Italy has passed a no-confidence verdict in the centre-left

The rise of Beppe Grillo and the political resilience of Silvio Berlusconi were two of the main stories to emerge from last week’s Italian election. As Duncan McDonnell and Giuliano Bobba argue, however, the Grillo and Berlusconi headlines should not disguise the stark position of the Italian centre-left. The Partito Democratico has now lost over three million voters in five years

The Determinants of IMF Loan Programs

This paper focuses on the bargaining process underlying financial arrangements between the IMF and recipient countries. The primary aim is to investigate the relationship between the own country characteristics, both in terms of macroeconomic conditions and bargaining power, and the outcome of the agreement with the Fund. IMF lending practices respond to economic conditions but are also sensitive to other factors that reflect the importance of the country within the international financial community (measured by the bilateral trade volume between the country and the OECD countries and by debt service) and the importance of the country within the international politics (measured by the UN voting patterns between the country and the USA, the colonial past and by country share of IMF quotas).

Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Estimating the Effects of Education on Democracy

Is there any relation between education and democracy? Once we correct for weak instruments and identify education as `weakly exogenous` we find new evidence that education systematically predicts democracy. Our results are robust across model specification, instrumentation strategies, and samples.

Liquidity, risk and occupational choices

We explore whether financial constraints matter and which financial constraints matter the most in the choice of becoming an entrepreneur. We exploit a randomly assigned welfare program in rural Mexico to show that cash transfers significantly increase entry into entrepreneurship, thereby providing evidence of financial constraints. We then develop a simple model to highlight how liquidity and insurance constraints respond differently to the time profile of expected cash transfers. Exploiting the cross-households variation in the timing of these transfers, we find that current occupational choices are significantly more responsive to the amount of transfers expected for the future than to the amount of transfers currently received. We interpret these findings as evidence that the program has been effective in promoting micro-entrepreneurship by enhancing the willingness to bear risk.financial constraints ; entrepreneurship ; insurance, liquidity

Ayuda y crecimiento: La política importa

La literatura sobre la efectividad de la ayuda extranjera se ha enfocado más en las políticas del país que recibe la ayuda que en los determinantes de su distribución. Sin embargo, un resultado consistente es que los aliados políticos obtienen más ayuda de los países donantes que los no aliados. Este articulo muestra que la ayuda entregada a aliados políticos no favorece el crecimiento, mientras que la ayuda que reciben países no aliados es muy efectiva. Este resultado es robusto utilizando varias especificaciones y técnicas de estimación. En particular, se utilizan nuevos métodos para controlar por endogenidad. Se sugiere que la distribución de la ayuda extranjera sea revisada con cuidado de tal forma que esta sea lo más efectiva posible.

Liquidity, Risk, and Occupational Choices.

We explore which financial constraints matter the most in the choice of becoming an entrepreneur. We consider a randomly assigned welfare program in rural Mexico and show that cash transfers signi cantly increase entry into entrepreneurship. We then exploit the cross-household variation in the timing of these transfers and nd that current occupational choices are signi cantly more responsive to the transfers expected for the future than to those currently received. Guided by a simple occu- pational choice model, we argue that the program has promoted entrepreneurship by enhancing the willingness to bear risk as opposed to simply relaxing current liquidity constraints.insurance; entrepreneurship; Financial constraints; liquidity;

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for Freeze-Drying: Applications for Pharmaceuticals

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Inside the secret garden of political parties. Transformations and reactions to primary elections in Italy and France

Primary elections are becoming quite spread within no-US political context. Many political parties in different countries choose to adopt such inclusive methods to select their candidates for general elections. Thus, primary elections have been re-adapted to different political systems, in order to fit with different party’s specific features. This implied a re-definition of the very concept of primary both in terms of procedures and in terms of political meaning. This paper aims to understand the promotion of party primaries in two EU countries: Italy and France. The two countries have implemented open primaries adopting the maximum level of inclusiveness. This paper will focus on the public debate about these two case studies in order to clarify which were the meaning and the political value of the primary contests in 2011 (France) and 2012 (Italy)

Interaction of Chiral Lanthanide complexes with nucleic acids

Enantiopure A and A lanthanide complexes, bearing a phenanthridinium or a dipyridoquinoxaline chromophore as a sensidser, have been designed with the aim of developing structural and reactive probes for nucleic acids. Their interaction with DNA was studied using various spectroscopic techniques. A certain degree of stereoselectivity in DNA binding was discerned. The A enantiomers of the Eu tetramide and of the EuPh(_3)dpq complexes interacted with nucleic acids in a predominantly intercalative binding mode, by inserting their planar aromatic chromophore between the base-pairs. The former showed a preference for C-G sites, while the latter bound preferentially to A-T base-pairs. A rather different binding mode, probably involving the minor groove, was revealed in the interaction of the A enantiomer of the EuPh(_3)dpq complex with nucleic acids, with a higher affinity for C and G bases. In the presence of nucleic acid, a charge transfer process occurred in each case, which quenched the singlet excited state of the phenanthridinium moiety or the lanthanide excited state (in Ph(_3)dpq complexes). In the unique case of the EuNp(_3)dpq complexes, the interaction resulted in an increase in the metal emission intensity and lifetime, as a consequence of the protection of the molecule, probably accommodated in the DNA minor groove, from a quenching process. This light switch' effect can be exploited in the development of spectroscopic probes. The TbNp(_3)dpq, on the other hand, was found to generate singlet oxygen efficiently and could therefore act as a reactive probe. Moreover, the EuPh(_3)dpq and TbPh(_3)dpq complexes showed extraordinarily high emission quantum yields in aqueous media, due to the favourable photophysical properties of the dpq antenna as well as the nonadentate nature of the Ph(_3)dpq ligand. This makes them valuable luminescent probes