Marshallian labour market pooling: Evidence from Italy

This paper employs a unique Italian data source to take a comprehensive approach to labour market pooling. It jointly considers many different aspects of the agglomeration — labour market relationship, including turnover, learning, matching, and hold up. It also considers labour market pooling from the perspective of both workers and firms and across a range of industries. Overall, the paper finds some support for theories of labour market pooling, but the support is weak. Specifically, there is a general positive relationship of turnover to local population density, which is consistent with theories of agglomeration and uncertainty. There is also evidence of on-the-job learning that is consistent with theories of labour pooling, labour poaching, and hold up. In addition, the paper provides evidence consistent with agglomeration improving job matches. However, the labour market pooling gains that we measure are small in magnitude and seem unlikely to account for a substantial share of the agglomeration benefits accruing to Italian workers and firms.     

Trust,risk and time preferences: evidence from survey data

The paper shows that time preferences and risk preferences are key covariates of self-reported trust. They both predict negatively a measure of generalized trust; however, risk aversion is positively correlated with an index of particularized trusting behaviour (which refers to the circle of known people).     

Does Trade Credit Substitute Bank Credit? Evidence from Firm‐level Data

The paper examines micro data on Italian manufacturing firms' inventory behaviour to test the Meltzer (1960) hypothesis according to which firms substitute bank credit with trade credit (TC) during money tightening. We find that inventory investment of Italian manufacturing firms is constrained by their availability of TC and that this effect more than doubles during monetary restrictions. As for the magnitude of the substitution effect, however, we find that it is not sizeable. This is in line with the micro theories of TC and the evidence on actual firm practices, according to which credit terms display modest variations over time .     

Implementing open government: a qualitative comparative analysis of digital platforms in France,Italy and United Kingdom

Open government is spreading throughout the world as a policy agenda oriented to foster transparency, participation and collaboration. Despite its increasing relevance in policy documents, there has been a scarce interest in deepening the analysis of how such agenda has been implemented in different national contexts. By adopting a multidimensional and multilevel perspective, we propose a qualitative comparative analysis of institutional digital platforms able to gather the evolution of open government in three European countries. We retrieved 979 open government platforms in France, Italy, and United Kingdom and analyzed them with an original set of indicators grouped in the three macro-areas of e-government, open data and transparency, participation and collaboration. Our study has methodological and policy implications: from the one hand, we provide the widest and deepest survey of open government platforms so far, contributing to the standardization of research methods on this field. From the other hand, we can observe that open government implementation is characterized by some typical traits, suggesting a trans-national convergence; this evidence is particularly prominent in the e-government and open data areas, whereas Participatory platforms are characterised by higher degrees of fragmentation both at the trans-national and at the intra-national levels. The analysis of open government platforms also reveals that, at the intra-national level, public administrations’ approaches to digital government are not homogeneous, although at different degrees among the three countries involved in our study, suggesting the need of a better integration and coordination by central authorities.

     

Tobacco,contract farming,and agrarian change in Zimbabwe

The growth of smallholder tobacco production since 2000 has been one of the big stories of Zimbabwe's post–land reform experience. Yet the implications for agrarian change, and the consequences for new relations between farmers, the state, and agribusiness capital have rarely been discussed. The paper reports on work carried out in the Mvurwi area of Mazowe district in Zimbabwe with a sample of 220 A1 (smallholder) farmers and 100 former farmworkers resident in compounds on the same farms. By going beyond a focus on operational and business dimensions of contract farming, the paper concludes with reflections on the implications for understanding agrarian relations and social differentiation in those areas of Zimbabwe where tobacco growing is now significant, with lessons more broadly on the political economy of contract farming, and the integration of agribusiness capital following land reform.     

Who trusts others more? A cross-European study

Using the European Social Survey, the paper documents the endowments and the individual determinants of trust across Europe. Self-declared trust is higher in northern countries, in particular Scandinavia; it is lower in southern countries, in particular Italy, Portugal and Greece. At the EU-15 level, we find that a number of factors, such as schooling, family background, labor market status, and a recent history of traumatic experiences, are associated with trust. We also find evidence of heterogeneity for some of the determinants across European countries.     

Coffee as a Medium for Ethical,Social, and Political Messages: Organizational Legitimacy and Communication

This research examines how an organization, Thanksgiving Coffee, establishes and maintains its legitimacy with its constituent publics. In line with Boyd’s (2000, Journal of Public Relations Research 12(4), 341–353.) concept of actional legitimacy, Thanksgiving Coffee demonstrates a legitimation strategy addressing social issues and by responding to ethical and political questions. Applying Fisher’s (1984, Communication Monographs 51, 1–18) concepts of narrative fidelity and probability, Thanksgiving Coffee’s policies and communication activities were found to alleviate the social issues to which they were addressed and therefore reinforce perceptions of legitimacy among publics. Viewing the influence of organizations from a different perspective, this study provides an example of how the policies of an organization can have a positive impact on the broader society in which it operates. Gregory G. De Blasio teaches courses related to business communication, public relations writing, and marketing communication campaigns. His research interests include the study of communication campaigns as they relate to social issues and organizational legitimacy. Dr. De Blasio joined the Communication Department at Northern Kentucky University in 2004. His Ph.D. in communication is from Wayne State University. He received his M.A. from the Pennsylvania State University and his B.A. from William Paterson University. A past International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) board member and chapter president in Detroit, Greg has provided public relations and marketing communication counsel to clients based in Detroit and elsewhere.