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.     

Micro and macro dynamics: Industry life cycles,inter-sector coordination and aggregate growth

Technological change directly affects economic growth by exploiting and exploring technological opportunities, thus determining productivity growth and income. However, technological change also affects the composition of the economic system, which itself constitutes an important prerequisite for economic growth. The first aim of this paper is to show that the growing variety of the economic system, determined by the emergence of new products and services and leading to new industrial sectors, can allow the long term continuation of economic development, even when the employment creating capacity of individual sectors falls. The second aim is to illustrate the impact of micro variables on the meso-level, that is, on the sectoral composition of an economy, as well as on its macro-economic performance.      

The impact of faking on Cronbach’s alpha for dichotomous and ordered rating scores

In many psychological inventories (i.e., personnel selection surveys and diagnostic tests) the collected samples often include fraudulent records. This confronts the researcher with the crucial problem of biases yielded by the usage of standard statistical models. In this paper we applied a recent probabilistic perturbation procedure, called sample generation by replacement (SGR)—(Lombardi and Pastore, Multivar. Behav. Res 47:519–546, 2012), to study the sensitivity of Cronbach’s alpha index to fake perturbations in dichotomous and ordered data, respectively. We used SGR to perform two distinct SGR simulation studies involving two sample size conditions, three item set sizes, and twenty levels of faking perturbations. Moreover, in the second SGR simulation study we also evaluated an additional factor, type of faking model, to study sample reliability under different modulations of graded faking (uniform faking, average faking, slight faking, and extreme faking). To simulate these more complex faking models we proposed a novel extension of the SGR perturbation procedure based on a discrete version of the generalized beta density distribution. We also applied the new procedure to real behavioral data on emotional instability.     

Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment

While peer punishment has been shown to increase group cooperation, there is open debate on how cooperative norms can emerge and on what motives drive individuals to punish. In a public good experiment we compared alternative punishment institutions and found (1) higher cooperation levels under a consensual punishment institution than under autonomous individual punishment; (2) similar cooperation levels under sequential and simultaneous punishment institutions.     

Selection by committee: Anonymity and gratitude

What kind of candidate is selected into a job when the principal has to appoint a committee to measure the candidates’ ability and select a winner? We find that if the committee takes into account the candidate’s gratitude towards them, a candidate with less than first best ability will be selected. A relevant exception may occur if the first best is the overall best candidate. First best selection is always achieved if the committee is anonymous to the candidates. If the committee is not detached enough from the candidates then delegation fares even worse than random selection.     

Environmental Management of End‐of‐Life Products: Nine Factors of Sustainability in Collaborative Networks

The paradigm of the green economy has contributed to raising the attention paid to developing sustainability‐oriented strategies for supply chain (SC) management. The responsibility of producers to extend and reverse SCs is a critical and timely topic that captures increasing concerns over the way firms can adapt their business models to interlinking technical, socio‐economic and environmental frameworks. This is particularly true when producers are not also reuse/recycle actors. By performing a critical review of the scientific literature on this field, this article develops nine elemental factors that can be considered for assessing the impacts of collaborative strategies as a means to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) in open‐loop SCs. The resulting conceptual framework provides EPR implementation guidance under different market conditions. Inter‐organizational relationships are found to present both opportunities and threats that can be profitably managed under a systemic perspective. Implications for management and needs for further research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Factors helping the HR function gain greater acceptance for its proposals and innovations: evidence from Spain†

On the basis of the sense-making and sense-giving literature, this study addresses factors helping the HR function gain greater acceptance by employees for its proposals and innovations. Using an original sample of 298 employees from nine firms in Spain, we find that HR department credibility is only one of the factors that influence employees' acceptance. Other essential elements are top management and supervisor support. We also investigate the consequences that differential levels of support from supervisors and top managers can have for the acceptance of HR innovations, and we find that supervisor support carries more weight than that of top managers. Finally, we explore variations in the importance of the HR function credibility as an acceptance enabler under different organizational innovation climates. The results suggest that HR credibility plays an essential role independently of climate.