Academic literature on the topic 'Settore SECS-P/04 - Storia del Pensiero Economico'

The thesis tries to give an answer to the question about the impact academic research might produce on the learning processes of bureaucracy in decision making of policies. It also tries to understand in and how policies are built and implemented on the basis of research. We know that effective public policies should rest on academic results: nevertheless what academics offer do not always matches what policy makers (politicians and bureaucrats) need. Many research dimensions are considered, taking into account the relations between those which literature named the two communities of policy makers and academics (including divisions between politicians and bureaucrats into the decision makers community). The analysis of the peculiar Italian situation is also taken into account: in order to define the decision making community we have chosen the subset of senior civil servants (dirigenti pubblici) from central government, represented by the 561 alumni of the National Institute for Public Administration (SNA, Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione). They were asked to respond to a questionnaire, similar to the one prepared for the “Sir Humphrey and the Professors: what does Whitehall want from academics? A survey of senior civil servants’ views on the accessibility and utility of academic research and expertise”, research by Talbot and Talbot (2014). In that study the survey considered the UK SCSs on the accessibility and utility of academic research and expertise. 7 We have had an almost 40% responses by the Italian SCSs and results show that they have a basically positive approach to academic research and its relevance for the activities of policy process, asking for a concrete, understandable and timely support. Those evidences are mostly similar to the ones offered by the UK survey, though in the latter SCSs show tendency to a more pragmatic approach. It is a positive signal, needing for further research to clarify whether it is an attitude from SNA alumni only – that seems reasonable because of the particular track they have followed – or it can be extended to the whole of SCSs, and id and how the role of governments as facilitators of the dialogue between the two communities could be developed

The present work is organized in five chapters and it proposes and applies alternative measures of productivity constructed using input-output tables and based mainly on the Sraffian scheme. The first three chapters of the thesis are devoted to the development and the empirical application of new productivity measures. These chapters form the main part of the work. The last two chapters are devoted to sensitivity analysis. In the first chapter, entitled ‘Productivity accounting based on production prices’ an alternative method of productivity accounting is proposed. By using input–output tables from four major OECD countries between 1970 and 2000, we compute the associated wage-profit frontiers and the net national products curves, and from these we derive two measures of productivity growth based on production prices and a chosen numeraire. The findings support the general conclusions in the existing literature on the productivity slowdown and later rebound, and supply new important insights to the extent and timing of these events. The second chapter is entitled ‘New measures of sectoral productivity’. The objective of this chapter is to propose alternative methods of sectoral productivity accounting based the theoretical work of Goodwin (1976), Gossling (1972), Pasinetti (1973), and Sraffa (1960). The indexes developed in this study differ from the standard indexes of productivity because they are designed on the basis of some of the following desiderable features: take into account the interconnections among economic sectors, aggregate heterogeneous goods by using production prices, and compute productivity by using quantity of goods instead of their values. These indexes are then be tested empirically by computing productivity of four major OECD countries. The third chapter is entitled ‘Productivity in the Italian regions: development of Alternative Indicators based on input-output tables’. This chapter calculates indices of aggregate productivity, sectoral productivity, and technological progress for a selected sample of Italian regions. Besides these indices, two different versions of the so-called technological frontier were calculated. The contemporary frontiers that are constructed from all the production techniques extracted from the regional input-output tables in a given year and the intertemporal frontier that is computed for the full set of techniques available over time and across regions. The availability of the technological frontiers allows the calculation of the recently developed Velupillai-Fredholm-Zambelli indices of convergence (Fredholm and Zambelli, 2009) that are based on the distance between the region-specific wage-profit frontiers and the technological frontiers. Given the important role played by the production prices, this chapter also examines the price curves for each region and industry and it identifies remarkable regularities. Not surprisingly, analyses of the findings reveal that there is a productivity gap between the regions of North and South. However, the analysis of sectoral productivity reveals two important facts. The first is that the techniques of some industries are more productive in the South than in the North. The second, who follows from the first, is that all regions could therefore improve productivity through greater integration. Chapter four is entitled ‘An Inquiry into the choice of Numeraire’. This chapter has several objectives. The main aim is to examine the robustness of the results obtained by applying the new approach to measuring productivity if we change the numeraire chosen. However, it should be mentioned that the problem of the choice of numeraire is a general one and for this reason, the chapter also proposes universal guidelines to be followed in choosing the numeraire and in testing the robustness of the results to changes in the numeraire. Finally, chapter five is entitled ‘An Inquiry into the effect of aggregation of input-output tables’. The aim of this chapter is to test the robustness of the results from a progressive aggregation of the input-output tables.

