Dino Pinelli

Cultural Diversity and Economic Performance: Evidence from European Regions

We investigate the relationship between diversity and productivity in Europe using an original dataset covering the NUTS 3 regions of 12 countries of the EU15 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, former Western Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). In so doing, we follow the empirical methodology developed by Ottaviano and Peri (2006a) in the case of US cities. The main idea is that, as cultural diversity may affect both production and consumption through positive or negative externalities, the joint estimation of price and income equations is needed to identify the dominant effect. Based on this methodology, we find that diversity is positively correlated with productivity. Moreover, we find evidence that causation runs from the former to the latter. These results for EU regions are broadly consistent with those found by Ottaviano and Peri for US cities.

Bio-Ecological Diversity vs. Socio-Economic Diversity: A Comparison of Existing Measures

This paper aims to enrich the standard toolbox for measuring diversity in economics. In so doing, we compare the indicators of diversity used by economists with those used by biologists and ecologists. Ecologists and biologists are concerned about biodiversity: the diversity of organisms that inhabit a given area. Concepts of species diversity such as alpha (diversity within community), beta (diversity across communities) and gamma (diversity due to differences among samples when they are combined into a single sample) have been developed (Whittaker, 1960). Biodiversity is more complex than just the species that are present, it includes species richness and species evenness. Those various aspects of diversity are measured by biodiversity indices such as Simpson’s Diversity Indices, Species Richness Index, Shannon Weaver Diversity Indices, Patil and Taillie Index, Modified Hill’s Ratio. In economics, diversity measures are multi-faceted ranging from inequality (Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, quintile distribution), to polarisation (Esteban and Ray, 1994; Wolfon, 1994, D’Ambrosio (2001)) and heterogeneity (Alesina, Baqir and Hoxby, 2000). We propose an interdisciplinary comparison between indicators. We review their theoretical background and applications. We provide an assessment of their possible use according to their specific properties.

ICT, Clusters and Regional Cohesion: A Summary of Theoretical and Empirical Research

The question of the spatial impacts of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has animated the intellectual and policy debate for a long time. At the beginning of the 1990s the rise of the Internet brought a new surge of debate: it was argued that the Internet would free the economy from the constraints of geography (Cairncross, 1997) bringing about a more even economic landscape. This contrasts sharply with the popular view of, for example, Silicon Valley, a congested area where world-class ICT and high-tech industries cluster together. In theory, geographical agglomeration of economic activities results as an equilibrium solution of a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The paper discusses how the use of ICT may alter the balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces and therefore the final equilibrium solution. It shows that, from a theoretical point of view, there are many counterbalancing effects and not unique answer. The question is therefore down to empirical research. Available empirical evidences are then reported and discussed. Finally, the implications for European policies are drawn.

The ICT Revolution: Opportunities and Risks for the Mezzogiorno

The question of the spatial impacts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has animated intellectual and policy debate for a long time. At the beginning of the 1990s the advent of the Internet brought a new surge of debate: it was argued that the Internet would free the economy from the constraints of geography (Cairncross, 1997), bringing about a more even economic landscape. New opportunities seemed to arise for the poor regions in peripheral areas such as the Italian Mezzogiorno. However, this contrasts sharply with the popular view of, for example, Silicon Valley, a congested area where world-class ICT and high-tech industries cluster together. In theory, geographical agglomeration of economic activities results as an equilibrium solution of a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces. ICT has the potential to alter the balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces and therefore the final equilibrium solution. Literature shows that, from a theoretical point of view, there are a number of counterbalancing effects rather than a one directional trend. The question therefore begs empirical research. This paper investigates the effect of the ICT revolution on industrial locational patterns across Italian provinces. It shows that the increasing use of ICT in the economy may indeed lead to greater dispersion of economic activity, i.e. less regional disparities. On the other hand, there is evidence that the parallel shift towards more knowledge- and skill-intensive activities might counterbalance this dispersion effect.

Economic Growth, Innovation, Cultural Diversity: What are We All Talking About? A Critical Survey of the State-of-The-Art

This report constitutes the first deliverable of the project ENGIME – Economic Growth and Innovation in Multicultural Environments, financed by the European Commission – FP5 – Key Action: Improving socio-economic knowledge base. Contract HPSE-CT2001-50007

Perceived Diversity of Complex Environmental Systems: Multidimensional Measurement and Synthetic Indicators

The general attitude towards the sustainable management of environmental resources is evolving towards the implementation of ‘participatory’ (as opposed to the classical ‘command and control’) and, especially at local scale, ‘bottom up’ (as opposed to the classical ‘top down’) approaches. This progress pushes a major interest in the development and application of methodologies able to ‘discover’ and ‘measure’ how environmental systems tend to be perceived by the different Stakeholders. Due to the ‘nature’ of the investigated systems, often too ‘complex’ to be treated through a classical deterministic approach, as typical for ‘hard’ physical/mathematical sciences, any ‘measurement’ has necessarily to be multidimensional. In the present report an approach, more typical of ‘soft’ social sciences, is presented and applied to the analysis of the sustainable management of water resources in seven Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Watersheds. The methodology is based on the development and analysis (explorative factor analysis, multidimensional scaling) of a questionnaire and is aimed at the ‘discovery’ and ‘measurement’ of a latent multidimensional ‘underlying structure’ (‘conceptual map’). It is the opinion of the authors, that the identification of a set of ‘consistent’, ‘independent’, ‘bottom up’ and ‘shared’ synthetic indicators (aggregated indices) could be strongly facilitated by the interpretation of the dimensions of the emerging ‘underlying structure’.

Diversity, Cities and Economic Development

This book focuses on cities, their relationships with each other and the disparities between them. Analysing cities as the places where diversity is especially apparent, where cultural richness is experienced and where conflicts often erupt, it illustrates how cultures and cultural diversity interact with economic growth and development.

Scientific Advice to Public Policy-Making

A feature of policy-making today is its dependence on scientific advice to deliver public policies that are robust, credible, and effective. This paper discusses how policy-making profits from scientific advice in areas where science and technology are significant. Particular attention is given to issues holding a high level of uncertainty, either because of inherent variability, because science is incomplete or controversial, or because data are inadequate to support a definitive answer. First, we analyse the social context that characterises the relationship between science and policy-making, with a focus on the decrease of public confidence in politicians and scientists. Second, we compare three different sets of guidelines on the collection and use of expertise in policy-making (issued by the UK, Canada and the European Commission, respectively) and identify two different approaches to scientific advice in policy-making. Third, based on a set of cross-national and multi-disciplinary case studies, we look at how the relationship between science and policy-making works in practice and propose a set of recommendations towards the establishment of a more robust and effective policy-making process.

Green Taxes: Environment, Employment and Growth - A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis for Italy

In this paper we investigate the potential costs and benefits of a comprehensive green fiscal reform in Italy. Using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for the country, we simulate scenarios of progressive reduction of emissions for 13 polluting substances. It is shown that the introduction of a tax targeted to one single pollutant, decreases not only the directly targeted emissions but also those of other pollutants. Besides the green tax costs, in terms of increased distortions and forgone production and welfare, are shown to be quite low. This important result depends on the assumption of a certain degree of flexibility in the production processes that allows polluters to switch to cleaner technologies when the tax is implemented. This assumption closely reflects observed economic behaviour especially when a decade or more is the period of analysis, as in our case. Finally, when green taxes revenues are used to reduce wage taxes, in a revenue neutral fiscal swap, a positive employment double dividend emerges.