Suchergebnisse

Nell'ambito delle teorie dello sviluppo, un filone di studi, originato dai lavori di North (1973) e consolidatosi negli ultimi anni, individua nelle istituzioni, definite come le regole del gioco o i vincoli disegnati dagli uomini per disciplinare i loro rapporti, i fattori fondamentali dello sviluppo economico. Le istituzioni, nel modello elaborato da Acemoglu, Johnson e Robinson (2004), sono il frutto di interazioni dinamiche tra potere politico de jure, determinato dalle istituzioni politiche, e potere politico de facto, determinato dalla distribuzione delle risorse economiche. Sulla base di questa prospettiva teorica, questa tesi propone uno studio di carattere quantitativo sulla qualità istituzionale, la traduzione operativa del concetto di istituzioni, composta dalle tre fondamentali dimensioni di democrazia, efficienza ed efficacia del governo e assenza di corruzione. La prima parte, che analizza sistematicamente pro e contro di ciascuna tipologia di indicatori, è dedicata alla revisione delle misure quantitative di qualità istituzionale, e individua nei Worldwide Governance Indicators la misura più solida e consistente. Questi indici sono quindi utilizzati nella seconda parte, dove si propone un'analisi empirica sulle determinanti della qualità istituzionale. Le stime del modello di regressione cross-country evidenziano che la qualità istituzionale è influenzata da alcuni fattori prevalentemente esogeni come la geografia, la disponibilità di risorse naturali e altre caratteristiche storiche e culturali, insieme ad altri fattori di carattere più endogeno. In quest'ultima categoria, i risultati evidenziano un effetto positivo del livello di sviluppo economico, mentre la disuguaglianza economica mostra un impatto negativo su ciascuna delle tre dimensioni di qualità istituzionale, in particolare sulla corruzione. Questi risultati supportano la prospettiva teorica e suggeriscono che azioni di policy orientate alla riduzione delle disparità sono capaci di generare sviluppo rafforzando la democrazia, migliorando l'efficienza complessiva del sistema economico e riducendo i livelli di corruzione. ; Amongst development theories, following the work of D. North (1973), a branch of studies has recently developed which sees institutions, defined as the rules of the game or humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, as the fundamental cause of long-run growth. The model constructed by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2004) emphasizes the interaction between de jure political power, influenced by political institutions, and de facto political power, shaped by distribution of resources, in the evolution of institutional paths. Based on this theoretical framework, this thesis adopts a quantitative perspective to investigate institutional quality, which is composed by three main dimensions: democracy, government efficiency and effectiveness and corruption. A survey of available measures of institutional quality is conducted in order to evaluate pro and cons of each kind of indicators. The analysis finds the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators as the most reliable measures of institutional quality, both in terms of internal and external consistency. These indexes are then used for an empirical analysis over the determinants of institutional quality. The estimates of the cross-country regression model show that institutional quality is affected by some exogenous factors, like geography, natural resources endowments and other historic and cultural traits, and more endogenous factors. Amongst the latter, economic development exerts a positive effect on institutional quality, while a negative association, particularly on the corruption side, is shown by economic inequality. Results confirm our hypothesis and suggest that policies aiming at reducing inequality can foster development by strengthening democracy, by improving the overall efficiency of the economic system and by reducing corruption levels.

This paper contributes to the debate on institutions and economic development by assessing the relationship between landownership concentration and education in Post-Unification Italy (1871-1921). Using historical data both at a district- and provincelevel, I nd evidence of a negative eect of land inequality on literacy rates. This result is conrmed when a large set of control variables is included in the analysis. IV estimates using the presence of malaria as a source of exogenous variation rule out further concerns regarding the presence of potential endogeneity. Further evidence is provided once I explore the panel dimension of the dataset. In addition, by analysing the impact on intermediate outputs such as enrolment rates in primary school, child-teacher ratio, school density, child labor and municipality expenditures, this paper provides insights on the mechanism behind this relationship. Land inequality may have adversely aected literacy rates not only by influencing the supply of schooling through the political process, but also through the private demand for education.

