Employment Intensity of Growth in Italy A Note Using Regional Data

The aim of this paper is to provide a measure of the relationship between employment and output growth in Italy and to illustrate its dynamics across a relatively extended time-span (1970-2004). Given the well-known and persisting regional differences of labour market performance and dynamics in Italy, our analytical approach favours the exploitation of spatially disaggregated information, employing regional (NUTS 2) data. The availability of industry composition of employment and value added also allows light to be shed on sector employment intensity of output growth, and the estimation of sector elasticity to GDP describes structural change. The empirical analysis supplies quantitative information about the evolution of employment elasticity during the period considered, clearly depicting the well-known period of job-rich growth (observed since the mid-1990s), after a period of jobless growth. The outcomes also show how regional levels of analysis, together with industry breakdown, may provide very useful information, especially on policy grounds and the desirability of the extension of the study to European level.employment elasticity, growth, productivity, regions

The Partial Evaluation Approach to Information Personalization

Information personalization refers to the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to an individual user. By reducing information overload and customizing information access, personalization systems have emerged as an important segment of the Internet economy. This paper presents a systematic modeling methodology - PIPE (`Personalization is Partial Evaluation') - for personalization. Personalization systems are designed and implemented in PIPE by modeling an information-seeking interaction in a programmatic representation. The representation supports the description of information-seeking activities as partial information and their subsequent realization by partial evaluation, a technique for specializing programs. We describe the modeling methodology at a conceptual level and outline representational choices. We present two application case studies that use PIPE for personalizing web sites and describe how PIPE suggests a novel evaluation criterion for information system designs. Finally, we mention several fundamental implications of adopting the PIPE model for personalization and when it is (and is not) applicable.Comment: Comprehensive overview of the PIPE model for personalizatio

An improved Belief Propagation algorithm finds many Bethe states in the random field Ising model on random graphs

We first present an empirical study of the Belief Propagation (BP) algorithm, when run on the random field Ising model defined on random regular graphs in the zero temperature limit. We introduce the notion of maximal solutions for the BP equations and we use them to fix a fraction of spins in their ground state configuration. At the phase transition point the fraction of unconstrained spins percolates and their number diverges with the system size. This in turn makes the associated optimization problem highly non trivial in the critical region. Using the bounds on the BP messages provided by the maximal solutions we design a new and very easy to implement BP scheme which is able to output a large number of stable fixed points. On one side this new algorithm is able to provide the minimum energy configuration with high probability in a competitive time. On the other side we found that the number of fixed points of the BP algorithm grows with the system size in the critical region. This unexpected feature poses new relevant questions on the physics of this class of models.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Factor decomposition of cross-country income inequality with interaction effects

In this paper we propose a decomposition of the Theil measures of per capita income inequality which accounts for interaction effects between its multiplicative factors. Our theoretical findings, supported by an empirical application referring to EU-25 countries, suggest that neglecting these effects may strongly bias the relative importance of some factors, with consequent misleading policy implications.Inequality, Decomposition, Interaction Effects

Speed and Sequencing of Transition Reforms and Income Inequality: a Panel Data Analysis

An extensive literature has analysed the economic effects of transition patterns in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries. With few recent exceptions, analysis of the impacts of speed and sequencing of reforms has not concerned the dynamics of income inequality. In this paper we analyse the heterogeneous effects of transition reforms on inequality by explicitly considering their speed and sequencing. To this aim we identify seven transition models in which the 27 countries considered can be classified. The dynamic panel econometric analysis for the period 1989–2006 reveals that balanced transition patterns, which favoured a coordination of reforms especially in specific fields, were relatively less pro-inequality.Inequality, Transition, Reform speed and sequencing, Dynamic panel models

Employment Performance and Convergence in the European Countries and Regions

This paper analyzes the national and regional (NUTS-2) employment performance and convergence for various aggregations of 27 European countries (EU-25, plus Romania and Bulgaria), mainly using the three employment rates (total, female, older worker) adopted by the European Employment Strategy (EES). At the national level, this analysis confirmed the existence of considerable differences in employment performance between and within the various country aggregations. Empirical analysis highlighted the remarkable net job creations in the EU-15 (and EMU-12) for the period 1997-2003, accompanied by a (national) convergence for all three employment indicators. As regards total employment rates, significant converging trends also emerge at the regional level for both EU-15 and EMU-12 aggregations. In the eight Central European Countries, new EU members (8 CEC-NM), a diverging trend in the total employment rate began in 1999, whereas converging dynamics were limited to the employment rate of older workers in the period 1998-2001. Regional analyses showed significant diverging dynamics in the total employment rates (1999-2003) for the eight CEC-NM regions. At the national level of analyses, the relationship between "progress in transition" and employment performance was also briefly examined. Results show that a simple, stable correlation does not exist. However, a weak U-shaped relationship existing in 1998 shifted downward and evolved toward a positive link in 2003. The main results of cluster analysis of the 53 regions of the ten CECs confirmed a high level of regional labour market diversification, and the fact that sector structure affects employment performance significantlyEmployment performance; employment convergence; regional labour markets

Income inequality within European regions: determinants and effects on growth

Economic inequality across Europe has been largely investigated by analysing the determinants and dynamics of the disparities between countries and regions. Similarly, many studies have focused on inequality within European countries. So far, less attention has been devoted to economic inequality within European regions, mainly due to data shortages. The aim of this paper is to shed some light on this level of analysis. After the introductory section, the first part of the paper poses the conceptual bases of the study, examining relevant theoretical and empirical arguments about (i) the determinants of economic inequality, (ii) the relationship between economic inequality and growth, and (iii) the desirability and specificity of regional analysis. The second part of the paper, by means of various econometric approaches, provides evidence of the centrality, for regional inequality levels, of labour market qualitative and quantitative aspects and of some country-level institutional settings. As regards the effects of inequality on growth, outcomes suggest that a positive relationship may exist.Inequality, Regional Systems, Europe, Growth

Technological Change, Labour Demand and Income Distribution in European Union Countries

This paper provides empirical evidence of the link between technological change in different technology intensive sectors and overall income (and not simply earnings) inequality in some EU eastern and western countries. In a first step, skill-biased technological change hypothesis is tested distinguishing various technology intensive sectors: results confirm the presence of skill-complementary technologies but also stress the skill-replacing character of other ones incorporated into investment flows. The second step places the evolutions of sector skilled-labour demand among other traditional determinants of income inequality. Findings reveal significant and composite impacts of skilled-labour demand, strongly depending on sectoral differences in technological intensity.FDI, technological change, skills, income distribution

Employment Differences, Convergences and Similarities in Italian Provinces.

The objective of the paper is to provide some empirical evidence on the differences in the employment performance and dynamics of the Italian provinces. In the first part of the paper, after a having recalled the most recent empirical literature about regional labour market performance, we carry out a convergence (of s- and ß-type) analysis of the provincial employment rates (total and female) over the period 1995-2002. In the second part of the paper, using a wide set of employment indicators, a cluster analysis is implemented in order to draw some provincial labour market profiles. Our outcomes confirm a deep diversification of labour market performance across the country but also some signs of a weaker persistence of it: the generalised improvement of labour market performances is indeed accompanied by a clear (even though weak) convergence dynamic of the employment rates.provincial labour markets, employment performance and convergence