The Declining Use of Unskilled Labour in Italian Manufacturing: Is Trade to Blame? CEPS Working Document No. 178, December 2001

As in other industrialised countries, the manufacturing sector in Italy has recently experienced a substantial increase in the use of skilled relative to unskilled workers - skill upgrading. In this paper we estimate a model, based upon the notion of outsourcing, of the relative demand for skilled labour which allows identification of the roles of technological change and trade, the two main culprits, in skill upgrading. Compared to previous studies of Italy the model is applied to highly disaggregated industrial data and in addition the impact of trade is more precisely measured through the separate identification of import flows from low-wage labour abundant countries and those from OECD partners. Furthermore we also introduce a measure of trade variability. Our results show firstly that economic variables played little or no role in determining the relative demand for unskilled workers in the 1970s in Italy, reflecting the nature of Italian labour market institutions in the period. Subsequently, in the 1980s and 1990s, following some labour market reforms, we find that international competition, in terms of import penetration and the variability of trade prices, had a significant effect on the relative demand for blue-collar workers in Italy in skilled intensive sectors. In unskilled intensive sectors, such as textiles and clothing, where the impact of imports from low-wage countries might be expected to be more pronounced, we do not find a significant effect from imports but rather that the most important role has been played by technological change. The result is consistent with previous studies that indicate that Italian textile and clothing firms have remained internationally competitive by increasingly switching to high quality segments of the industry

Distribution of Caulerpa taxifolia var. distichophylla (Sonder) Verlaque, Huisman & Procaccini in the Mediterranean Sea

The Non-Indigenous Species (NIS) Caulerpa taxifolia var. distichophylla (Sonder) Verlaque, Huisman & Procaccini has been reported for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea along the coast of South Turkey. This NIS is actively expanding into the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Sea. In this paper, we present an overview of the current distribution of this alga in the Mediterranean Sea, based on relevant scientific publications, grey literature and personal observations. New records from the Sicilian coast (Italy) are also reported. Caulerpa taxifolia var. distichophylla was found over a wide range of environmental conditions (depth, light and substratum), suggesting a broad ecological plasticity of this alga which makes it a poten- tial threat for the Mediterranean benthic communities. In this respect, artificial structures, often linked to harbours and maritime traffic, seem to provide suitable habitats for this NIS. Since maritime traffic is intense in the Mediterranean Sea, further expansion of C. taxifolia var. distichophylla in this region is to be expected. For this reason, it is very important to build up an overview on the current distribution of the species and its possible pattern of colonisation in relation to environmental conditions, as well as in view of future climate change scenarios

Influence of weaning age (28 vs. 63 d) on quantitative and qualitative carcass traits of rabbits

Nowadays there is an increasing interest towards breeding systems, also for rabbit meat production, that are more mindful of animal welfare through an attenuation of the productive cycles intensity. These particular rearing techniques provide a delaying of the weaning age to reduce young rabbits stress. The present experiment is part of a wider research (Pinna et al., 2004; Marongiu et al., 2004) conducted in a sardinian farm in which rabbits are usually weaned at about 60 days of age. Surely this managerial choice could be considered rather questionable but from a scientific point of view could also represent the occasion to examine the productive performance of rabbits submitted to such a late weaning. The final part of the survey, regarding the carcass composition and the meat chemical-nutritional characteristics, was carried out through the comparison of two groups of rabbits weaned at 28 and at 63 days of age respectively

perceptual organization reconsidered in the light of the watercolor illusion the problem of perception of holes and the object hole effect