Tourism was certainly one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic, in economic, cultural and social terms. Before Covid-19, travel and tourism had become one of the most important sectors of the world economy, accounting for 10% of global GDP and over 320 million jobs worldwide. At the dawn of the era of air mobility, in 1950, there were "only" 25 million people traveling for international tourism. By 2018, this number had exceeded 1.4 billion and the travel and tourism sector had grown to disproportionate proportions, so much so as to progressively speak of overtourism and containment of tourist carrying capacity. From 25 million international tourism arrivals in the 1950s, traveler numbers have reached, decade after decade, 450 million in 1990 to rapidly explode to 1 billion arrivals in 2010 and 1.5 billion in 2019 (UNWTO, 2020 ). As one of the largest employers globally (1 in 10 jobs are directly related to tourism and the main contributor to GDP for several countries), the link between tourism and Covid-19 is the epicenter of all political discussions and international economies. [.] ; Il turismo è stato sicuramente uno dei settori più duramente colpiti dalla pandemia, in termini economici, culturali e sociali. Prima del Covid-19, i viaggi e il turismo erano diventati uno dei settori più importanti dell'economia mondiale, rappresentando il 10% del PIL globale e oltre 320 milioni di posti di lavoro in tutto il mondo. All'alba dell'era della mobilità aerea, nel 1950, erano "soltanto" 25 milioni le persone che viaggiavano per turismo internazionale. Entro il 2018, questo numero aveva superato 1,4 miliardi e il settore dei viaggi e del turismo era cresciuto fino a proporzioni spropositate, tanto da parlare progressivamente di overtourism e di contenimento della capacità di carico turistico. Dai 25 milioni di arrivi di turismo internazionale del '50, i numeri dei viaggiatori hanno raggiunto, di decennio in decennio, 450 milioni nel 1990 fino ad esplodere rapidamente a 1 miliardo di arrivi nel 2010 e a 1,5 miliardi nel 2019 (UNWTO, 2020). Essendo uno dei più importanti datori di lavoro a livello mondiale (1 lavoro su 10 è direttamente correlato al turismo e il principale contributore al PIL per diversi paesi), il legame tra turismo e Covid-19 è l'epicentro di tutte le discussioni politiche e le economie internazionali. [.]

Understanding why some countries are prosperous while others fail in achieving high standards of welfare and wellbeing is one of the most interesting and investigated topics in economics. Several candidate exlplanations have been proposed, for instance cultural factors (Banfield 1958, Putnam 1993), geographical determinism (Diamond 1997), institutional determinants (North 1990, Acemoglu 2000, Acemoglu 2012). Interestingly, a common feature of any theoretical argument is that each of them fits well with the recent European history. If it is the theory which has been adapted to Europe or if it is Europe which presents the characteristics suited to successful economic growth is debatable. According to Landes (1999), it is just a stylized fact that Europe took and kept the lead for at least the last one thousand years. Therefore, even though "some would say that Eurocentrism is bad [.], hence to be avoided", it can be understood as an aknowledgement of history. Of course, there is not full agreement on the topic and different perspectives on the matter have been proposed (Hobson 2004). Whatever the story is, the European case is an interesting one, both in historical and in current terms. Indeed, since the Nineteenth century Europe (and the Western World) has been undertaking a continuous growth process, achieving unprecedented levels of wealth. Such a historical path allowed the Western countries to take the lead economically and politically. Using Landes (1999) words, "we live in a world of inequality and diversity, in which there are three kinds of nations: those that spend lots of money to keep their weight down; those whose people eat to live; and those whose people don't know where the next meal is coming from". Europe and the West have been constantly in the first kind. However, richies have never been evenly distributed also within rich countries and this is true for Europe as well. In particular, European geography has been characterized by a growing dichotomy. On the one hand, some countries have been performing succesfully, maintaining levels of wealth which are top standards on a global scale. This is the case for continental countries, including Scandinavian economies and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, other countries have been falling behind and have not been able to keep in touch with the fast growing core. In this group we find the so called South of Europe, i.e. the Mediterranean countries, as well as the former sovietic Eastern economies. Of course, disparities have always been with us and this is not necessarily bad, since growth does not need to be a perfectly balanced process (Hirschman 1958). However, such an issue becomes relevant as long as national and regional disparities either do not reduce or worsen overtime. This is even more important if the diverging economies belong to the same political entity. This is precisely the case of Europe, in particular of the European Union, a political and economic construct in which policy interventions have been implemented in the last decades to foster convergence and cohesion between economies. This dissertation investigates some of the main topics in the empirical literature on economic growth. The scope is to assess empirically the validity of some theoreatical statements and policy provisions, focussing mostly on European economies because of their peculiar economic history. A broader cross-country analysis is also provided in the last section. As a first step we will test whether under some specific circumstances economies will tend to get closer and closer in terms of wealth. Theoretically, following Solow (1957), the standard neoclassical model predicts that one should find evidence of convergence, in the sense that poorer economies ar expected to grow faster than richer ones (Barro 1992, Mankiw 1990). Of course, this holds as long as economies are similar in terms of structural characteristics (as the composition of output and the distribution of labour force across sectors) and technology. Hence, the first part of this dissertation will address unconditional convergence in European regions from 1990 to 2007, a relitvely homogeneous set of economies, emphasizing the role of sectoral dynamics in shaping aggregate outcome. The analysis of the dynamics of economic output provides an insightful picture of trends in economic growth and inequality between regions, fully describing the evolution of the distribution. Even though some policy implications can be drawn, they are quite limited. Indeed, such an unconditional analysis does not allow to tell which factors are positively associated with economic performance and which are not. The second section of this dissertation explores this line of research by focusing on two domains which have become particularly relevant after the last crisis in 2008: deregulation and liberalization of the labour market, fiscal parameters. The last part of this work takes a broader perspective on economic growth and correlated phenomena, also enlarging the sample under analysis beyond the European Union. One of the emerging topic in the empirical literature concerns the investigation of the relationship between environment degradation and economic growth. If at a first glance a positive relationship may be the more obvious pattern, some theoretical arguments suggest that under specific conditions environmental degradation may start declining at higher levels of GDP. In particular, three factors may be fostering such a process: environmental friendly technological innovation, structural change towards less energy-intensive activities, change in individual preferences together with regulation. Given this set of hypothesis, starting from the Nineties a large amount of empirical studies has been investigating the relationship between various indicators of environmental degradation and GPD. The main scope is to test empirically the so called Environmental Kuznetz Curve hypothesis, which states that environmental degradation increases with income until a threshold level, after which the relationship turns negative. The main idea is that at a sufficiently high level of income the three mechanisms above will trigger the switch in the relationship. We will test this hypothesis for a large sample of countries, augmenting the standard model in order to account for convergence in environmental degradation.