Antecedenti e precedenti dell'autarchia economica fascista. Gli interessi e le teorie delle autarchie. Gli assetti istituzionali dell'IMI e il finanziamento dell'autarchia. I mutui dell'IMI: attori, settori e obiettivi.

Scopo di questa ricerca è interrogarsi sulla storia del campo di problematizzazione dell'etica professionale e sulle condizioni di possibilità per il darsi di un tale campo, nella convinzione che ciò consenta di riflettere da una prospettiva critica meno usuale sulla rilevanza politica del lavoro, che funge indubbiamente - nella società occidentale contemporanea - da elemento essenziale di inclusione esplicandosi come funzione normata di produzione di identità politico-sociale. Dopo aver reso conto dell'attuale dibattito in materia di etica e deontologia professionale, dei suoi immediati antecedenti e della sua relazione di affinità rispetto al contesto socioeconomico in cui esso matura, l'attenzione si concentra pertanto su una ricostruzione storica del concetto di professione che – ragionando non tanto sul versante weberiano del Beruf quanto su quello latino della professio, con speciale riferimento alla professio census e alla tematizzazione de officiis – muove dal diritto romano e dal pensiero patristico risalendo fino all'esperienza medievale, alla trattatistica della Controriforma e al graduale emergere di un'etica professionale in senso stretto sul finire del Settecento, per provare a chiarire nei termini di “inclusione nell'ordine†quell'intreccio tra radice teologica, politica ed economica che aiuta a comprendere il rilievo che alla professione è stato via via riconosciuto sul piano etico e politico-sociale.

Every economic theory is structured starting from general assumptions about human nature and the behavioural patterns of people. As stated by Davis , the mainstream economic theory does not really explain the individual, and what is believed to be a realistic description of the human being in economics is actually an abstract conception that represents the various subjects indiscriminately parts of people, countries, organizations, animals, machines – indeed anything to which a maximizing function might be attributed. However, today it is well-accepted the refusal of a rapacious and a-social individual, determined solely by the pursuit of personal advantages within a context of unbridled social Darwinism. With respect to this point, heterogeneous approaches have developed with interesting proposals and new leading research programs such as, for example: game theory, behavioural economics, experimental economics, evolutionary economics, neuroeconomics, complex adaptive systems theory, and the capability approach . The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the link between individual agency and economic theory from a perspective of the history of economic thought. The common ground that connects the three papers presented is the reflection upon three different theoretical approaches concerning human conduct in the complex economic world. The first paper is related to the approach to political economy represented by Sraffa’s price equations. As is known, in Production of commodities by means of commodities Sraffa’s results not only do undermine the marginalist concept of capital and its theory of value and distribution, but have also the purpose of revitalizing the old standpoint of Classical political economy. The goal of the first paper is precisely to show how the Classical Sraffian approach can be a valuable point of departure for the discussion of the behaviour of individuals or groups in the economic activity. The second paper analyses the thought of Destutt de Tracy, founder of the French liberal group of Idéologues. His observations seem to be the result of the intersection between the making of economic theory and the passionate attempt to find a system of moral philosophy that describes the individual as bearer of a plurality of passions. The third paper deals with Analytical Marxism, which attempts to interpret the heterodox ideas of Marx by means of the intellectual categories of neoclassical economy. In particular, I focus on the relevance given by Analitical Marxism to the action of the individuals, under the influence of psychological factors, in order to strive for the possible realization of a “just” society. Philosophical issues are inherent in economic theory and play a role behind the scenes. It emerges that, from the adopted point of view, the development of economic theory poses fundamental epistemological questions. We can conclude that the proper dialogue between economics and philosophy can bolster the meaning and relevance of economic theory.

