DIPENDENZA SPAZIALE CONTEMPORANEA E NON CONTEMPORANEA NEI TASSI DI DISOCCUPAZIONE: UN TENTATIVO DI ANALISI EMPIRICA DEI DATI PROVINCIALI ITALIANI

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Do “good neighbors” enhance regional performances in including disabled people in the labour market? A spatial Markov chain approach

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the performance of regions in providing employment of disabled people according to Law 68/99 can be affected by the performance of neighbouring regions. Hence, we propose a two-step analysis focusing on the Italian regions for the years 2000-2009. In the first step, we verify by means of the Stochastic Frontier Approach that the regions of Central and Northern Italy are more efficient in the matching process between demand and supply of jobs for disabled people than the regions of Southern Italy. Then, the efficiency results are analyzed using a Markov Spatial Transition Matrix in order to provide insights into the transitions of regions between efficiency levels, taking their local context into account. The results of this analysis show that good neighbors are important in promoting the improvement of the performance of the regions. However, the effects produced by bad neighbors should not be underestimated, especially when they are concentrated in an area of the country and have a time-space persistence. The effect of a persistent dualism on the performance of the regions with respect to the application of Law 68/99 is a problem that must be seriously considered by policy makers; especially when the regions with a low efficiency score are surrounded by neighbors with poor efficiency score and show an unhealthy poorly performing labour market

ECONOMETRIA SPAZIALE E MERCATO DEL LAVORO: UN’ANALISI EMPIRICA CON I DATI PROVINCIALI ITALIANI

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Sustainability of Italian families' food practices: Mediterranean diet adherence combined with organic and local food consumption

The present research intends to contribute to the literature on sustainable food consumption by investigating the present-day dietary patterns of Italian households to assess the degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet together with the level of organic and local food consumption. The analysis is based on data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics survey “Aspects of Daily Life” for the year 2014; this is a Multipurpose Survey conducted in Italy with 44,984 individuals across 18,864 households. A Heckman two-step probit model was implemented to estimate equations to assess the impact of Italian household composition and adherence to the Mediterranean diet upon organic and local food consumption. The study's findings show that both those households with children and those with a higher degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet have higher probabilities of buying both organic and local products, while increasing household size reduces the likelihood of buying local products. Furthermore, good economic status and a higher level of education increase the probability of consuming organic food. Some of the differences highlighted are of low amplitude; however, these results offer novel and original insights for Italy and support the need to for both policy makers and marketers to implement a wide range of initiatives aimed at educating consumers about, and facilitating access to sustainable food products

Effectiveness and efficiency of European Regional Development Fund on separate waste collection: evidence from Italian regions by a stochastic frontier approach

Abstract The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the results of the impact of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in Convergence regions over the 2007–2013 on separate collection rate of Italian regions. The aim is twofold: propose a groundbreaking analysis that allows us to control both for the effectiveness of the Regulation (EC) No. 1080/2006, by a Difference in differences equation (DID), and the Regions' efficiency in the separate collection process, by a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Specifically, the SFA allows us to model the DID equation in order to take account the regions' efficiency in the separate collection process in terms of institutional quality. In particular, we use a panel with two dimensions: temporal—9 yearly observations from 2004 to 2012; and cross-sectional—20 regions. The estimates suggest that ERDF have not contributed to reducing the structural divide in Italy and its managerial slack has triggered in the failure of the convergence objective. Policy implications are discussed

Disabilità e povertà: il ruolo delle pensioni di invalidità civile. Un'analisi DSGE per i dati italiani

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of an increase in civilian disability pensions on key macroeconomic variables. In particular, the focus is on consumption of households with at least one disabled member. The analysis is performed simulating a DSGE model using Italian data. The exercise is implemented through a reduction of public spending. Results show that an increase of 0.1% of civilian disability pensions ensures that households with disabled member exit from poverty status and also generates an increase of their consumption. Moreover, we observe a positive indirect effect on consumption of households without disabled member

Can civilian disability pensions overcome the poverty issue? A DSGE analysis for Italian data

In Italy, poverty and disability are two strictly related issues (Parodi, 2004, 2006, 2007; Parodi and Sciulli, 2008; Davila Quintana and Malo, 2012). Moreover, public transfers are not sufficient to exlude households with at least one disabled member from the poverty risk. We simulate a simple Real Business Cycle model to investigate the macroeconomic effects of a permanent increase in civilian disability pensions. In particular, we stress whether such a policy action is effective to stimulate private consumption. The exercise is implemented through both temporary and permanent reduction of public spending. Results show that in the long run a minimum increase in civilian disability pensions allows households with one disabled member to consume more and, importantly, to exit from poverty condition. In the short run we observe a policy trade-off. If public spending reduction is temporary and fast, private consumptions immediately increase but output deeply falls. On the contrary, if public spending permanently and slowly reduces, the recessionary effect softens but private consumptions only gradually increase

Can civilian disability pensions overcome the poverty issue? A DSGE analysis for Italian data

In Italy, poverty and disability are two strictly related issues (Parodi, 2004, 2006, 2007; Parodi and Sciulli, 2008; Davila Quintana and Malo, 2012). Moreover, public transfers are not sufficient to exlude households with at least one disabled member from the poverty risk. We simulate a simple Real Business Cycle model to investigate the macroeconomic effects of a permanent increase in civilian disability pensions. In particular, we stress whether such a policy action is effective to stimulate private consumption. The exercise is implemented through both temporary and permanent reduction of public spending. Results show that in the long run a minimum increase in civilian disability pensions allows households with one disabled member to consume more and, importantly, to exit from poverty condition. In the short run we observe a policy trade-off. If public spending reduction is temporary and fast, private consumptions immediately increase but output deeply falls. On the contrary, if public spending permanently and slowly reduces, the recessionary effect softens but private consumptions only gradually increase