Managerial discretion, incentives and governance rules for non-profit organizations

This paper analyzes the effects of managerial discretion and some possible solutions in non-profit sector. It is shown how the traditional incentives’ mechanisms are modified in a non-profit setting. In particular, market, reputational and ideological incentives are considered. The analysis highlights that new governance rules are necessary. In this context a new financial model is analyzed where the competition between for-profit and non-profit firms is extended from the products level to that of private financing.non-profit; managerial discretion; incentives, governance rules

Welfare state and social spending: assessing the effectiveness and the efficiency of European social policies in 22 EU countries

This paper aims at analysing the effectiveness and the efficiency of social public expenditure in 22 European countries. We present a basic theoretical framework connecting the choice of the level of social protection to the median voter’s preferences and the inefficiency of expenditure. To test it against real data, we construct performance and efficiency indicators. While the existing literature measures the performance of social policy restricting the analysis to its impact on inequality and the labour market, our index summarises the outcomes achieved in all sectors of social protection (family, health, labour market elderly, disabled, unemployment, inequality). Based on this, we find that the ranking of countries differs from those found in the literature. We then put together performance and the amount of expenditure needed to achieve it (to better compare countries, we use social public expenditure net of tax and transfers), constructing efficiency indicators and a production possibility frontier through the FHD method. We find that efficiency is not related to the size of public intervention. Rather, our results suggest that population size and the type of the welfare system might be more relevant factors: small countries tend to be more efficient than large ones and targeting all sectors of social policy tends to be more efficient than concentrating on some areas only

THE MORE PUBLIC THE MORE PRIVATE? THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN CHILDCARE

Childcare availability is regarded as an important factor in the evaluation of public policies for both sustaining fertility and increasing women participation to the labour market. However, the recent empirical literature shows that the extension of the public supply of childcare mainly crowds out private providers. Italy is a case of special interest for testing the relationship between the pub- lic and private supply of childcare given that: 1) an increase in public childcare provision can be achieved through broadly conceived forms of out-sourcing; 2) public childcare for children less than 3 years old can be considered as a ser- vice with high redistributive goals, which determines a sorting mechanism of the demand between public and private providers. We use Italian data at the munic- ipality level for the period 2000-2006 to explain the number of registered private providers of childcare as a function of 1) the public coverage of the 0-2 years old population, and 2) the main characteristics of the public service. We show that the public coverage positively a¤ects the number of private providers. When the characteristics of public supply are considered, the e¤ect of a sorting mechanism is con?rmed.Child Care, Italian Municipalities, Private-Public Mix

Clustering European Welfare Systems through a Performance Index

We construct a composite performance indicator to assess the relative performance of welfare policies in the EU countries. We show that the variability of performances cannot be explained only by the amount of resources devoted to social policies, but also by the composition of social expenditure: countries with higher shares of redistributive public expenditure obtain better results in the social sector. This result confirms the association between the type of welfare system, according to the traditional four-way classification, and the performance level. However, considering a more complete set of indicators of the structure of the welfare systems, we find that European countries cannot be grouped according to the traditional classification. Considering expenditure-side indicators and financing-side indicators together, three groups form: one comprising the UK and Iceland, one the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, one the continental (and southern) countries and Ireland

Efficient social policies with higher expenditure: an analysis for European countries

Based on the construction of two indicators to assess the relative effectiveness and efficiency of European welfare policies, we show that the variability of efficiency cannot be explained only by the amount of resources devoted to social policies but also by the institutional environment. The OLS regression shows that institutional variables- such as accountability and honesty of public officials- have high significant effects on the efficiency

Le politiche sociali in Europa: un confronto dei risultati raggiunti in 19 paesi europei

Il lavoro propone un’analisi comparativa dei risultati raggiunti in 19 paesi europei nel settore sociale. A tal fine vengono calcolati degli indicatori di risultato per ognuno degli 8 comparti di spesa sociale considerati, per poi pervenire ad un indicatore aggregato per ogni paese. L’analisi di questo indicatore di performance in relazione alla spesa sociale netta (al netto, cioè, degli interventi fiscali ) mostra un’alta variabilità della performance scarsamente correlata al livello di spesa sociale netta. Ne consegue che gli interventi di policy dovrebbero essere maggiormente indirizzati ad una razionalizzazione della spesa piuttosto che a politiche espansive della stessa.The paper proposes a comparative analysis of the outcomes of social policies in 19 european countries. To this purpose, an aggregated performance index is calculated. The analysis shows that the performance of the national social policies is scarcely correlated to the national net social expenditure. As a consequence, a greater effectiveness of social expenditure requires a social spending review rather than an expansive policy

