Investire in Italia? Risultati di una recente indagine empirica

During the past decade all industrial countries attracted sizeable inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI), excluding Italy and Japan: this fact has been interpreted as evidencing a deterioration in Italy’s structural competitiveness. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted by the Bank of Italy through its net of foreign representative offices, aimed at identifying the main factors that influenced the country’s attractiveness of FDI in the most recent years. The first section contains a brief survey of the literature on factors of attraction and obstacles to FDI. Italy’s position vis-à-vis other advanced countries is examined in the light of a wide variety of indicators: these latter include macroeconomic, qualitative and structural variables gathered from various sources (as well as other indicators expressly built for this paper), which are meant to outline circumstances relevant to different FDI strategies (“horizontal”, “vertical”, and “regional”). Italy enjoys two major “localization advantages”, namely, (1) a large, although somewhat stagnant domestic market, and (2) low unit labor costs, comparable to those prevailing in other “peripheral” European countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece. In the backdrop of a general improvement of Italy’s qualitative and institutional indicators in recent years, one of the major obstacles to FDI in Italy pertains to the continuing low quality of its transport and product distribution infrastructures–a circumstance that cannot alone explain the very low level of FDI inflows. Another major impediment is represented by the dominance of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Italian industry. On the one hand, this dimensional factor has been associated with the diffusion of ownership structures hostile to foreign mergers and acquisitions (M&A, the prevailing type of FDI in recent years); on the other hand, it may have clashed with the preferences of international investors, which are skewed towards the acquisition of medium- and large-sized enterprises. In either way, this circumstance may have strengthened the negative effects of “environmental barriers” that remain elevated anyhow in our country. The results of the survey are presented in the second section. The survey confirms some of the country’s improvements mentioned earlier; however, it also confirms the perception, on the part of foreign investors, of continuing institutional and structural backwardness, as well as the importance attached by these investors to such factors while formulating their investment plans.investimenti diretti e loro determinanti, fusioni e acquisizioni internazionali, competitivita' strutturale

Selective effects of a brain tumor on the metric representation of the hand: a pre- versus post-surgery comparison

Body representation disorders are complex, varied, striking and very incapacitating in most cases. Deficits of body representation have been described after lesions to multimodal and sensorimotor cortical areas. A few studies have reported the effects of tumors on the representation of the body, but little is known about the changes after tumor resection. Moreover, impact of brain lesions on the hand size representation has been investigated in few clinical cases. Hands are of special importance as no other body part has the ability for movement and interaction with the environment that the hands have, and we use them for a multitude of daily activities Studies with clinical population can add further knowledge into the way hands are represented. Here, we report a single case study of a patient (AM) who was an expert bodybuilder and underwent a surgery to remove a glioblastoma in the left posterior prefrontal and precentral cortex at the level of the hand’s motor region. Pre- (20 days) and post- (4 months) surgery assessment did not show any motor or cognitive impairments. A hand localization task was used, before and after surgery (12 months), to measure possible changes of the metric representation of his right hand. Results showed a modulation on the hand representation with an overall improvement after the surgery in the accuracy of the hand representation, especially on width dimension. These findings support the direct involvement of sensorimotor areas in the implicit representation of the body size and its relevance on defining specific size representation dimensions

Efficacy of Hilotherapy face mask in improving the trend of edema after orthognathic surgery: a 3D analysis of the face using a facial scan app for iPhone

Cryotherapy after orthognathic surgery is essential for the control of facial edema. The aim of our study is to evaluate the efficacy of Hilotherapy face mask in reducing facial edema after orthognathic surgery, studying facial surfaces with an innovative, fast, economical 3D facial scan system based on an iPhone app

Managing financial crises in emerging market economies - experience with the involvement of private sector creditors

Ensuring the involvement of private sector creditors in the resolution of sovereign debt crises is crucial to ensure an effective management and orderly resolution of those crises. A review of experience gained in past financial crises suggests that crisis management practices have been largely following a case-by-case approach. This has led to some uncertainty about how the official sector addresses different types of crises, which in turn might partially account for the very mixed results achieved so far. From a global welfare perspective, the resolution of international financial crises is too costly and takes too long. Efforts to improve predictability of crisis resolution processes – through guiding debtor, creditor and official sector behaviour – could lower overall costs of such crises and bring about a better distribution of these costs. Past experience with such private sector involvement shows that, in certain cases, existing instruments have successfully contributed to minimising the economic disruptions caused by crises. However, the effective use of these instruments requires predictable and strong commitment of all parties involved. Key variables in that regard are the country’s economic fundamentals and its track record prior to the crisis, underscoring the importance of effective surveillance and crisis prevention. Success also hinges on the country’s resolve to implement necessary domestic adjustment measures. A transparent process providing for early dialogue between a debtor and its creditors also facilitates private sector involvement. Finally, the IMF plays a key role in crisis situations, as accurate and timely diagnosis by the IMF helps identify at an early stage the need for private sector involvement.Sovereign default, bond restructuring, emerging markets, financial crises, moral hazard, international financial architecture.

Quantitative assessment of dimensional evolution of solitary osteoma of the mandible through 14 years of radiographic follow-up analysis: A unique case report

Abstract Head & Neck Osteomas are extremely rare osteogenic benign tumors, with unclear pathogenesis and heterogeneous clinical behavior. There are no studies in literature showing the characteristics of dimensional growth of such lesions. We report a case of a peripheral solitary osteoma of the sigmoid notch of the mandibular ramus, describing its radiographic growth in fourteen years. Measurements from OPTs (2003–6x7mm, 2008–8x12mm, 2014–17 × 24mm, 2016–19 × 25mm and 2017–21 × 28mm) and 3d cone-beam computed tomography scan (2016–19 × 15 × 21mm, 2017–21,4 × 19,2 × 22,7) were obtained. The growth of the lesion measured on OPTs was in mean 1.1 × 1.5 mm per year. This is the first case report in literature quantitatively assessing the growth of a solitary osteoma of the mandible through radiographic imaging, which seems to be more than 1 mm per dimension per year

Effects of Volatile Asset Priceson Balance of Payments and International Investment Position

This paper aims at clarifying, with the help of a simple formal model and numerical examples, several aspects of the relationship between international investment position (IIP) and balance of payments (BOP) statistics. Exact and approximated relations are compared to analyze the estimation accuracy of the most popular data model used to reconcile BOP transaction statistics with IIP and external debt stock statistics, and discuss (a) how such accuracy is affected by volatile asset prices and transactions and (b) how net errors and omissions are related to the model in question. Numerical examples based on equity prices and exchange rates actually observed in the 1990s suggest that the bias might have been especially large for estimates based on less detailed financial information. Serious consideration should be therefore given by national compilers to make use of more detailed financial information in compiling BOP and IIP statistics.Balance of payments statistics;External debt;Capital outflows;exchange rates, statistics, equation, exchange rate, equations, estimation bias, correlation, survey, measurement errors, exchange rate indices, arithmetic, standard deviation, time series, constant exchange rates, exchange rate adjustments, estimation period, foreign exchange, confidence intervals, statistical information, foreign exchange rates, independent variables, exchange rate valuation, statistical terms, prediction, currency exchange rate, exchange rate movements, financial statistics, national currency exchange rate, surveys, exchange rate changes, computations, samples, floating exchange rate

Investire in Italia? Risultati di una recente indagine empirica

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal