TARGETING “REAL FARMERS” WITH REFORMED CAP PAYMENTS: AN ANALYSIS FOR ITALY

A multi-sector model is used to assess the targeting of CAP payments in Italy, according with alternative definitions of the “real farmers” institutional sector. The model is based on a Social Accounting Matrix of the Italian economy, properly adapted to represent the process of income formation and distribution in agriculture. The accounting framework has been integrated with a set of microeconomic information from the Farm Business Survey, a sample of agricultural holdings representative of the whole industry in Italy. The effects of changes in CAP payments have been assessed through a process in which impacts moves from the micro to the macro module of the model and return, in an iterative way. A vector of final income increase for each household included in the survey is obtained and used to reclassify impacts according to alternative definition of the real farmer sector. Results show that the distributive structure of the Italian agriculture as well as the way the policy is implemented are likely to affect the targeting of payments under alternative definitions of the beneficiary group.Common Agricultural Policy, targeting, income distribution, social accounting matrix, Agricultural and Food Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Q18 agricultural policy, D57 input-output tables and analysis, D30 distribution general,

An Essay on the Double Nature of the Probability

Classical statistics and Bayesian statistics refer to the frequentist and subjective theories of probability respectively. Von Mises and De Finetti, who authored those conceptualizations, provide interpretations of the probability that appear incompatible. This discrepancy raises ample debates and the foundations of the probability calculus emerge as a tricky, open issue so far. Instead of developing philosophical discussion, this research resorts to analytical and mathematical methods. We present two theorems that sustain the validity of both the frequentist and the subjective views on the probability. Secondly we show how the double facets of the probability turn out to be consistent within the present logical frame

The Evolution of Institutional Structure of Italian Agriculture: A Historical Reconstruction Through the Debate on Agricultural Holdings Classification

Industrial Organization,

A comparative analysis of the redistributive effects of agricultural policy in Tuscany and Scotland

The article provides an empirical study of the redistributive effects of agricultural policy in Tuscany which finds that the provision of support increased absolute income inequality within the agricultural community because the distribution of transfers was both vertically and horizontally inequitable. These conclusions are shown to hold whether or not non-farm incomes are taken into account and for a range of alternative definitions of the agricultural community. The results for Scotland are broadly comparable except that the distribution of transfers was progressive not regressive, reflecting differences between the two regions in the degree of dependency of agriculture on support.Income redistribution, agricultural policy, Tuscany, Scotland

A fully semi-Lagrangian discretization for the 2D Navier--Stokes equations in the vorticity--streamfunction formulation

A numerical method for the two-dimensional, incompressible Navier--Stokes equations in vorticity--streamfunction form is proposed, which employs semi-Lagrangian discretizations for both the advection and diffusion terms, thus achieving unconditional stability without the need to solve linear systems beyond that required by the Poisson solver for the reconstruction of the streamfunction. A description of the discretization of Dirichlet boundary conditions for the semi-Lagrangian approach to diffusion terms is also presented. Numerical experiments on classical benchmarks for incompressible flow in simple geometries validate the proposed method

A level set based method for fixing overhangs in 3D printing

3D printers based on the Fused Decomposition Modeling create objects layer-by-layer dropping fused material. As a consequence, strong overhangs cannot be printed because the new-come material does not find a suitable support over the last deposed layer. In these cases, one can add some support structures (scaffolds) which make the object printable, to be removed at the end. In this paper we propose a level set method to create object-dependent support structures, specifically conceived to reduce both the amount of additional material and the printing time. We also review some open problems about 3D printing which can be of interests for the mathematical community

Ensemble renormalization group for the random field hierarchical model

The Renormalization Group (RG) methods are still far from being completely understood in quenched disordered systems. In order to gain insight into the nature of the phase transition of these systems, it is common to investigate simple models. In this work we study a real-space RG transformation on the Dyson hierarchical lattice with a random field, which led to a reconstruction of the RG flow and to an evaluation of the critical exponents of the model at T = 0. We show that this method gives very accurate estimations of the critical exponents, by comparing our results with the ones obtained by some of us using an independent method

Environmental Structural Decomposition Analysis of Italian Emissions, 1995-2005

This study analyses the evolution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and acidification emissions for Italy in the years 1995-2005. Looking at data, while emissions that contribute to the local problem of acidification have been decreasing quite constantly, GHG emissions have been showing a slight increase due to the rise of carbon dioxide. The aim is therefore to highlight how different economic factors have driven the evolution of Italian emissions. The main factors considered are economic growth, the development of a technology allowing a more environment-friendly way of production, and the structure of consumption. The methodology proposed is a structural decomposition analysis (SDA), a method that permits to decompose the changes of the variable of interest among different driving forces and to reveal the relevance of each factor. Moreover, the analysis considers the relevance of international trade and it tries to deal with the problem of responsibility. That is, through international trade relationships a country could be exporting polluting production processes without a real reduction of the pollution implied in its consumption pattern. For this purpose, the SDA is firstly applied to the emissions caused by domestic production. This corresponds to a production-based approach (PBA). Successively, the analysis moves toward a consumption-based approach (CBA) and the decomposition is applied to emissions related to domestic production or foreign production that satisfies domestic demand. In this way the exercise allows a first check of the importance of international trade and it highlights some results at global as well at sector level that can indicate in which direction further analysis should be carried on.problem of responsibility., namea data, structural decomposition analysis