Introduction

The short editorial introduces to the new issue of the Review. Startgin from the 2015 volume, the journal has changed its copyright policy as well as its open access policy

Editorial: Paolo Sylos Labini (1920-2005)

The article introduces to the new issue of the Review, which roughly corresponds with the tenth anniversary of the passing away of Paolo Sylos Labini (PSL). As explained by Roncaglia (2008), the very name of the PSL Quarterly Review is dedicated to the Italian economist, due among other things to the long run relation between PSL and the old series of this journal. The paper discusses PSL’s contributions in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, focusing on his forecast of the recent global crisis, published in 2003. This contribution already contained precise reference – often backed by data for the USA and other economies – to trends and ‘explanations’ of the crisis that several mainstream economists (e.g. Robert Lucas) claimed were impossible to see before the crisis itself. These include the accumulation of excessive household debt, excessive complacency on the side of the Fed, speculative bubbles in the US stock exchange and real estate markets, and the deflationary pressures caused by radical technological innovations. PSL’s example shows that the economists can and often do provide useful services to society, provided they build on solid theories

The productivity of the public sector in OECD countries: eGovernment as driver of efficiency and efficacy

This article aims at illustrating a theoretical approach to the analysis of the dynamics of productivity in the public sector, and at presenting a preliminary application of it to the estimation of the impact on productivity of the recent development of e-Government processes in a number of OECD countries. Our analysis serves a twofold purpose: at the microeconomic level, we set out to provide individual public administrations (PAs) with an instrument to evaluate the benefits, in terms of output, of alternative projects, particularly through a more efficient organisation of the relevant information. At the macroeconomic level, the aim is to highlight a significant relationship between e-Government and economic growth, as an indicator of social wellbeing.e-Government, ICT, public sector, productivity growth

Editorial: books and debates in economics

This editorial note introduces to the current issue of the journal. On occasion of the centenary of the birth of Paolo Sylos Labini, to whom our journal is dedicated, Economia civile has devoted a special issue Moneta e Credito to the continuing topicality of his thought. Among the new initiatives of the Review, we highlight here the call for submissions of extensive book review articles, which we aim will be a further tool to foster the economic debate on our pages

Pluralism at Risk? Heterodox Economic Approaches and the Evaluation of Economic Research in Italy

We analyze Italy's recent research evaluation exercise (VTR) as a salient example in discussing some internationally relevant issues emerging from the evaluation of research in economics. We claim that evaluation and its criteria, together with its linkage to research institutions' financing, are likely to affect the direction of research in a problematic way. As the Italian case documents, it is specifically economists who adopt unorthodox paradigms or pursue less diffused topics of research that should be concerned about research evaluation and its criteria. After outlining the recent practice of economic research in Italy and highlighting the relevant scope for pluralism that traditionally characterizes it, we analyze the publications submitted for evaluation to the VTR. By comparing these publications to all the entries in the EconLit database authored by economists located in Italy, we find a risk that the adopted ranking criteria may lead to disregarding historical methods in favor of quantitative and econometric methods, and heterodox schools in favor of mainstream approaches. Finally, by summarizing the current debate in Italy, we claim that evaluation should not be refused by heterodox economists, but rather that a reflection on the criteria of evaluation should be put forward at an international level in order to establish fair competition among research paradigms, thus, preserving pluralism in the discipline. © 2010 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc

GDP and life expectancy in Italy and Spain over the long run: A time-series approach

Background: A growing body of literature focuses on the relationship between life expectancy and GDP per capita. However, available studies to date are overwhelmingly based on either cross-country or cross-sectional data. We address the issue from a novel, more historically grounded approach, i.e., comparing long-run consistent time series. Objective: To investigate what, if any, is the causal link between life expectancy and GDP. Methods: We provide consistent and updated long-term yearly time series of GDP and life expectancy for Italy and Spain and compare them with those available for France. Results: Both Italy and Spain converged towards the European core (France) earlier in life expectancy than in GDP. We find it necessary to split the series into two sub-periods, and we find that, in general, both improvements in life expectancy cause GDP growth and economic growth causes improvements in life expectancy. For the countries and the periods considered there are, however, exceptions in both cases. Conclusions: Our findings confirm the hypothesis of a non-monotonic relationship between life expectancy and income, but they also emphasize the importance of empirical qualifications, imposed by the historical experience of each national case

Gender mainstreaming active inclusion policies

The aim of this report therefore is to inform and help develop gender mainstreaming in active inclusion policies. In order to do this, the report at first reviews gender differences and inequalities in the risks of poverty and social exclusion and it provides a close look at the connections between active inclusion policies and gender equality strategies (Chapters 2 and 3). It then analyses examples of concrete gender mainstreaming in each of the three pillars of active inclusion, i.e. income support (Chapter 4), labour inclusion (Chapter 5) and access to services (Chapter 6). Under each heading, the report summarises available information on the actual policy developments and looks at the results of the policies in terms of gender equality. Finally, Chapter 7 draws some conclusions. The information in this report is mainly provided by the national experts of the EGGSI network of experts in gender equality, social inclusion, healthcare and long-term care and covers 30 European countries (the EU-27 Member States) and the three EEA–EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway)