This work has two main aims: it wants, from one side, to revive the debate on the Transition to Capitalism, whereas, on the other side, it proposes a new political approach to historical materialism. Triggered by social concerns about our times - which are characterised by growing inequality and poverty, by class polarisation, climate emergences, economic crises and new wars - the research devotes theoretical attention to the dialectics between political present and the writing of history. While the world leaves behind thirty years of neo-liberal unipolarism, and History, in its magnitude, gets back into the scene, the paper, critically focusing on the origins of Capitalism and on the praxis of change, shakes the hypostatization of the present social system and, highlighting the specific features that make it finite and superable, historicises it. The work challenges those academic studies which have dealt, in the wake of several cultural trends, with the history of economic and social development, counterposing to micro-specialisation, post-modern fragmentation and the multiplication of perspectives, a systematic contestation of the whole bulk of relations which Capitalism entails. Devoting a new importance to class paradigm - even with respect to materialist traditional approaches - the essay contributes to Marxist historiography, originally investigating theoretical nodes such as the relationship between base and superstructure, history and theory, materiality and ideology, objectivity and subjectivity. Group interests, class relations and conflicts in XVIII century England are inspected with the goal of defining a new method for historical investigation: the social praxis, as a methodological criterion, does not only permit us to reframe the dynamics relating economic (structural) and social transformations, but proves to be a valid guide to preserve the researcher’s writing from from the ideological influence of his time hegemony.

In the light of the recent developments occurred in the domestic sector in Europe and the debate on the externalisation of domestic and care activities, this research explores the impact of gender, care and migration regimes on migrant domestic work. While the number of migrant domestic workers is increasing everywhere in Europe, the cross-national differences in the ethnicisation of the sector remain significant and depend on multiple factors. The literature on domestic work has long recognised the role of welfare/care regimes in determining the degree of externalisation of domestic and care activities and the role of migration regimes in attracting migrant workers. Additionally, the gender regime can also be crucial to understand the recent developments of paid domestic work in Europe.In this dissertation, I present the findings of a quantitative study conducted at the European level, aimed at exploring the interconnection of care, gender and migration regimes and their impact on migrant domestic work in Europe. For this, I have conducted a two-step analysis. First, I have created three typologies of countries, one for each regime, based on relevant indicators, which allowed me to identify clusters of countries that behave similarly with respect to the three regimes. Then, I have tested the effect of the typologies on the ethnicisation of the domestic sector. The findings suggest that the three regimes do have an effect on the concentration of migrants in the domestic sector, and that this effect is greater when the three regimes are taken into account simultaneously.

Il suddetto lavoro affronta il tema del “discorso” economico in Michel Foucault. Foucault è stato un filosofo e storico dello scorso secolo vissuto tra il 1926 e il 1984. Fu professore al Collège de France di Parigi dal 1970 fino alla sua morte. Il tema economico in Michel Foucault è spesso presente nelle sue opere benché egli non dedichi mai uno scritto unicamente a questo aspetto. In questo elaborato si cerca di formulare un discorso organico al riguardo del sapere economico concepito a seguito di numerose ricerche nella società Europea contemporanea come una «pratica discorsiva» fortemente connessa al potere e alle istituzioni. Al tema delle pratiche del potere Foucault dedica la maggior parte dei suoi studi e all’interno di queste pratiche egli non può non affrontare il tema dell’economia. L’analisi dell’economia del filosofo parte da un’archeologia del sapere economico rintracciabile nella sua celebre opera «Le parole e le cose» per giungere ad un’analitica delle pratiche di governo neoliberali ravvisabile nei Corsi al Collège de France della seconda metà degli anni Settanta. La tesi intende osservare questo interessante aspetto dei lavori del filosofo osservandone anche le derivazioni dalla «scuola epistemologica francese», la quale intendeva rimettere in discussione il modo di condurre l’analisi storica e filosofica tradizionale.

Fin dall’Antichità la riflessione sulle tematiche economiche accompagna l’uomo, ben prima della «svolta» scientifica settecentesca. Nel basso medioevo, ed in particolare nel XIII secolo, la riflessione sull’economico assunse un rilievo del tutto particolare, ad opera dell’Ordine dei Frati Minori. I francescani rappresentarono una peculiarità assoluta, la loro «altissima povertà» diede luogo ad una riflessione intorno al discorso economico di grande spessore e del tutto singolare. Interesse, prezzo, valore, capitale, proprietà, possesso, uso, furono le principali categorie economiche oggetto di un indagine, tutta francescana, che da Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Giovanni Duns Scoto fino a Guglielmo d’Occam, caratterizzò la riflessione dell’Ordine intorno all’etica economica tra la seconda metà del XIII e prima metà del XIV secolo. I francescani misero a punto un lessico economico capace delle più sofisticate interpretazioni del reale. Un pensiero, quello economico francescano, che non si esaurì nel Duecento, ma rimodellò il rapporto dell’uomo con i beni ed il denaro per molti secoli a venire. Una profonda ed originale analisi cui i francescani sottoposero l’agire umano in chiave etico–economica.