Riccardo Soliani

Shipbuilding in Italy at the End of the Crisis: Is There a Road to Recovery?

Until the year 2008, the segment of boating enjoyed an excellent state of health (AMI-Censis. La sfida della nautica: porti, servizi, tecnologie. Terza indagine sul turismo nautico in Italia, 2008), although even then elements of possible weakness were beginning to emerge (Benevolo. Luci ed ombre del turismo nautico, in Analisi gestionale dei porti turistici nella nautica da diporto, Il caso di Imperia, a cura di Quagli A. pp. 212–253, 2008). Domestic production grew at high rates, port facilities were multiplying and new ports were designed because the offer of berths, at least in many areas of the country, was not able to meet the potential demand.

The Effects of the Crisis on Nautical Tourism: An Analysis of the Italian Situation Regarding Port Features, Linked Economic Activities and Taxation

Since 2008 the Italian nautical industry has gone through a period of uninterrupted crisis with serious consequences both of an economic nature and in terms of loss of jobs. In particular, the sector of pleasure boating has undergone profound upheaval which has essentially affected three areas.

Quality of life in Italian cities: a temporal comparison between before the crisis and after

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in well-being in the Italian reality, in particular, through the study of major cities. The study is based on a set of data provided by the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) with the aim to highlight the Italian urban situation and the comparison between the well-being situation assessed in a pre-crisis context and the one observed after it, in order to understand how events have influenced levels of well-being in the main Italian cities. Design/methodology/approach - The paper aims to examine the quality of life (QoL) levels in the metropolitan cities, using data from the URBES report (a report that provides data and information concerning the Italian urban situation), published in 2013, which investigates QoL and well-being in major Italian cities. It is based on the framework of the “Benessere Equo e Sostenibile” report that appraises well-being in Italian regions by a great deal of variables belonging to 12 different dimensions. Using this data source, the authors will proceed to the construction of a composite well-being index. Findings - The paper intends to show how the well-being level in Italian cities has changed in recent years, taking into consideration ten different dimensions of well-being. The need to consider different dimensions of well-being for its comprehensive evaluation is widely discussed in the literature, and the framework provided by ISTAT is innovative in this sense. Originality/value - The paper presents an aggregate measure of well-being in Italian cities on the basis of new theoretical concepts and complete and detailed data.

A Non-compensative Index for Country Risk in OECD Countries

In the last few years a fast growth of international lending and foreign investment has been happening. As a consequence of the large flow of capital going towards new developing countries, the risk exposure of the lenders and investors is rising, and country risk analysis becomes more and more important for the international financial operators. In the present paper we propose a non-compensatory index to reckon the country risk (since now, Country Risk) in OECD countries: the Mazziotta Pareto Index (MPI). It assumes the “non-substitutability” of the dimensions, all of them being considered of the same importance, without any compensation possible among them. The indicator classifies the Ocse with OECD into six main groups, according to their high or low country risk. Although based on a small number of variables, the MPI can to assess quite correctly the pre-figurative “latent dimensions” of the Country Risk in the short run. The proposed index sheds light particularly on the risk linked to political-economical events and decisions, and on the public finance. The Country Risk Index proposed allows to asses international country risk ratings comparatively, and to single out the relevance of economic, financial and political risk as components of a general risk rating.

J.-B. Say: Political Economy and Social Justice

This paper deals with some issues on Say’s methodological and social approach. Say’s political opinions have aroused great interest and contrasting opinions: he was considered as liberal, illiberal or even socialist ante litteram. Not to mention the debate about his theory of value and the role of the entrepreneur, from the sharp criticism given by Marx to the recent reappraisal of his seminal identification of the importance of risk and asymmetrical information in entrepreneurial activities. His liberal opinions, apparently contrary to any form of public intervention in economy, have been examined thoroughly, and a multi-faceted Jean-Baptiste Say has emerged as someone concerned with the fate of unskilled labourers and, generally speaking, with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, in the wake of Beccaria and Bentham. In the first paragraph I discuss Say’s opinion on democracy and equality in relation to political economy and the role of government. In the second paragraph the position of Say on value, distribution and market mechanism is briefly recalled, whereas in the third one, attention is devoted to entrepreneurial behaviour and the debouches problem, and some final remarks are provided.

Economics and “Civilization” in Gian Domenico Romagnosi

Gian Domenico Romagnosi (1761–1835) contends that the classical political economists took the wrong road: they believed that economics should only study the indefinite production and reproduction of wealth and that their task was limited to the study “of purely economic events isolated from practical theory”. Then the narrow-minded self-interest of a speculator wishing to become enriched was considered and calculated in its various movements for the production, distribution and consumption of wealth, without considering actual social relations at a higher level. Whilst Romagnosi possibly misunderstood the very essence of classical doctrine, by not separating it from moral philosophy, the reasons behind his intendedly polemic attitude towards it are rather clear: on the one hand, the attempt to investigate the laws governing the production and distribution of wealth; on the other hand, the deliberate intention to be guided by the “views of the family man, longing to see all his children employed” and to contribute to this end.

Carlo Cattaneo (1801–1869), Lombard Philosopher and Economist, Liberal Beyond Federalism

Carlo Cattaneo is a prominent character of Italian Risorgimento, that is the political process that built Italy in the 19th century. According to him, the economic development depends on the same principles which the progress of civilization and ideas is founded on: freedom, will, intelligence. With his deep humanist animus, he is enlightened, because he believes in the human intelligence as spring of progress; is positivist, thanks to his trust in applied science; is liberal, since he thinks that only freedom can feed human intelligence. At the same time, he is a man of Romanticism, with his confidence in the possibility of overcoming all hindrances through liberty and will. As a true liberal, Cattaneo can hardly be classified in just one stream of thinking. The paper is organised as follows: after the Introduction, the second and the third paragraph give information about the historical and economic context of his activity. The fourth paragraph deals with his political vision and the fifth with his approach to political economy. The link between federalism and freedom, and the original idea of collective intelligence (psicologia delle menti associate) emerge. Finally, in the sixth paragraph a few concluding remarks are proposed.

Effects of Labour Market Flexibility in the Long Run: Evidence from the Italian Case (1977-2009)

The present paper studies whether labour market deregulation is correlated with employment creation in Italy and the decline of trade union power. Our hypothesis is that the correlation does not hold, and that flexible contracts facilitated the dichotomy between industry and tertiary, without causing it. To test it, we first apply principal component analysis, then regression. The hypothesis is almost always confirmed. Flexible contracts are not correlated with youth employment creation, whilst trade union decline is correlated with macroeconomic indicators different from flexible contracts. These interventions facilitated a process already underway, caused by a structural change in the production paradigm.