The watercolor illusion is a long-range color assimilation (coloration effect) imparting a figure-ground segregation (figural effect) across large enclosed areas (B. Pinna, 1987; B. Pinna, G. Brelstaff, & L. Spillmann, 2001; B. Pinna, L. Spillmann, & J. S. Werner, 2003; B. Pinna, J. S. Werner, & L. Spillmann, 2003). The watercolored figure has a very poorly reversible or univocal figure-ground segregation and strongly enhances the unilateral belongingness of the boundaries (E. Rubin, 1915), a principle stating that the boundaries belong only to the figure and not to the background. The figural effect determines grouping and figure-ground segregation more strongly than the well-known Gestalt principles. Under watercolor conditions both the figure and the background assume new properties becoming respectively bulging object and hole both with a 3-D volumetric appearance (object-hole effect). Our purposes were: (i) to demonstrate that the hole induced by the watercolor illusion has unique figural properties comparable to those of the object and not present in the background induced by the known figure-ground principles; (ii) to demonstrate a dissociation of the object-hole effect from the coloration one; (iii) to demonstrate that the object-hole effect depends on a new principle. This was psychophysically tested by weakening (ungrouping) the whole figural organization of the watercolor illusion, i.e. by imparting motion to only some components of a stimulus, while other components remain stationary. The results showed that (i) subjects perceived moving holes more strongly than moving figures or objects enlarging and shrinking. (ii) Paradoxically, moving holes appear more as figures than the bulging surfaces. (iii) When motion was imparted to components that while stationary were perceived as objects, their figurality is further enhanced (summation effect). (iv) When object-hole and coloration effects were dissociated no significant difference compared to illusory colored conditions was reported. Coloration can be considered independent from the object-hole effect of the watercolor illusion. The object-hole effect may depend on the "asymmetric luminance contrast principle" (B. Pinna, 2005)

Movements of People for Movements of Goods?

While it is well established to think of international tourism as a type of exports, namely ‘home’ exports, the potential of tourism flows as an engine for fostering trade among countries is a poorly studied topic. In this paper we show that this relationship can be studied at a very detailed level by exploiting the disaggregation of existing information on international trade and inbound tourism. We consider a sample of 25 countries belonging to the European Union, a region which has been interested by common shocks such as the establishment of the Euro as the new currency for many countries and the liberalization in the air transport market. We carry out a panel data analysis by means of which we assess whether international tourist arrivals by a given country activate additional exports towards the same country. We find not only that tourism can promote exports, but also that this effect displays important differences depending on whether or not consumption goods are considered. This finding is consistent with the idea that the experience of tourists in a given destination reduces the fixed costs of trade, thus facilitating access to the advantages of international trade for more peripheral economies

Border effects in the enlarged EU area

This paper looks at the issue of border effects in the enlarged European Union. We have considered accession countries of different size and other characteristics, i.e. Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia and Cyprus. We have measured the extent to which internal trade exceeds international trade in a set up where controls for other economic determinants of commerce have been considered. In order to avoid inflated border effects, information at the regional level both for CEECs and EU countries has been used to construct a weighted measure of distance both for between-countries and internal distances. Furthermore, in order to separate border effects from impediments to trade due to technical barriers we look at the extent of border effects for sectors grouped according to the approach adopted by the EU to remove technical barriers in the EU. All distance measures have been found negative and significant for all types of products. The border effect coefficients for the harmonic mean have been found consistently smaller, regardless the relevance of technical barriers. Furthermore distance has also been found to be a slightly smaller impediment when using the effective measure. Checking for the presence of technical barriers to trade, our results suggest that the border effects are the largest for old approach products, where we expect to have the most important technical barrier to trade due to complicated harmonization procedures. The ‘other approach’ category has the smallest border effects, while the ‘mixed approach’ products are in between the two previous categories. Our countries of interest would trade with themselves 221 times more in old approach products, while only 24 times more in other approach products

What will trade and global value chains look like in a post-pandemic world?

The economic disruption generated by Covid-19 has prompted many observers to ask whether globalisation has increased our vulnerability to economic shocks. Anna Maria Pinna and Luca Lodi examine what the future of trade and global value chains may look like once we emerge from the pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic arrived at a time when many citizens ... Continue

Possible routes of animal exposure to cadmium and cadmium compounds and induced effects: a review

A retrospective analysis about cadmium and cadmium compounds teratogenicity, toxicity and carcinogenicity was carried out on literature basis, up to date, reviewed according to animal species, routes of exposure, acute and chronic response to different dosages via gastrointestinal or inhalatory uptake, target organs and apparatus. Some recent updates from experimental trials were also comparatively considered

Synthesis and D₂-like binding affinity of new derivatives of N3-[(1- ethyltetrahydro-1H-2-pyrrolyl)methyl]-4,5-dihydrobenzo[g]indole-3- carboxamide and related compounds

In previous papers 4a,b we have reported the syntheses and structure-activity relationships of a series of 5-phenyl-3-pyrrole carboxamide and related 4,5-dihydrobenzo[g]indole-3-carboxamide analogues whose most representative terms were 1a and 2a respectively. Encouraged by these results we carried out several modifications of 2a