Erasmo Vassallo

Composite Indicator of Financial Development in a Benefit‐of‐Doubt Approach

We use data by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to build a Composite Financial Development Index (CFDI) alternative to the WEF financial index. Unlike the WEF index, the CFDI optimally combines seven dimensions with non�?fixed weights determined endogenously without recourse to subjective opinions of experts. The CFDI is obtained by applying a Data Envelopment Analysis linear programming model with proportion restrictions on weights calculated in a Benefit�?of�?Doubt approach. In this way, the CFDI scores allow us to group 60 countries by different levels of financial development identifying dimensions that contribute to good or poor financial performances, taking into account the different characteristics of the financial systems in the countries under investigation.

Composite Indicator of Social Inclusion for the EU Countries

Social inclusion is one of the key challenges of the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS). We use the main indicators identified by Eurostat within the operational objectives of the specific European policies to measure social inclusion for the 27 member countries of the European Union. In particular, we aggregate four basic indicators in a multiplicative composite indicator via a DEA-BoD approach with weights determined endogenously with proportion constraints. We obtain a score of social inclusion that allows us to grade the 27 EU countries from 2006 to 2010. In this way, we highlight the specific role played by the four indicators in determining improvements and deteriorations of social inclusion during the European phase of the financial and economic crisis.

What can we learn from Long Time Series? Italian Living Standards after Unification and Dualism North-South

Using Italian time series since 1861, we explore the evolution of living standards afterpolitical unification both at the national and at the territorial level. Firstly, we use univariate statistical analysis on homogeneous national time series. Secondly, we employ available homogeneous series at a disaggregated level to measure territorial disparities across regions and four macro-areas. Notwithstanding that time convergence occurred quite rapidly at the national level after WWII, territorial differences became more marked in the period 1936-1951, both in terms of material and social well-being.However, in the final decades of the 20th century disparities among the macro-areas declined, especially in social well-being.

Production and Efficiency in 21 Industrialized Countries from 1966 to 2007 to Analyse the Italy's Decline: Application of a Stochastic Frontier Model in a Bayesian Approach

We use a stochastic frontier production model to estimate the technical efficiency of the 21 more industrialized countries in the world for the wide period from 1966 to 2007. A Cobb-Douglas function with labour and capital as inputs, GDP as output and an efficiency term with exponential distribution appears to work good from a statistical point of view. This model estimates the efficiency score of the 21 countries in a bayesian approach. The bayesian way, applied via Gibbs sampling, is here useful to avoid problems about the small number of observations. So, each efficiency score is obtained as mean of 10,000 draws. The results underline a general and progressive efficiency reduction with a disappointing rank of Italy (16-th at 1966 and 15-th at 2007) and a very bad position of Greece against better ranks of USA and Luxembourg. It is interesting to note the worsening of Japan between 1966 and 2007 but also the strong improvement of Finland and Ireland. Besides, the decomposition of the GDP growth shows the prominent role of the input changes, a smaller but positive effect of the technical changes and a small and, in general, negative effect of the efficiency changes. In short, the Italian position reveals the presence of a worrying condition about the economic decline of the Country. This suggests an indispensable and deep action to invert this dramatic state.

Divari economici e variabili di contesto : un'analisi non parametrica per le regioni italiane

Economic disparities and context variables. A non-parametric analysis for Italian regions Objectives The paper provides a ranking of performance scores, originated by indicators of economic and social context, in order to compare the position of each region relative to the others over the period 1997-2003. Methods and Results Indicators of economic and social context are associated to development indicators. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in bootstrap version allows us to define the worst and the best case scenarios of regional performances. The results show a persistent disparity between Center-North and Mezzogiorno over the period 1997-2003. However, some relevant differences amongst regions, within macroareas, provide interesting points to debate. Conclusions Notwithstanding some differences within macro-areas, Italy still appears a dualistic country. The results show that the social context is relevant to accurately analyse the development disparities amongst the Italian regions. Finally, an interpretation of our results indicates a possible risk of failure of the current Government’s intervention.