I contributi dello Stato all'attività di ricerca e sviluppo delle imprese

In the Lisbon strategy, Member States committed to making structural reforms to their economies. Within this context, the European Council called for R&D investment to approach 3% of GDP by 2010, of which 2% should come from private sector. At the moment, in Italy R&D investment represents 1,2% of GDP, of which about 50% comes from the private sector. In Italy, public support to the private R&D's activities is basically built on fundings' allocation from the public sector to the private firms. The two main funds to this purpose are the FAR (fondo per le Agevolazioni alla Ricerca) and the FIT (Fondo per l'Innovazione Tecnologica). The aim of this paper is to analyze teh italian institutional and economic framework of the public incentives to the private R&D activity. Forst of all, the institutional framework is depicted (beneficiaries, typological classification of public fundings, allocation's rules). Using data from the Ministry of Productive Activities, the Italian Association for the Industrial Research and the national Accounts Department, the trend of the fundings allocations is the time span 1985-2002 is depicted. The analysis in terms of demand and supply of funds shows a relevant excess of the demand and a greater flow of resources towards big enterprises. The sector-based distribution of funding is analyzed calculating an index of funding concentration. While the FIT presents a quite uniform distribution (except for transports and communications), the FAR is characterized by a greater sector-based concentration.Finally, the analysis of the effects of public spending on the private R&D expenditure shows that further support more incentive-based is needed such as, for example, tax credit

Public grants for the firms' R&D activities

In the Lisbon strategy, Member States committed to making structural reforms to their economies. Within this context, the European Council called for R&D investment to approach 3% of GDP by 2010, of which 2% should come from private sector. At the moment, in Italy R&D investment represents 1,2% of GDP, of which about 50% comes from the private sector. In Italy, public support to the private R&D's activities is basically built on fundings' allocation from the public sector to the private firms. The two main funds to this purpose are the FAR (fondo per le Agevolazioni alla Ricerca) and the FIT (Fondo per l'Innovazione Tecnologica). The aim of this paper is to analyze teh italian institutional and economic framework of the public incentives to the private R&D activity. Forst of all, the institutional framework is depicted (beneficiaries, typological classification of public fundings, allocation's rules). Using data from the Ministry of Productive Activities, the Italian Association for the Industrial Research and the national Accounts Department, the trend of the fundings allocations is the time span 1985-2002 is depicted. The analysis in terms of demand and supply of funds shows a relevant excess of the demand and a greater flow of resources towards big enterprises. The sector-based distribution of funding is analyzed calculating an index of funding concentration. While the FIT presents a quite uniform distribution (except for transports and communications), the FAR is characterized by a greater sector-based concentration.Finally, the analysis of the effects of public spending on the private R&D expenditure shows that further support more incentive-based is needed such as, for example, tax credit.Research and Development; Public incentives to the private R&D;

Quanti sistemi europei di welfare? Un’analisi in base a dimensioni, struttura, finanziamento.

In questo lavoro esaminiamo le caratteristiche dei sistemi di welfare europei con riferimento alla tradizionale quadripartizione in regimi (nordico, anglosassone, continentale, meridionale), considerando misure della spesa sociale che tengono conto sia della differenza tra spesa lorda e spesa netta, sia di quella tra spesa pubblica e spesa privata. Inoltre, all’analisi della struttura della spesa pubblica, uniamo quella del finanziamento della stessa. Attraverso il metodo dell’analisi dei gruppi, troviamo che non esiste una distinzione tra paesi continentali e meridionali, e che l’Irlanda appartiene al gruppo anglo-sassone se si considerano esclusivamente gli indicatori dal lato del finanziamento

How do european welfare states perform?

The paper proposes an index to evaluate the performance of national social policies in Europ