The efficiency of Italian pension funds: costs, membership, assets

The scope of the supplementary pension funds is to provide workers with a satisfactory standard of living at retirement. An efficient and affordable system of pension funds is therefore an important factor to realize the workers’ aims of maximizing the value of their pension wealth. A rationalization of the industry structure, leading to the creation of bigger pension funds, that should be better able to take advantage of economies of scale, might contain the costs sustained by participants. In this paper, and for the first time (to the best of our knowledge), we attempt to carry out an econometric study of the principal factors which determine the costs level and the efficiency of Italian pension funds. Based on an original dataset of Italian closed pension funds in the 2007-2013 period, this work runs a panel estimate of the impact of dimension (the number of participants) on administrative costs. Our results highlight the existence of important overall economies of scale and that in those funds characterized by the outsourcing of some activities, the administrative costs result smaller. We adopt the same dataset also for the open pension funds, in order to evaluate the link between financial costs and the sum of resources under management. The estimates do not confirm the existence of particular economies of scale, probably due to the distinctive traits of the complementary pension funds industry in Italy. The commission fees of the financial management of pension funds, in particular of closed type, are much lower than those relative to other financial services and also to other types of foreign pension funds. This situation, fuelled by competition among financial managers, has gone on for some time, thus further limiting the ways in which savings can be made through an increase in the volume of the assets managed

The efficiency of Italian pension funds: costs, membership, assets

The scope of the supplementary pension funds is to provide workers with a satisfactory standard of living at retirement. An efficient and affordable system of pension funds is therefore an important factor to realize the workers’ aims of maximizing the value of their pension wealth. A rationalization of the industry structure, leading to the creation of bigger pension funds, that should be better able to take advantage of economies of scale, might contain the costs sustained by participants. In this paper, and for the first time (to the best of our knowledge), we attempt to carry out an econometric study of the principal factors which determine the costs level and the efficiency of Italian pension funds. Based on an original dataset of Italian closed pension funds in the 2007-2013 period, this work runs a panel estimate of the impact of dimension (the number of participants) on administrative costs. Our results highlight the existence of important overall economies of scale and that in those funds characterized by the outsourcing of some activities, the administrative costs result smaller. We adopt the same dataset also for the open pension funds, in order to evaluate the link between financial costs and the sum of resources under management. The estimates do not confirm the existence of particular economies of scale, probably due to the distinctive traits of the complementary pension funds industry in Italy. The commission fees of the financial management of pension funds, in particular of closed type, are much lower than those relative to other financial services and also to other types of foreign pension funds. This situation, fuelled by competition among financial managers, has gone on for some time, thus further limiting the ways in which savings can be made through an increase in the volume of the assets managed

The impact of financial crisis on savings decisions: evidences from Italian pension funds

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of the financial crisis on households’ saving decisions in private pension schemes. We base our study on an original dataset made up of three sample surveys collected in 2008, in 2012 and in 2015 by Mefop. Each survey has been conducted interviewing by phone more than 10000 people in order to construct a representative sample of roughly 1000 individual for each survey, which includes both members and not members of Italian pension funds. Each wave allows us to map saving decisions and personal characteristics (income, type of occupation, political orientation, financial literacy, etc.) in two distinct moment: before the crisis and after the crisis. Therefore we can identify the impact of the financial turmoil simply introducing a dummy variable. Results shows that the probability to invest in a private pension scheme has been barely touched and in some cases it is also possible to register an increase

The impact of financial crisis on savings decisions: evidences from Italian pension funds

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of the financial crisis on households’ saving decisions in private pension schemes. We base our study on an original dataset made up of three sample surveys collected in 2008, in 2012 and in 2015 by Mefop. Each survey has been conducted interviewing by phone more than 10000 people in order to construct a representative sample of roughly 1000 individual for each survey, which includes both members and not members of Italian pension funds. Each wave allows us to map saving decisions and personal characteristics (income, type of occupation, political orientation, financial literacy, etc.) in two distinct moment: before the crisis and after the crisis. Therefore we can identify the impact of the financial turmoil simply introducing a dummy variable. Results shows that the probability to invest in a private pension scheme has been barely touched and in some cases it is also possible to register an increase

The influence on vehicle dynamics of active lateral suspensions: experimental assessment

Increasing a railway vehicle's speed on existing track, its dynamic performances are negatively affected. To compensate for the deteriorated dynamic behaviour, a re-design of the suspension system has been carried out in the years. For trains which are operated at very high speed in combination with high cant deficiency, a purely passive solution is not always sufficient. Thus, an active solution offering better possibilities of improving the vehicle’s dynamic performances are sought for. Active suspensions in trains have been studied for a number of years. Two general categories can be identified: one improving running stability and wheelset guidance and another improving passenger ride comfort. However, due to relatively high implementation and maintenance costs, only few applications are being used in service operation. One of these active suspensions has recently been tested on V300Zefiro train, the new Italian high speed train. In fact, V300Zefiro is being homologated up to a speed of 350km/h with a high cant deficiency. The main target of active lateral suspensions on V300Zefiro train is to improve passenger ride comfort. In a conventional bogie, the carbody’s inertia forces in curves are transferred through the suspension and eventually through the bumpstops to the bogie frame. With an active lateral suspension, these inertia forces are transferred to the bogie frame through the lateral actuators in order to avoid bumpstop contact, and finally to the wheelsets resulting in a change in wheel-rail contact forces. This force transfer, together with the passenger comfort, should carefully be addressed in order to evaluate all consequences of the developed control logic with respect to the track. The present paper focuses on the dynamic characterization of the active lateral suspensions (with particular focus on V300Zefiro) based on the measurement of displacement and transmitted force in real working conditions, as well as on the influence of the active lateral suspensions on the centring capabilities of the carbody with respect to the bogie and on the resulting wheel-rail contact force components (being the instrumented active lateral suspensions mounted on bogies having load measurement wheelsets)

Dynamic homologation tests of ETR1000-V300Zefiro up to 350km/h

The homologation of railway vehicles in Europe is ruled by EN 14363. It defines testing scenarios, experimental setups, data post-processing procedures and limit values for a number of different parameters mainly associated with vehicle safety and ride quality. In particular, in the case of high speed and/or high axle load vehicles, a testing methodology based on the measurement of wheel-rail contact forces at several wheelsets of the vehicle and accelerations at a number of other places is required. However, for the homologation of very high speed trains (i.e. trains having an operating speed above 300km/h) it should be taken into account that limit values for track geometry quality of the test track provided by the standards go up to a maximum speed of 300km/h. Thus, the homologation process of a very high speed train has to face a number of uncertainties and open questions that require accurate evaluations and will provide very important data for the extension of existing standard requirements to higher speeds than the ones considered today. The present paper presents the work carried out for the dynamic homologation of ETR1000-V300Zefiro train up to an operating speed of 350km/h. The homologation sensor layout as well as the distributed acquisition system for monitoring the whole vehicle will be presented. It should be noted that, for the first time, dynamometric wheelsets were provided with accuracy information that was constantly monitored during line tests. The influence of vehicle speed on vehicle safety and ride quality up to 350km/h will be presented through the most relevant parameters accounted for by the standards and considerations on how to extend existing standards will be provided

USUTU VIRUS IN ITALY, AN EMERGENCE OR A SILENT INFECTION?

International audienceA two year study (2008-2009) was carried out to monitor the Usutu virus (USUV) circulation in Italy. Sentinel horses and chickens, wild birds and mosquitoes were sampled and tested for the presence of USUV and USUV antibodies within the WND National Surveillance plan. Seroconversion evidenced in sentinel animals proved that in these two years the virus has circulated in Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. In Veneto USUV caused a severe blackbird die-off disease involving at least a thousand birds. Eleven viral strains were detected in organs of 9 blackbirds (52.9%) and two magpies (0.5%) originating from Veneto and Emilia Romagna regions. USUV was also detected in a pool of caught in Tuscany. According to the alignment of the NS5 partial sequences, no differences between the Italian USUV strains isolated from Veneto, Friuli and Emilia Romagna regions were observed. The Italian North Eastern strain sequences were identical to those of the strain detected in the brain of a human patient and shared a high similarity with the isolates from Vienna and Budapest. Conversely, there were few differences between the Italian strains which circulated in the North Eastern regions and the USUV strain detected in a pool of caught in Tuscany. A high degree of similarity at both nucleotide and amino acid level was also found when the full genome sequence of the Italian North Eastern isolate was compared with that of the strains circulating in Europe. The North Eastern Italian strain sequence exhibited 97% identity to the South African reference strain SAAR-1776. The deduced amino acid sequences of the Italian strain differed by 10 and 11 amino-acids from the Budapest and Vienna strains, respectively, and by 28 from the SAAR-1776 strain. According to this study two strains of USUVs are likely to have circulated in Italy between 2008 and 2009. They have developed strategies of adaptation and evolution to spread into new areas and to become established