy: Women’s Challenges and Opportunities

The way in which the new international division of labor (NIDL) in the globalized economy affects gender inequalities has not been sufficiently explored yet. The body of literature on commodity chains that has attempted to assess the welfare effects of the NIDL, especially in less developed countries, has paid sparse attention to gender issues. Globalization has entailed the deverticalization of commodity supply chains and the emergence of highly concentrated financial groups and transnational companies linked to a network of firms operating as affiliates and suppliers, namely the global commodity chains. The NIDL could worsen gender inequality, due to the particular organizational strategies in global commodity chains that privilege power, instead of trust and market exchange, as the major form of governance and means for resource allocation. Because women represent the poorest swathe of the world’s population, they suffer the most from the growing wealth inequality and the concentration of power produced by the NIDL. Moreover, because of the traditional sexual division of labor and because of their low status in society, women are the most harshly exploited subjects in the system. The general conclusion of the paper is that in the NIDL the main means of resource allocation are not competitive markets, as often suggested by the GCV literature and mainstream economics, but are instead power relations that ultimately stem from the patriarchal culture of violence and domination.     

Predictive Strength of Lending Technologies in Funding SMEs

Using a proprietary database of lending decisions (N = 9,898) for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), the paper investigates how banks cope with the adverse selection dilemma. Based on an intertemporal framework, we qualify incorrect and correct lending decisions of banks and investigate the power of lending technologies to predict errors and correct choices. Findings suggest that adverse selection can be better controlled by a durable bank–firm relationship, as well as by an atomistic loan decision process, at the local level. By contrast, a loan decision‐making process based exclusively on hard financial information about SMEs may lead to adverse selection errors.     

Chinese banking system： Peculiarities in a comparison with Italian case

The analysis of principal data on Chinese banks highlights how they are exposed to credit risk, primarily generated from loans to public companies. Chinese banks have a good capital provision; The analysis of economic data describes a system oriented towards relationship lending; The average profitability per employee shows wide margins of improvement in terms of efficiency and technological equipment. The comparison with the case of Italy, which like China can be considered an economy heavily oriented to banking intermediation, it is useful to highlight some peculiarities of the Chinese banking system.     

Optimal income taxation and migration

We tackle the issue of optimal dynamic taxation of capital income in an economy with disconnection as in Weil (J Public Econ 38:183–198, 1989), generated by migration and intra-family altruism. We show that, when the government aims at correcting such a disconnection using time-varying weights in the social welfare function, then there is room for nonzero capital income taxation, both in the short and in the long run.     

Tribal Identity in Times of Peril

ABSTRACT

Jordan is a country of contrasts. Few people can boast of being a hundred percent rooted within the boundaries of the actual Kingdom. Almost everyone has relatives across several borders. The aim of this article is to explore the extent to which tribalism in Jordan acts as an identity source or the extent to which it is politicized and instrumentalized to protect economic and social benefits. My literature framework is the instrumentalist theory of ethnicity and the border studies literature. The extent to which ethnicity guarantees a return to the people determines people’s adherence to it. Some scholars regard ethnicity as a tool of political mobilization because ethnic groups could be considered also as interest groups. This theory provides an explanation of tribal behavior regarding the role of identity. As an example, I describe how East Bankers have reacted to challenges from the Palestinian population since 1948. In particular, the present-day delicate equilibrium among East Bankers and Palestinians is deeply decisive in regard to the Jordanian response to the regional crisis.