L’universalismo mistico di Simone Weil

In the last years of her short life, Simone Weil was deeply interested in non-Christian religions, especially those of ancient India. Since 1941, she began studying the Sanskrit language and reading the Upanishads, some of which she also tried to translate. In the Indian spirituality she found the path to understand some masterpieces of Christian mysticism, such as The mirror of simple souls by Marguerite Porete, which she read in London in an English version, ascribed to “an unknown French mystic”. Simone Weil recognized that all spiritual traditions, Hindu as well as Christian, agree with the essential mystical experience, the annihilation of the ego, so that the divine Light can enter the void made by man in his own soul (the so-called décreation), and so that everything can show the world’s wonderful beauty. However, she thought that Christianity was the spiritual heir to Heraclitus, of Platonism, and of stoicism, and expresses, in its mystical universalism , the best of every religious tradition

L'Efficienza tecnica dei distretti di Corte d'Appello italiani: aspetti metodologici, <i>benchmarking</i> e arretrato smaltibile

L’efficienza tecnica dei distretti di corte di appello italiani viene misurata mediante il metodo DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). L’analisi consente di valutare l’efficienza relativa di ciascun distretto come distanza radiale dalla frontiera efficiente, definita dalle prassi migliori, e di individuare le variazioni dei fattori necessarie affinché un distretto inefficiente emuli il proprio benchmark (distretto o gruppo di distretti di riferimento collocati sulla frontiera). Viene inoltre effettuata la scomposizione dell’efficienza totale in efficienza tecnica pura ed efficienza di scala e, per ciascun distretto inefficiente, viene calcolato l’arretrato smaltibile. Infine, sulla base di un’analisi multivariata di tipo tobit, si stima l’influenza sull’indicatore di efficienza di una serie di fattori socio-economici del contesto territoriale

Banking structure and regional economic growth: lessons from Italy

Following the literature on the comparative advantage of small versus large banks at lending to small businesses, and in light of the worldwide decline in the number of intermediaries that specialize in this type of lending associated with deregulation in the banking industry, we examine the role that specific categories of banks have played in the context of Italy’s regional economic growth. Over the estimation period, 1970-1993, which ends in the year of full implementation of the banking reform that introduced statutory de-specialization and branching liberalization, Italy featured not only a substantial presence of SME’s in the real sector, as is still the case, but also a large and heterogeneous set of credit institutions with different ownership, size and lending styles. Exploiting these peculiarities we study the role of specific intermediaries and gather indirect evidence concerning the likely effects, ceteris paribus, of the current consolidation processes. The main findings, stemming from panel regressions with fixed effects, are as follows. The overall size of the financial sector has a weak impact on growth, but some intermediaries are better than others: Co-operative banks and Special credit institutions play a positive role, Banks of national interest (basically large private banks) and Public law banks (government-owned banks) either do not affect growth or have a negative influence depending on how growth is measured. Co-operative banks were mostly small banks and Special credit institutions were all but large conglomerates with standardized credit policies, hence our results lend support to the current world-wide concerns of a reduction in the availability of credit to SME’s resulting from consolidation and regulatory reforms in the banking industry

Research on the coast of Somalia. Xanthidae Trapeziidae Carpiliidae Menippidae (Crustacea Brachyura)

Thirty-nine genera and 80 species of xanthoid crabs are identified from recent collections in Somalia and their habitats discussed. Most are new records for Somalia and 23 were previously unknown from the East African coast. Descriptions and illustrations are given for two new species: Cymo lanatopodus and Hypocolpus pardii

Book reviews

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L'EFFICIENZA DEL SETTORE PUBBLICO REGIONALE ATTRAVERSO GLI INDICATORI DI CONTESTO E LA SPESA PUBBLICA CONSOLIDATA

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Intersectoral and spatial spill-overs of firms’ bankruptcy in Spain

This paper employs provincial data to study the spatial and intersectoral spill-overs in aggregate failure rates in Spain, by using an Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation. The analysis is based on NUTS3 data over the time span 2005Q1-2013Q4. By speculating on the effects of the Spanish financial crisis, we document empirical evidence of the presence of spatial spill-overs among neighboring counties. Furthermore, some intersectoral spill-overs are also detected: we observe that Industry and Agriculture exhibit a positive impact on the Service sector. These results can be useful to design proper policy rules to better manage the spread of bankruptcies over time and space

Expert Witnesses and Arbitration Outcomes: Insights from Public Procurement Contracts

We explore the use of expert witnesses in arbitration proceedings by analyzing public procurement contract disputes in Italy. Balancing cost with accuracy, participants to a contract select arbitration when speedy dispute resolution is valued highly. Arbitration mechanisms tend to give arbitrators discretion in how to proceed. Consequently, principal-agent problems can arise. Using an IV approach, we show that the use of an expert witness causes a slowing down of the case resolution, without having an effect on the outcome of the dispute nor resolving uncertainty as measured by unanimous decisions by the panel of arbitrators