Italy and development policies from the golden age to the current crisis: the role of the “nuovo meridionalismo”

The first aim of this paper on “L’Italia e le politiche di sviluppo dalla golden age alla crisi attuale: il ruolo del “nuovo meridionalismo” (Italy and its development policies from the golden age to the current crisis: the role of “nuovo meridionalismo”)” is to examine the state of the art concerning the strategies for the development of southern Italy. These strategies have been severely weakened, not only because of national policy choices, but also because of the prevailing cultural bias against Southern issues; this culture took hold even amongst those people of Southern Italy committed to “abolish the South”. Only in recent years has the trend been inverted, as the gap between the regions of Southern Italy and those in the Center and Northern areas has grown wider and wider and the attention has been focused back, at the national level, on an “open problem” such as the backwardness of Southern Italy. In order to perform an effective historical evaluation, this paper will reconsider the starting moment of the “nuovo meridionalismo”, when the birth of the SVIMEZ and the efforts carried out to define the industrialization strategies of the less developed area of our country gave life to a complex of unvaluable reforms, beginning with the extraordinary intervention and with the establishment of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. The positive turn impresses by this innovative setup of industrial policy had its roots in those development theories which, from the mid-XX° Century, began to bring the issue of “depressed areas” and of those cornerstone choices necessary to effectively tackle global problems. From them on, all the strategies for productive growth had to contend with defining the gap issue and the dual dynamics of several economies, as it is the (paradigm) case with Southern Italy. Upon the 150th anniversary of Italian unity, to effectively sum up all the main points of this paper, if one wants to meaningfully take on the lesson of “nuovo meridionalismo”, without invoking abstract reasons of social cohesion, a path must be detected. This path should be made of reciprocal interests between two areas: a Northern one and a Southern one; the latter has vast unproductive areas, but also creativity, talents and singe innovative experiences. Within this new and difficult context, the solution to the issues of Southern Italy, if accompanied by a profound conviction and commitment towards the need to stand up to global competition and market choices, can retake its role as a fundamental theme of the national economic policy, in order to benefit the rest of the country as well.Nuovo meridionalismo; SVIMEZ; policies for development; Southern Question; industrialisaton;

New research methods of business history

Business history, while not clearly established or widely recognized, is an open framework that can include in addition to issues related to the evolving economy, business, market and business, other areas of institutional, cultural and social, related to contemporary events resulting from the long process of industrialization. The first industrial revolution began in the late eighteenth century, the next highest industrial processing of the second half of the nineteenth century, the mass industrialization of the twentieth century and the new post-Fordist landscape of the twenty-first century are the historical landmarks that anchor the activities of a phenomenon that has accompanied the various stages of development of the world economy and, over time characterized by the primacy of capitalist production Buoyancy. Not to deny that in earlier times there have been significant events or structures and there were also areas of significant value to the business history, but want to say that the central focus for the growth of this area is the spread of the capitalist system within industry, agriculture, services, accounting and finance. In summary, business history is an essential element, in terms of quality, for understanding the economic fabric of a country, consistently dynamic and comparative.Business History; Traditional methods of study; New methodologies for research; Open Innovation; Long Tail;

On capabilities and limitations of current fast neutron-flux monitoring instrumentation for the DEMO LFR ALFRED

Among Gen IV projects for future nuclear power plants, Lead cooled Fast Reactors (LFR) seem to be a very interesting solution due to its benefits in terms of fuel cycle, coolant-safety and waste management. The novelty of the matter causes some open issues about coolant chemical aspect, structural aspects, monitoring instrumentation, etc. Particularly hard neutron flux spectra would make traditional neutron instrumentation unfit to all reactor conditions, i.e. source, intermediate, and power range. Identification of new models of nuclear instrumentation specialized for LFR neutron flux monitoring asks for an accurate evaluation of the environment the sensor will work in. In this study, thermal-hydraulics and chemical conditions for LFR core environment will be assumed, as the neutron flux will be studied extensively by means of the Monte Carlo transport code MCNPX. The core coolant’s high temperature drastically reduces the candidate instrumentation, because only some kind of fission chambers and Self Powered Neutron Detectors can be operated in such an environment. This work aims at evaluating the capabilities of the available instrumentation (usually designed and tailored for Sodium cooled Fast Reactors, SFRs) when exposed to the neutron spectrum derived from ALFRED, a pool-type LFR project to demonstrate the feasibility of this technology into the European framework. This paper shows that such class of instrumentation does follow the power evolution, but is not completely suitable to detect the whole range of reactor power, due to excessive burn-up, damages or gamma interferences. Some improvements are possible in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, by optimizing each instrument in the range of reactor power, such to get the best solution. The design of some new detectors are here proposed, together with a possible approach for prototyping and testing them by means of a fast reactor

