Labour Market Assimilation and Over Education: The Case of Immigrant Workers in Italy

In this paper we study the assimilation of immigrants into the Italian labour market using over-education as an indicator of labour market performance. The main objective is to assess the extent to which work experience in the host country’s labour market favours the international transferability of immigrants’ human capital. Using data from the Istat Labour Force Survey for the years 2005-2007, we find that foreigners are much more likely to be over-educated than natives upon their arrival in Italy and that work experience gained in the country of origin is not valued in the Italian labour market. Moreover, we find that not even experience acquired in Italy is helpful in improving immigrants’ educational job matches, suggesting that catch-up by foreigners seems unachievable, even after they adapt their skills to the host country labour market.Assimilation, Over education

Temporary Employment, Job Flows and Productivity: A Tale of two Reforms

We investigate the effects of two reforms of temporary employment using panel data on Italian firms. We exploit variation in their implementation across regions and sectors for identification. We find that the reform of apprenticeship contracts increased job turnover and induced the substitution of external staff with firms’ apprentices, with an overall productivity-enhancing effect. The reform of fixed-term contracts instead did not produce the intended results: it induced a substitution of temporary employees in favour of permanent ones and reduced capital intensity, generating productivity losses. We estimate substitution elasticities across types of temporary contracts that are consistent with these interpretations.employment contracts, productivity, institutional changes

Flexible Employment, Job Flows and Labour Productivity

In this paper we provide evidence on the effects of temporary employment on job flows, labour productivity and investment. As a source of identification, we exploit reforms in the legislation of fixed-term and apprenticeships contracts whose implementation varied over regions and industries. Results indicate that the reform of apprenticeship contracts has increased the turnover of workers and has induced capital-labor substitution in favour of labour, with an overall productivity-enhancing effect. The reform of fixed-term contracts instead does not seem to have had the intended results and may have made the use of these contracts more costly rather than less costly. Ineffectiveness of the reform may also depend on firms substituting across different types of labour: we estimate elasticities of substitution that are consistent with this interpretation.employment contracts, productivity, institutional changes

Small sinkhole-like features in alluvial plains: the example of Paganico (Lucca Plain, Italy)

Paganico is a little village located in the southeastern portion of the Lucca Plain (northwestern Tuscany, Italy). Since the seventies, a few square kilometers' area around Paganico has been involved in the opening of small cavities (sinkhole-like) on the land surface. At the beginning they were very small and sporadic. Later on the phenomena were characterized by a significant extension, increasing in frequency and size (up to 2 m in diameter and depth), causing inconvenience to local people, agricultural operations and occasionally a little damage (cracks to buildings, fencing walls and outside floorings). <br><br> The cavities prevalently occur at the end of the dry season, during or immediately after the first intense rainy events, that is, between the end of summer and early autumn. Even so, the predisposition and triggering causes at present are not completely clarified. Therefore this study is aimed at individuating the triggering and evolution mechanism of the Paganico sinkhole-like features, particularly referring to the stratigraphic, hydrogeological and geotechnical features of the involved materials. <br><br> Another important issue made clear with this research is represented by the overexploitation of the local aquifer, characterized by particular hydro-structural conditions. In fact, the Paganico underground shows three horizons with different lithologic, hydrogeological and geotechnical properties: a superficial silty-sandy horizon (2–3 m thick), which is particularly involved in collapses; an intermediate silty-clayey horizon (2–4 m thick); and a lower and thick gravel-pebbly horizon, characterized by important water resources and heavy pumping. Since the seventies, such water pumping rose considerably due to the local demographic (well field), industrial (paper manufacture) and agricultural development. <br><br> From a hydrogeological point of view, this area is consequently characterized by two water tables: a temporary one, housed in the superficial silty-sandy horizon (perched aquifer), and a second one, confined, associated with the lower gravel-pebbly horizon (aquifer). The perched aquifer and confined aquifer are separated by an impermeable silty-clayey horizon. According to the observations resulting from this study, the latter probably tends to fracture by desiccation during the dry season, originating water exchange between the two water tables during the first important autumnal rainfall, depending on the pumping conditions, which lower the piezometric surface of the confined aquifer. Cracking would also characterize the superficial horizon. Thus, the water exchange would produce erosional phenomena in the superficial material, with removal of the fine fraction and collapse. This process could be at the origin of the cavities opening

A "glass-ceiling" effect for immigrants in the Italian labour market?