EUROPEAN HOUSEHOLDS' INCOMES SINCE THE CRISIS

Abstract: We explore the link between personal and functional income distribution at the micro level. We focus on the European experience over the crisis, comparing European households' incomes in 2007, 2012 and 2014. Throughout the period, most households earned income from more than one source, and a positive relation exists between both the capital and labour shares of incomes and total household incomes. We find that functional distribution, i.e. what kind of income a household earns, significantly affects both its position in the income distribution and its chances of mobility within it, and such impact is magnified by the crisis. However, the geography of European house-holds' incomes is much more complex than frequently suggested. In general, the more households depend on labour incomes the more likely they were to move downwards in the income distribution. However, this does not imply that capital incomes made households more likely to move upwards. Resumen: En este artículo exploramos el vínculo entre la distribución personal y funcional de los ingresos a nivel micro. Nos centramos en la crisis económica europea, comparando los ingresos de los hogares europeos en 2007, 2012 y 2014. A lo largo del periodo, la mayoría de los hogares obtuvo ingresos de más de una fuente, existiendo una relación positiva entre ingresos de capital, salario y los ingresos totales del hogar. Encontramos que la distribución funcional, es decir, el tipo de ingreso que un hogar gana, afecta significativamente tanto su posición en la distribución del ingreso como sus posibilidades de movilidad dentro de ella, y ese impacto es amplificado por la crisis. Sin embargo, la geografía de los ingresos de los hogares europeos es mucho más compleja de lo que se suele sugerir. En general, cuanto más dependen de los ingresos laborales, más probable es que los hogares se muevan hacia abajo en la distribución del ingreso. No obstante, esto no implica que los ingresos de capital hicieran más probable la movilidad hacia arriba de los hogares

Sexual orientation and social exclusion in Italy

This work explores the role of discrimination in shaping individuals’ lives and opportunities, with specific respect to sexual orientation. The role of sexual orientation in explaining earning differences has been increasingly emphasized in empirical literature on discrimination mainly as a result of the growing availability of data sources on gays and lesbian populations. Available evidence predominantly converges on the one hand on the identification of discrimination treatments for gays and positive wage differential for lesbian women with respect to heterosexual counterparts. On the other hand, disagreement pervades interpretations of the predominant above-described labour market outcome. In trying to move beyond such conflicting views, we consider a holistic approach to social exclusion, defined as individuals’ ability to fully participate to social life by examining five domains: monetary poverty, labour market attachment, housing conditions, subjective well-being, and education. Three samples of different waves of the Banca d’Italia “Survey on household income and wealth” (SHIW - 2006, 2008 and 2010) were pooled in order to perform the empirical analysis on a reasonably sized sample of heterosexual couples identified according to a cohabitation criteria. Following the SHIW characteristics and definition of household, we are able to differentiate homosexual couples belonging to a sub-population of out same-sex couples from those who are not openly out about their homosexual relationship. We develop an understanding of social exclusion as a non-dichotomous concept (that is, one is not necessarily “included” or “excluded”, but a continuum of intermediate conditions exist) through fuzzy analysis techniques and develop a synthetic index of inclusion/exclusion as well as a number of partial indexes, composed of several variables pertaining to a certain domain. Overall indicators of social exclusion are examined for the full sample and for the sub-sample of workers only, comparing individuals cohabiting in same-sex couples with heterosexual counterparts. Our results point out that a significant and non-negligible portion of the social exclusion suffered by lesbian and gay couples cannot be accounted for by observable factors and may therefore be attributed to the impact of discrimination. Coherently with the existing literature, we find a differentiated impact on gay men and lesbian couples. However, and possibly more relevantly, we also find significant differences between the couples of “out” homosexual individuals and those composed of “closeted” individuals

A Test of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis using data from a Natural Experiment

Data on contestants' choices in Italian Game Show Affari Tuoi are analysed in a way that separates the effect of risk attitude (preferences) from that of beliefs concerning the amount of money that will be offered to contestants in future rounds. The most important issue addressed in the paper is what belief function is actually being used by contestants. The parameters of this function are estimated freely along with the parameters of a choice model. Separate identification of the belief function and preferences is possible by virtue of the fact that at a certain stage of the game, beliefs are not relevant, and risk attitude is the sole determinant of choice. The rational expectations hypothesis is tested by comparing the estimated belief function with the "true" offer function which is estimated using data on offers actually made to contestants. We find that there is a significant difference between these two functions, and hence we reject the rational expectations hypothesis. However, when a simpler "rule-of-thumb" structure is as- sumed for the belief function, we find a correspondence to the function obtained from data on actual offers. Our overall conclusion is that contestants are rational to the extent that they make use of all available relevant information, but are not fully rational because they are not processing the information in an optimal way. The importance of belief-formation is confirmed by the estimation of a mixture model which establishes that the vast majority of contestants are forward-looking as opposed to myopic.Beliefs, Discrete choice models, Method of simulated likelihood, Natural Experiments, rational expectations, risky choice