Non-compete agreements in a rigid labour market: the case of Italy

Non-compete clauses (NCCs) limiting the mobility of workers have been found to be rather widespread in the US, a flexible labour market with large turnover rates and a limited coverage of collective bargaining. This paper explores the presence of such arrangements in a rigid labour market, with strict employment protection regulations by OECD standards and where all employees are, at least on paper, subject to collective bargaining. Based on a representative survey of employees in the private sector, an exam of collective agreements and case law, we find that in Italy i) collective agreements play no role in regulating the use of NCCs while the law specifies only the formal requirements, ii) about 16% of private sector employees are currently bound by a NCC, iii) NCCs are relatively frequent among low educated employees in manual and elementary low paid occupations having no access to any type of confidential information, and iv) in addition to NCCs, a number of other arrangements limit the post-employment activity of workers. Many of the NCCs do not comply with the minimum requirements established by law and yet workers do not consider them as unenforceable and appear to behave as they were effective. Even when NCCs are unenforceable they appear to negatively affect wages when they are introduced without changing the tasks of the workers involved. Normative implications are discussed in the last section of the paper

Pay-as-they-get-in: attitudes towards migrants and pension systems

We study whether a better knowledge of the functioning of pay-as-you-go pension systems and recent demographic trends in the hosting country affects natives' attitudes towards immigration. In two online experiments in Italy and Spain, we randomly treated participants with a video explaining how, in pay-as-you-go pension systems, the payment of current pensions depends on the contributions paid by current workers. The video also explains that the ratio between the number of pensioners and the number of workers in their countries will grow substantially in the future. We find that the treatment improves participants' knowledge about how a pay-as-you-go system works and the future demographic trends in their country. However, we find that only treated participants who support non-populist parties display more positive attitudes towards migrants, even though the treatment increases knowledge of pension systems and demographic trends for all participants

Desperately Seeking a Middelman

In order to cope with its political crisis and to be part of the recovery from the European-wide recession, Italy badly needs a middelman; a person with an untarnished reputation; someone people trust. In this paper we recall the main steps that led us to the current confidence crisis. we also argue that Italy had such a middleman, Mario Monti, but his engagement in politics after he had promised not to do so has revealed that promises made even by novel politicians are hardly credible, extending mistrust to anyone who approaches politics. Thus, even if we find another Monti, believing him will be hard

Immigration to the Land of Redistribution

Negative perceptions about migrants in Europe, the Continent with the largest social policy programmes, are driven by concerns that foreigners are a net fiscal burden. Paradoxically instruments of social inclusion are becoming a weapon of mass exclusion. Increasing concerns of public opinion are indeed pressing Governments, in the midst of the recession, to reduce welfare access by migrants or send them back home. In this paper we compare evidence on welfare access and the net fiscal position of migrants with perceptions based on a simple model of the perceived fiscal effects of migration and on a largely unexploited database (EU-SILC). We find no evidence that legal migrants, notably skilled migrants, are net recipients of transfers from the state. However, there is evidence of “residual dependency” on non-contributory transfers and self-selection of migrants more likely to draw on welfare in the countries with the most generous welfare state. In the light of these results, we discuss alternative strategies to unbundle migration from welfare access

La deontologia di chi produce e detiene dati statistici: dalla possibilità alla certezza dell'accesso

L’approvazione del “Codice di deontologia e buona condotta per il trattamento di dati personali per scopi statistici e scientifici” rappresenta un notevole miglioramento delle possibilità offerte ai ricercatori italiani di accedere a microdati per lavori scientifici. Tuttavia, la nuova normativa semplicemente autorizza il ricercatore ad accedere alle banche dati, ma non impone alle istituzioni che raccolgono o detengono i dati di garantirne l’accesso ai ricercatori. Per questo motivo, in questo articolo proponiamo l’introduzione dell’obbligo - almeno per gli enti pubblici - di condividere con i ricercatori accreditati - almeno quelli di ruolo presso le università - i dati statistici che questi richiedono per svolgere lavori di ricerca senza scopi di lucro. Nell’articolo documentiamo la nostra personale l’esperienza di rapporti spesso difficili con le amministrazioni che detengono dati statistici, testimonianza di un atteggiamento spesso riluttante, se non apertamente ostile, a investire nella diffusione dei dati elementari per la ricerca. L’obbligo che proponiamo consentirebbe inoltre agli enti produttori o detentori di dati di iscrivere a bilancio fondi (minimi) finalizzati alla distribuzione delle statistiche e di proteggersi dalle interferenze della politica

La deontologia di chi produce e detiene dati statistici: dalla possibilità alla certezza dell'accesso

The recently approved "Codice di deontologia e buona condotta per il trattamento di dati personali per scopi statistici e scientifici" greatly improves the Italian legislation on the privacy of personal data towards easier access to databases by researchers who intend to use them for non-commercial scientific purposes. However, the new legislation simply allows the researcher to access more and better data, it does not guarantee that the institutions that collect and posses these databases will share them with the scientists. To this end, we propose the introduction of a legal obligation - at least for public institutions - to share with researchers - at least those employed by universities - all statistical data that might be requested for non-commercial scientific studies. In this article, we document our own personal experience of requesting data from public administrations, showing how they are often reluctant, if not openly refuse, to invest resources in the dissemination of basic statistical information for research purposes. Not only would the legal obligation we propose allow these institutions to devote specific resources for the dissemination of statistical data, but it would also protect them from political pressure

Match Rigging and the Career Concerns of Referees

This paper contributes to the literature on career concerns and corruption by drawing on extensive information on the performance of referees and records from Calciopoli, a judicial inquiry carried out in 2006 on corruption in the Italian football league. Unlike previous studies, we can analyse in detail the assignment of the referees to the most important matches, which is an important step in their career. Moreover, we can relate this choice to the performance of referees in previous matches and the evaluations they received in this context. We find that referees involved in match rigging were promoted to top games and that their evaluation was not negatively affected by their involvement in documented episodes of match rigging