The right to learn for achieving the democracy is at the heart of Delors Report.This right's idea – in the "utopian" view of European Committee – "expands"to fill up a whole human lifetime with the individual rights to developand enhance one's own competences. This is the knot that gains a corevalue and gives birth to social justice and fights inequality. It's a yesterday'stopic, yet even more a today's one, because of the growth of inequalities,produced both by the economic development of a part of the world and bythe digital divide. Which future then for educational utopia, for talent appreciation,for people's enabling development even through the "interruptedpaths" of the work routes? ; Il diritto all'apprendimento per la realizzazione della democrazia è il cuoredel Rapporto Delors. L'idea di questo diritto – nella visione "utopica" dellaCommissione Europea – si "espande" all'intero arco di vita umana come dirittodella persona allo sviluppo ed alla valorizzazione delle proprie competenze.È questo nodo che acquista il valore centrale di generazione dell'istanzadi giustizia sociale e di contrasto alle disuguaglianze. Tema di ierima ancor più tema di oggi con l'aumento delle disuguaglianze anche prodottedalla crescita economica di una parte del mondo e dal digital divide.Quale futuro dunque per l'utopia educativa, per la speranza nella valorizzazionedei talenti, per uno sviluppo capacitante delle persone anche attraversoi "sentieri interrotti" dei percorsi lavorativi?

This book explains the nature of capitalism both as a production system and as a historical process. Capitalism has superseded the systems based on rent and privileges, has freed up enterprise, brought in competition, set merit above corporative relations and patronage; has created a steady increase in wealth. The process has generated the development of the middle classes, a critical culture civil rights and democracy. However, the pursuit of profit has always tended to op-press the weaker categories and rob the less advanced economies. These two contrary trends cannot coexist indefinitely. Today the essential clash is between welfare for all and neoliberalism, based on increasing inequalities, rising financial rents and the exploitation of workers.