This paper investigates earnings differentials between immigrants and natives. We focus on returns and on the (imperfect) international transferability of human capital. Data are drawn from the 2009 Italian Labour Force Survey (LFS). We show that returns to human capital are considerably lower for immigrants as compared to natives and that there is no return to pre-immigration work experience, suggesting imperfect transferability of human capital. We also explored the role of human capital, for immigrants and natives, in explaining inter-occupational and intra-occupational earnings progression (differentials). Our findings suggest that the returns on human capital (main source of wage progression) for immigrants (is) are mainly driven by intra-occupational earnings progression. Moreover, and contrary to what is observed for natives, we detect through quantile analysis a glass-ceiling effect for immigrant workers, who appear to face a large penalty in accessing high paying occupations. A number of robustness checks confirm our main results

Mapas de la memoria

En un momento particular del país –y del mundo en general-, aparece el libro de Carla Grosman El espectro de la ausencia. Cine argentino de posdictadura como re-narración de la memoria colectiva que, más que certezas agita un mar de dudas que se plantean desde la Dedicatoria y el Prólogo: “¿dónde estaba la generación que debía transmitirnos la memoria? “¿Por qué regresan los muertos?”. A estos interrogantes, podemos agregarles otros como ¿por qué volver escribir en 2003/2005 sobre los “clásicos” del llamado “Cine de postdictadura”? ¿por qué, quince años después editarlo? __ ARK: http://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s22504524/yw6y4cw

Public sector pay and regional competitiveness: a first look at regional public-private wage differentials in Italy

This paper investigates regional public-private wage differentials in Italy. Following the recent wave of reforms that significantly changed wage setting and employment relations in both sectors increasing decentralisation in collective bargaining and enforcing a privatisation of public sector employment contracts - we present new estimates of the public-private wage gap by geographical location. We report both 'standardised' public-private wage differentials, as well as estimates obtained using Geographically Weighted Regressions methods. We show that significant differences exist in public-private wage differentials across Italian regions, and that the latter can be partly explained by local labour market conditions affecting the private sector and only marginally the public sector. Differences in public-private wage differentials across regions are expected to determine several imbalances in terms of 'wait' unemployment and recruitment problems in the different areas

Low-energy excitations in 2-leg and 3-leg quantum spin ladders

Low-energy excitations in spin 1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin ladders are studied by bosonization and gauge theoretical description. It is explicitly shown that zero modes in the bosonization play an essentially important role. Low-energy excitations in the 2-leg system is described by spin triplet Majorana fermions, and in the 3-leg case spin excitations on the top and bottom ladders are described by two massless scalar fields. It is predicted that if inter-ladder interaction between the top and bottom chains is introduced, a phase transition occures at some critical coupling and the system acquires an energy gap.Comment: Latex, 26 page

Audiological findings in patients treated with radio- and concomitant chemotherapy for head and neck tumors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To evaluate the functionality of the auditory system in patients who underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment with cisplatin to treat head and neck tumors.</p> <p>Study Design</p> <p>Case series with planned data collection.</p> <p>Setting</p> <p>From May 2007 to May 2008 by the Department of Otorhinolaryngology and the Department of Oncology/Radiotherapy at <it>Faculdade de Medicina de Marília</it>.</p> <p>Subjects and Methods</p> <p>Audiological evaluation (Pure Tone Audiometry (air and bone conduction), Speech Audiometry, Tympanometry, Acoustic Reflex testing and Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions) was performed in 17 patients diagnosed with head and neck neoplasia and treated with chemotherapy, using cisplatin, and radiotherapy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>12 left ears (70.5%) and 11 right ears (64.7%) presented bilateral decreased hearing soon after the treatment for the frequency 1 kHz (mild auditory damage) and for the frequency 8 kHz (more significant auditory damage).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients with head and neck cancer submitted to the conventional radiotherapy treatment, combined with the chemotherapy with cisplatin, presented a high incidence of decreased hearing by the end of treatment. Strong evidence was observed linking auditory alteration to the amount of radiotherapy treatment.</p

Low-lying magnon excitations in integer-spin ladders and tubes

We consider low-energy excitation structures of N-leg integer-spin ladder and tube systems with an antiferromagnetic (AF) intrachain coupling and a uniform external field. The tube means the ladder with the periodic boundary condition along the interchain (rung) direction. Odd-leg AF-rung tubes have the frustration. In order to analyze all systems including frustrated tubes, we apply a field-theoretical method based on the nonlinear sigma model. We mainly focus on the systems without any external fields. In this case, it is shown that the lowest bands of frustrated tubes always consist of six-fold degenerate magnon excitations, while those of all other systems are triply degenerate. This result implies that the ground states of frustrated tubes (all non-frustrated systems) become a two (one)-component Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, when a sufficiently strong uniform field is applied.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, published version (Proceedings of ISSP-9). See also cond-mat/050604