A simplified activity-based costing approach for SMEs : the case study of an Italian small road company

Purpose: The paper proposes an original conceptual model for designing a simplified Activity-Based Costing (ABC) approach for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) by focusing on the transport sector. Design/Methodology/Approach: The model is designed starting from the distinctive characteristics of the SMEs’ collaborative culture. The approach is then tested in the case of an Italian small-road company. Findings: The simplified ABC, which was gradually introduced in the SME, allowed the firm to gain confidence with the costing system. Moreover, the discussion of the results led to identifying the main areas to improve. Practical Implications: Costing systems based on collaboration can lead to operational improvements in SMEs operating in dynamic and competitive sectors as transport. Moreover, advanced technologies may hold a crucial role for their development. Originality/Value: Not much research has considered collaboration as a driver for introducing ABC in SMEs. The paper contributes to the literature on simplified managerial approaches, suggesting trends for future research.peer-reviewe

Tacit Collusion in the Presence of Cyclical Demand and Endogenous Capacity Levels

We analyze tacit collusion in an industry characterized by cyclical demand and long-run scale decisions; …rms face deterministic demand cycles and choose capacity levels prior to competing in prices. Our focus is on the nature of prices. We …nd that two types of price wars may exist. In one, collusion can involve periods of mixed strategy price wars. In the other, consistent with the Rotemberg and Saloner (1986) de…nition of price wars, we show that collusive prices can also become countercyclical. We also establish pricing patterns with respect to the relative prices in booms and recessions. If the marginal cost of capacity is high enough, holding current demand constant, prices in the boom will be generally lower than the prices in the recession; this reverses the results of Haltiwanger and Harrington (1991). In contrast, if the marginal cost of capacity is low enough, then prices in the boom will be generally higher than the prices in the recession. For costs in an intermediate range, numerical examples are calculated to show specifc pricing patterns.industrial

Considerations on reduction of indoor air pollution from radioactive emissions from building materials and the ground

The goal of this paper is to study the reduction of health risks from indoor radioactive pollutants, as thoron emissions from common building materials, and radon emission from both building materials and the ground. In particular, when dealing with the indoor environment, one of the most important hazard is represented by radon gas, considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the second largest cause of lung cancer, cigarette smoke being the first. Such a radioactive gas belongs to the natural radioactive background of radiation, and its presence all over the world is unavoidable. Radon gas density varies due to microclimatic factors such as temperature, air pressure, humidity and changes in ground layers. Radon gas emerges from the ground and penetrates building basements, accumulating itself into the indoor air, and being breathed in by people. Taking care of the airtightness of windows allows the radon concentration to build up, in some cases beyond reference levels, together with other chemical pollutants, i.e. combustion residues and solvents. The EU Basic Safety Standards, stated in the Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom, based on the last recommendations from the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and from WHO, are focusing on risks related to radon gas concentration inside dwellings and working places. On considering that Council Directive 2013/59 Euratom has to be transposed into law by each EU Member State by February 2018, it is recommended that radon issues have to be considered during the design phase of the building construction. For NZEB applications a special attention is requested when energy consumption is reduced lower and lower by taking care of airtightness. In such a case, indoor pollutants (chemical, radioactive, particulate, etc.) can significantly accumulate beyond safe levels. This paper describes measurements and remedial actions of study cases, focusing on public and domestic environments

Tacit Collusion in the Presence of Cyclical Demand and Endogenous Capacity Levels

We analyze tacit collusion in an industry characterized by cyclical demand and long-run scale decisions; firms face deterministic demand cycles and choose capacity levels prior to competing in prices. Our focus is on the nature of prices. We find that two types of price wars may exist. In one, collusion can involve periods of mixed strategy price wars. In the other, consistent with the Rotemberg and Saloner (1986) definition of price wars, we show that collusive prices can also become countercyclical. We also establish pricing patterns with respect to the relative prices in booms and recessions. If the marginal cost of capacity is high enough, holding current demand constant, prices in the boom will be generally lower than the prices in the recession; this reverses the results of Haltiwanger and Harrington (1991). In contrast, if the marginal cost of capacity is low enough, then prices in the boom will be generally higher than the prices in the recession. For costs in an intermediate range, numerical examples are calculated to show specific pricing patterns.