The extremism of individualism, uncontrolled globalization, social-economic inequality and the informative overdose which we continually come across, have lead to a crisis of political representation which has given birth to an uncontrolled spreading of populism and royalism which has resulted in anti-systemic methods which generate a condition of the pulverization of society. It is important to say that the democratic Ethos as it is understood is a real cultural fact which goes beyond the political sphere alone. Here we find the intense role of the school which, being an intentionally formative agency, has to take on the job of implementing and spreading education towards and for democracy To this end, the European Council deems citizenship education fundamental when it comprises the four Cs of learning: critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration. It is therefore necessary to look towards the realization of formative routes founded on didactic models which aim at the acquisition of knowledge and essential abilities, learning towards the reaching of those basic competences which allow a person to become an active citizen with a wide and transversal dimension able to understand, evaluate and make decisions in a selfmade, critical, responsible and solidarity way. ; L'estremizzazione dell'individualismo, la globalizzazione incontrollata, le di-seguaglianze socio-economiche e l'overdose informativa a cui siamo sotto-posti continuamente hanno condotto ad una crisi della rappresentanza politica sfociata nella diffusione incontrollata di populismi e sovranismi che si affermano come metodi antisistema che generano una condizione di pol-verizzazione della società. Diventa cogente affermare il senso dell'Ethos democratico inteso come vero e proprio fatto culturale che travalica la sola sfera politica. Entra in campo prepotentemente il ruolo della scuola che, in quanto agenzia intenzionalmente formativa, deve assumere il compito di im-plementare e diffondere l'educazione alla e per la democrazia. A tal ...

Questa ricerca propone una lettura comparata degli scritti di Bernard Mandeville. L'intento è di porre in relazione gli argomenti morali, etici e politici con le "gandi voci" dell'epoca: primi fra tutti Hobbes e Locke. L'impianto interpretativo è strutturato in modo da delineare il metodo adottato nelle riflessioni filosofiche mandevilliane e da qui, mantenendo una divisione di piani, rintracciare i concetti di riferimento sia dal punto di vista metafico sia da quello ontologico. Si ritiene, allora, che il metodo basato sull'uomorismo, come forma oggettivante del fenomeno – sociale e non – porti alla definizione della nozione di natura umana a partire da una conzione di natura in sé corrotta metafisicamente. Ciò trova nel paradigma di "naturalismo fisiologico" un riferimento da cui muovere l'analisi antropologica e morale degli uomini in società. Un'indagine che rintraccia nell'"etica del male minore" un modello con cui valutare le scelte e le azioni in ambito collettivo e pubblico. La lettura dei vari testi, allora, mostra come la politica sia influenzata da questo modello nello strutturare istituzioni che stimolino la produzione e l'incremento della ricchezza, seppur questo non sia alla portata di tutti. La sperequazione economica, allora, a fronte di un benessere collettivo elevato appare come un "male minore". ; This research provides a comparative reading of the writings of Bernard Mandeville. The aim is to relate moral, ethic and political arguments to the "great thinkers" of his historical period: first of all, Hobbes and Locke. The epistemological framework is structured to draft the method utilized in Mandeville's philosophical reflections and, from here, keeping a level division, to trace the main concepts in reference to booth metaphysical and ontological point of view. So the method based on humorism, as a form of objectifying phenomena – social and not social – leads to the definition of the notion of human nature from a conception of corrupt nature metaphysically in itself. This finds in the paradigm of "physiological naturalism" a reference by which the anthropological and moral analysis paints the picture of men in society. An inquiry that finds in the "ethics of lesser evil" a model by which it's possible to evaluate the choices and actions in collective and public fields. The reading of various texts, then, shows how the politics will be influenced by this model in structuring institutions that stimulate the production and the increase of wealth, although this is not for everyone. Economic inequality, then, creating a high collective well-being or benefits, appears as a "lesser evil".

This book presents the results of the work of a research group from the University of Florence aimed at underscoring the consequences on the government of craft enterprises of the inequality of the criteria for recognition of the preferential debt of the artisan in insolvency proceedings. The study has also sought to contribute to superseding certain economic-financial criteria utilised to discriminate between enterprises that deserve the recognition of the right and other enterprises, partly through the definition of an alternative criterion that has already been subjected to an initial empirical validation.

