An archival case study : revisiting the life and political economy of Lauchlin Currie

This paper forms part of a wider project to show the significance of archival material on distinguished economists, in this case Lauchlin Currie (1902-93), who studied and taught at Harvard before entering government service at the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Board as the intellectual leader of Roosevelt's New Deal, 1934-39, as FDR's White House economic adviser in peace and war, 1939-45, and as a post-war development economist. It discusses the uses made of the written and oral material available when the author was writing his intellectual biography of Currie (Duke University Press 1990) while Currie was still alive, and the significance of the material that has come to light after Currie's death

management s perceptions of social dialogue at company level in italy

Collective bargaining in Italy primarily takes place at two negotiation levels: at the industry or sectorial level, which addresses issues such as the periodic determination of the pay and conditions for the industry or sector, and at the company level or plant level, which addresses specific workplace problems. Until the early 1990s, the balance between the two levels changed according to external circumstances. It was with the Tripartite Agreement of 23 July 1993 that the competencies, procedures and issues pertaining the two levels were clarified. Ever since, other agreements between trade unions and employers' organizations addressed the issues related the two levels. The agreement signed in April 2009 makes clear that greater decentralization of bargaining is seen as a mechanism to "re-launch" a growth in productivity and therefore of real incomes. This poses enormous challenges to employee's representatives as they assume a key role for the social innovation and competitiveness of the company.Drawing from interviews and a survey, it seems that Italian HR managers are aware of this key role of employee representatives, so much that they would like them to be more competent, open to change and less conflictual. They believe that a more cooperative environment leads to better agreements for both parties at the negotiation table

Una professione plurale : Il caso dell’avvocatura fiorentina

Crisis, malaise and social fragmentation are recurring themes in the representation of the middle classes. The volume, based on the results of an investigation into the forensic profession carried out with the contribution of the Bar Council of Florence, delves into the issue by placing itself in a line of studies that has recently regained vigour within the Italian and international sociological debate. By touching on a plurality of themes and using mixed investigation methods, the research has allowed the authors to verify how different employment situations translate into an unequal distribution of life chances and into different attitudes towards profession, politics and social life, allowing also to explore the role played by lawyers in change processes.Crisi, malessere, frammentazione sociale sono temi ricorrenti nelle rappresentazioni dei ceti medi. Il volume, basato sui risultati di un’indagine sulla professione forense realizzata con il contributo del Consiglio dell’Ordine degli Avvocati di Firenze, approfondisce la questione collocandosi in un filone di studi che ha ripreso vigore all’interno del dibattito sociologico italiano e internazionale. Toccando una pluralit\ue0 di temi e avvalendosi di metodi d’indagine misti, la ricerca ha permesso di verificare come situazioni occupazionali diverse si traducano in una distribuzione diseguale delle chances di vita e in differenti atteggiamenti verso la professione, la politica e la vita sociale, consentendo altres\uec di esplorare il ruolo svolto dall’avvocatura nei processi di cambiamento

A cento anni dalla grande guerra. Effetti inattesi. Vol. 4 : Le donne fra disciplina militare e nuove libert\ue0

The volumes on World War I which are published here are the result of a series of seminars held at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Florence between 2014 and 2015. Starting from the occasion of the war’s 100th anniversary, the authors wished to take stock of some specific aspects of the studies related to World War I. Historians, military analysts, political scientists and sociologists have also questioned the meaning of the fracture which inaugurated the 20th century and, consequently, the basic features of the new policy of the \u27short century\u27, in both an Italian and European perspective.I volumi sulla Grande Guerra che qui si pubblicano sono il frutto di una serie di seminari tenuti presso il Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali dell’Universit\ue0 di Firenze tra il 2014 e il 2015. A partire dall’occasione del centenario, si \ue8 voluto fare il punto su alcuni aspetti specifici degli studi relativi al primo conflitto mondiale. Storici, analisti militari, politologi e sociologi si sono altres\uec interrogati sul senso della frattura che ha inaugurato il Novecento e, di conseguenza, sui tratti di fondo della nuova politica propria del ‘secolo breve’, in una prospettiva sia italiana che europea

The presence of care homes and excess deaths during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Italy

This paper explores the relationship between the spatial distribution of excess deaths and the presence of care home facilities during the first wave of the COVID‐19 outbreak in Italy. Using registry‐based mortality data for Lombardy, one of the areas most severely hit by the pandemic we show that the presence of a care home in a municipality is associated with significantly higher excess death rates in the population. This effect appears to be driven by excess mortality in the elderly population of 70 years old and older. Our results are robust to controlling for the number of residents in each care home, suggesting that the presence of such facilities may have acted as one of factors contributing to the diffusion of COVID‐19 at the local level

The World Bank's Early Reflections on Development: A Development Institution or a Bank?

Until the late 1960s, the World Bank presented itself as an institution devoted to making sound and directly productive project loans. Yet, during its early years, discussions took place within the Bank regarding the possibility of issuing different types of loans, namely (i) loans aimed at tackling social issues ('social loans'), and (ii) loans aimed at providing foreign currency to address disequilibria in the balance of payments ('impact loans'). This paper brings together historical analysis and theories of organization development to study the housing issue as a case in point. The analysis reveals that the Bank was unwilling to lend for housing programmes not because these were not sound - in fact, they were - but because they were geared toward achieving social welfare objectives and were not directly linked to productive investment projects, such as dams, power stations, and railroads. This early decision had a significant impact on the subsequent development of the Bank's view of policy-making: it locked the institution into a particular lending pattern, and deprived it of important intellectual resources. It was not until the late 1960s that the Bank began to take social issues into consideration, rather late compared with other multilateral institutions.