Giuseppe DiVita

The TRIPS Agreement and Technological Innovation

In this paper we attempt to evaluate the possible spill-over of the international agreement on Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs for short), underwritten in 1994, regarding economic growth for both wealthy and developing countries. We find that the TRIPs convention has prompted, at the same time, innovation in developing countries and a rise in the per capita income for all the economies involved in international trade. As a by-product of our research we find that, despite the strong growth of resident patents application after 1995 (the year in which TRIPs came into force), most of the increase in the gross domestic product per capita in developing countries is attributable to the international transfer of technologies, via foreign direct investments.

The Economic Impact of Legislation. An Historical Analysis of Italy from the Creation of the Kingdom of Italy to the End of the Second World War

This paper aims to evaluate the economic impact of legislation from the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 to the end of World War II. This historical analysis attempts to prove that the process of institutional unification of the states that existed before the creation of the Kingdom of Italy had a positive impact on the growth of the Italian GDP, due to the fact that legislative uniformity helped to simplify economic exchange and development, by establishing certain rules over the entire territory of the Kingdom, instead of the piecemeal legislation existent prior to unification.

Political Corruption and Legislative Complexity: A Macroeconomic Analysis

In this paper we use a dynamic model to investigate the macroeconomic impact of legislative complexity on growth and welfare, in comparison with political corruption. After a careful review of the economic literature on corruption and legislative complexity, we set up the model. The main theoretical findings of the analysis are that legislative complexity, like corruption, constitutes a constraint to growth and determines a redistribution of income in favor of politicians. To check if the previsions of the model are verified we introduce a simple indicator of legislative complexity, built in a way that makes it internationally comparable, and consider the data for sixty-seven countries; using OLS and 2SLS econometric models we estimate the effects of legislative complexity and corruption on the growth rate of per capita income. The results of the econometric analysis support the hypothesis that legislative complexity is a constraint to growth, and that in countries with a long history of liberal democracy, legislative complexity determines a redistribution to the detriment of the more poor social classes.

Institutional Quality and the Growth Rates of the Italian Regions: The Costs of Regulatory Complexity

In this paper we study the impact of regulatory complexity, a measure of institutional quality, on the GDP, on per capita income and on the growth rate of the Italian regions. For comparative reasons we also use the duration of civil disputes as an indicator of institutional quality. From the theoretical point of view, we use the approach of negative coordination externalities, among the four sources of regulatory production that are at work at the same time. Our approach may be applied in all the countries with a multi-level government system. Using the Random Effects and quantile regressions models we are able to quantify the effects of an improvement in institutional quality on the GDP and the growth rate, making a comparison between the results obtained using regulatory complexity and the duration of civil disputes as covariates. Econometric analysis supports the theoretical assumption that regulatory complexity is an impediment to the growth of regional GDP and per capita income. The main finding of our analysis is that a reduction in regulatory complexity would be more effective than a reduction in the duration of civil disputes in increasing the income and growth rate. This result could be useful for the policy maker because by reducing regulatory complexity we may obtain a considerable by-product in the shorter duration of civil disputes.

The Factors Determining the Duration of Legal Disputes: An Empirical Analysis with Micro Data

This paper attempts to shed light on the legal and social factors determining the duration of disputes. To this aim a unique database is used, accounting for eight hundred sentences pronounced by the Italian Administrative Courts, collected at a regional level, covering the period from 2000 to 2007. The empirical part of this study was performed, together with better known approaches, using the survival econometric model that, up to now, had not been applied to studying the duration of legal disputes. The findings of our research are many. It is confirmed that normative complexity hampers a rapid solution of controversies. Law suits with a duration of over the average time leads to a doubly negative effect. Firstly, the stock of the pending suit is increased. Secondly, the State is liable to pay damages for the excessive duration of the legal dispute. The indicator of social capital shows a negative correlation with the slowness of justice. The number of judges does not appear to be relevant to explain the time needed to obtain a sentence of the first rank. Finally, the different objects of dispute may contribute to explain the differences in average duration observed. Although the analysis regards Italy only, the methodology developed here could be applied in similar analyses for other countries or groups of nations.

Legal Families and Environmental Protection: Is there a Causal Relationship?

In this paper we build up the analysis of La Porta et al. (1998), to investigate the importance of legal families in explaining the variations in pollution emissions in different countries. The main intuition behind our analysis is that the nations in which the rights of shareholders are more protected, promote real and financial investment; this increases the speed at which the per-capita income corresponding to the declining branch of the Environmental Kutznets Curve (EKC) is achieved. In econometrics different regressions analyses were performed using as dependent variables three different kinds of pollutants (CO2, fine suspended particulates and waste), including as an explanation some financial variables never before considered in this kind of study.

Corruption, Exogenous Changes in Incentives and Deterrence

In this article we apply and extend the model elaborated by Acemoglu and Verdier in their seminal paper (2000), to examine how the economy represented in their theoretical framework responds to an exogenous change in the agents incentive. In particular, we focus on the consequences of a famous sentence of the Italian Supreme Court in plenary session, no. 500 of 1999, in which a revolutionary interpretation of civil liability rules is introduced, allowing private agents of our economy to appear before the court to demand reimbursement for the damages suffered as a consequence of illicit behavior of the public administration. This is one of the few cases in which the judex substantially makes law in a system of civil law, and the modification in incentive whether or not to be corrupted comes from an authority that is not part of the game (the jurisdictional power). Basing our affirmations on the model, we can say that corruption may have declined in Italy since the year 2000, as a result of a change in the incentives for both private agents and bureaucrats.

Natural Resources Dynamics: Another Look

In this paper we study the problem of exhaustible resources and renewable resources in a theoretical endogenous growth framework, under various assumptions. In particular, we consider the hypotheses that those two inputs are or are not technologically perfect substitutes of each other. Moreover, we develop the starting model accounting for the negative externality of waste accumulation. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between Pigouvian tax and waste recycling as an environmental policy to internalize the negative externality represented by refuse accumulation.

Is the Discount Rate Relevant in Explaining the Environmental Kuznets Curve

In this paper we use Pindycks model (2002) to show that the discount rate may play an important role in explaining for the income-pollution pattern observed in the real world. Low levels of income involve high values of discount rate, that are obstacles to the adoption of a pollution abatement policy. Only when the discount rate falls, as a consequence of growth, will it be possible to implement measures for emissions reduction. Thus we are able to derive an inverse U-shaped income-pollution pattern, making use of an argument that has never yet been introduced in the economic debate on this issue.

Renewable Resources and Waste Recycling

In this paper we consider an endogenous growth model in which, among other inputs, we consider a renewable resource and secondary materials. Using this analytical framework we explain the effects of waste recycling on the growth rate of the economy, that we take into account. The effects of secondary materials production on the utility and dynamics of renewable resources are also studied. Furthermore, we consider how the tax and subsidy, levied on natural resource and secondary materials respectively, influence the dynamics of economy during the transitional phase and the stationary growth path. Finally, the validity of Hotellings rule and the effects of waste recycling on labor productivity are the conclusive topics of our research.