La competitivita'

Di poche parole si è così abusato, nei dibattiti sui problemi economici, come del termine “competitività”. Essa è al centro di programmi politici, di indirizzi di governo, di inchieste e articoli giornalistici. A fronte dello smodato utilizzo del termine, però, non fa riscontro una chiara e univoca definizione di questo concetto nelle scienze economiche

La competitività

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DOES INEQUALITY HARM DEMOCRACY? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE UK

This paper presents an empirical investigation about the effect of increasing economic inequality on some aspects of the quality of a democracy. The main novelty of the paper lies in its methodology: it applies to a single country - the UK – in a long run perspective. Using Eurobarometer data for the period 1974-2009, we select three questions and check whether an increase in inequality alters the answers to these questions, subject to other control variables. In particular, as indicators of the quality of democracy, we select the degree of Democracy-Satisfaction, the frequency of Political Discussion and Participation in Election. Another novelty is the use of several measures of inequality: the Gini coefficient, the Foster-Wolfson polarization index, the interdecile ratios P90/P10 and P90/P50, the shares of top and bottom 1%, 5% and 10% income. Inequality indices have been computed using two British household budget/expenditure surveys, i.e. the Family Expenditure Survey and the Family Resources Survey. Using an array of indicators allows us to disentangle what happens in the different parts of the income distribution and to avoid the dependence of the results on the choice of the indicator. The estimation is carried out estimating probit and ordered probit models. The main finding is that higher level of income inequality, no matter how it is measured, impacts negatively on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and positively on their political discussion and intention to vote. This leads to the issue of limiting inequality as an engine of deterioration in the quality of democracy, and sustaining an active citizenship

Inequality and democracy: The UK case in the last thirty years

Wilkinson and Pickett consider the income distribution in 23 rich countries (U.S. included) and plot the ratio between the income received by the top 20% of the population to that received by the bottom 20% - as a measure of inequality - against the Index of health and social problems built on the UN Development Program data (averaged for the reporting period 2003-2006) for the same countries. This index - like the well known Human Development Index (HDI) - is a simple average of the data for the following social phenomenon: level of trust, mental illness (no data for Denmark), life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, children educational performance (no data for UK), teenage birth, homicides, imprisonment rates, social mobility. Without entering into the details, the main and robust message coming out from the book is that among the 23 rich countries the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator. The U.S. - the most unequal country in the sample - is the most striking example of that, followed by Portugal and the UK (both places where the gap between rich and poor is relatively large), whilst the Scandinavian countries invariably rank last. The message is clear: social problems were caused by material life conditions the more affluent countries should have performed better than the less affluent (still in the same basket of rich countries). Instead, the evidence suggests that it is the relative position within a society to matter the most: where income differences are bigger, social distances are bigger and social stratification more remarkable

Institutional change and FDI in three selected CEECs: The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland

The European enlargement provides new space for re-organizing the production and re-locating the plants. Few studies approach the complex theme of industrial location in the EU new-comers: statistics are still scarce, language constitutes a barrier for assuming reliable information, and the differences in the economic and institutional structure bring further difficulties. This paper aims at investigating the relation between institutional change in this area and FDI. In particular, the focus will be on the privatisation process, which has played a major role in determining the behaviour of the firms and thus the direction of the FDI

Disuguaglianza, Democrazia e Globalizzazione

Michele Alacevich e Anna Soci, riprendendo i temi trattati nel loro libro, Breve storia della disuguaglianza, si concentrano su due tra i vari problemi connessi alla disuguaglianza: la sfida alla democrazia e gli squilibri globali messi in atto dalla disuguaglianza economica. I due autori sostengono che la riflessione sulla democrazia sia fondamentale per capire le dinamiche della disuguaglianza interna alle nazioni, così come l’analisi degli squilibri globali è cruciale per comprendere le forme della disuguaglianza internazionale