Our country, currently crossed, from North to South, by a demographic and anthropological hurricane fueled both by the aging population and by the depopulation of many fragile and marginal territories and by new waves of youth emigration, continues to record worrying increases in land consumption (Ispra-Snpa, 2018). As various surveys document, real estate assets that could be retrained or refunited, even temporarily, are hundreds of thousands. In cities increasingly lacking in public spaces and torn apart by the scourge of inequality, the urban regeneration of this precious heritage could trigger socially desirable change through inclusive and innovative bottom-up processes. Regulatory rigidity, more and more often, is overcome by the operational dynamism of citizens who, from passive spectators of political representation, declining the principle of ethics of co-responsibility, aim to become active operators in the democratic reconstruction of their neighborhoods. The two case studies presented, which have in common the youthful protagonism and the desire for redemption of "middle cities" historically neglected and culturally degraded, reveal how urban regeneration, innervated by social innovation and when acting according to strategic and integrated visions, it can produce widespread environmental, cultural and economic benefits. ; Il nostro Paese, nonostante sia attualmente attraversato, da Nord a Sud, da un uragano demografico ed antropologico alimentato sia dall'invecchiamento della popolazione sia dallo spopolamento di molti territori fragili e marginali sia da nuove ondate di emigrazioni giovanili, continua a registrare preoccupanti incrementi di consumo di suolo (Ispra-Snpa, 2018). Eppure, come documentano diverse rilevazioni, i beni immobiliari che potrebbero essere riqualificati o rifunzionalizzati, pur temporaneamente, sono centinaia di migliaia. In città sempre più carenti di spazi pubblici e dilaniate dalla piaga delle disuguaglianze, la rigenerazione urbana di questo prezioso patrimonio potrebbe innescare, attraverso processi bottom-up inclusivi ed innovativi, un cambiamento socialmente desiderabile. La rigidità normativa, sempre più spesso, viene superata dalla dinamicità operativa di cittadini che, da spettatori passivi della rappresentazione politica, declinando il principio dell'etica della corresponsabilità, puntano a diventare operatori attivi nella ricostruzione democratica dei loro quartieri. I due casi di studio presentati, che hanno in comune il protagonismo giovanile e la voglia di riscatto di "città di mezzo" storicamente trascurate e culturalmente degradate, rivelano come la rigenerazione urbana, innervata di innovazione sociale e quando agita secondo visioni strategiche ed integrate, possa produrre diffusi benefici ambientali, culturali ed economici.

This work analyses the relation between social inequality and health by focusing on the social processes and individual mechanisms that construct it within the area of action of the economic sphere, the cultural sphere and the social and territorial sphere. Within this framework, the body is conceived as a link between the physical, biological and material dimensions and the social, relational and emotional dimensions. At the same time, the proposal is to go beyond the well-known relationship between economic resources/social position and levels of health/life expectation, concentrating on the specific social and psychological dynamics generated by the availability of socio-economic capital. The over-simplified perspective of the social gradient of health is overtaken by an analysis of the relational dimension of the individual and his/her reference groups, and finally by appraising both the individual and collective aspects that can be traced to the social and political context and to the different welfare systems.

The starting point from which this work originated is to understand and investigate the problem of inequality, from a sociological perspective, through the gender category and specifically in science. The difference in the number of women at the highest level (and not only) of professional hierarchies in science (universities, laboratories, research centers, institutions) is a reality. Our research aims to investigate the mechanisms through which gender inequality operates in the scientific world and, to achieve this goal, we have used a case study considered particularly important and useful, that of the For Women and Science Award, an important international recognition dedicated to women who work in science. After defining the theoretical horizon which constitutes the context of the thematics of our research, we have realised a secondary analysis of data and then, we have developed and submitted the award's winners to a structured interview, integrating, in this way, the preparatory study phase with the direct voice of the protagonists. The core of the research is represented by the case study of the L'Oréal's Award, which has permitted to establish a direct dialogue with the scientists who have succeeded in science and therefore it has helped us to highlight some of the key dynamics responsible of inequality. On one hand, the Award's case study reflects how the presence of women in the scientific world is still perceived as a phenomenon to be underlined, therefore, in certain aspects, to be protected, showing that gender equality in science must not be taken for granted, but rather as an objective to be pursued with perseverance and determination. On the other hand, it stresses that scientific research has become - as the European Community has not failed to highlight and as the literature underlines - a constitutive aspect of a developed society and of its economic and political dynamics. We may wonder: why a multinational has decided to invest in an area apparently so far from its own sector? How is the ...