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The thesis is made of two chapters. The first one exploits an historical natural experiment set during Italy's Fascism to assess cultural persistence vs. dynamics in a paradigmatically critical area, Southern Italy, whose current economic backwardness is often associated to a low social capital endowment, in turn commonly ascribed to cultural and institutional heritage. In the experiment, an exogenous shift of a border into a territory entirely internal to that heritage provides us with an highlighting instrument able to identify weight of history and variation in culture in the 20th century in this doubly depressed region. A discontinuity exercise at the new border shows that, starting from previous homogeneity, there is evidence of relatively recent adverse cultural dynamics in Southern Italian territories. A comparison with an analogous exercise on the old, upper border tends to rule out classical institutional or contagion channels as individual and administrative behaviours used to be not better (mostly, worse) northwards. Their deterioration below the new border emerged endogenously in the period following the creation of Regions, contradicting previous legacy and giving rise to a relative reversal of cultural fortunes. The second chapter provides new evidence on the effectiveness of hiring subsidies that target the long-term unemployed, analysing a generous policy that was in force until the end of 2014 in Italy. Unlike others of its kind, this policy was particularly ambitious as it encouraged only permanent employment, which at the time still benefited from strong employment protection legislation. To achieve identification, we use a triple difference estimator, where we exploit three sources of variation: (i) the subsidy was only for the long-term unemployed and not for the short-term unemployed; (ii) it was significantly more generous in the South; (iii) it was in place until 2014. We find that the relative probability of eligible individuals in the southern regions of finding a permanent job dropped after the program terminated. This effect does not seem to be driven by substitutions over time, across contracts or among jobseekers. A cost-benefit analysis shows that the policy was globally in surplus.

Les démocraties représentatives sont, de nos jours, confrontées à des transformations majeures apportées par les procès de globalisation, l'affirmation de nouvelles technologies de communication et par la diffusion d'un discrédit croissant du personnel politique. Ces transformations semblent affecter les mécanismes centraux de la démocratie représentative. Dès lors, on peut légitimement se demander si elles parviendront à y faire face. Mais il faut observer que les institutions représentatives ont montré jusqu'ici une remarquable résilience, soit une grande capacité d'adaptation aux changements. Conséquente à quatre facteurs cruciaux, qui concernent l'idée de représentation, l'élection, l'indétermination partielle et l'incomplétude du dispositif représentatif. Les institutions représentatives ne relèvent pas de la géométrie politique ; elles procèdent plutôt d'une raison prudentielle : c'est là une autre source de leur adaptabilité et, du coup, de leur longévité.

We study the evolution of union density in 14 European countries over the postwar period in light of theoretical rationales for union membership. Unions offer not only wage bargaining strength, but also protection against uninsurable labour market risks, and similar protection may also be offered by labour market institutions. Empirically, such institutions as job security legislation and wage indexation do appear to crowd out unions. Conversely, institutional features that make it easier for unions to function (such as workplace representation and centralized wage bargaining) are empirically associated with higher unionization.

Economic processes, consisting of interactions between human beings, exploit the social capital of persons endowed with specific culture and identities. The role of institutions and policy makers is to build positive social capital and exploit it to reach their objectives. However, social capital is elusive and has several dimensions by which to interpret its multifaceted functions in economics and society. We cannot forget, furthermore, that social capital sometimes is undesirable for society, for instance when used for unethical uses. Even so, it is widely accepted that social capital has stable and positive effects.