Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Contratti asimmetrici »

- In the light of the results from a wide empirical investigation, this essay examines some crucial characteristics of the Italian policy measure called Contratti di programma through both the analytical framework of the incomplete contracts literature and the multi-task Principal-Agent theory. The Contratti di programma policy is based on a formal agreement between the Italian Government and private firms to carry on an investment programme comprising a number of different projects (industrial investments; workers training programs; research centres and projects). The essay also provides a number of suggestions for improving the effectiveness of this policy. Keywords: multitask, asymmetric information, incomplete contracts, industrial policy Parole chiave: multitask, informazione asimmetrica, contratti incompleti, contratti di programma, politica industriale Jel Classification: D82; D86; L14; L52

In Italia, la regolamentazione dei contratti bancari in Italia è divisa tra codice civile e legislazione speciale. Il primo, risalente al 1942,ha dato riconoscimento alle principali operazioni bancaria e le ha disciplinate, la seconda, invece, ha introdotto varie forme di tutela del cliente della banca, considerato soggetto “debole” e, quindi, a rischio di un esito contrattuale per lui svantaggioso. Lo scritto si propone di ricostruire, in modo rapido ma organico, la disciplina dei diversi contratti bancari e le principali forme di tutela del cliente di Banca.

Quelle del consumatore e del risparmiatore sono condizioni soggettive apparentemente antitetiche, siccome definite da due tipi di comportamento (il consumare e il risparmiare, appunto) tra loro contrapposti. Eppure questa eterogeneitŕ viene meno, sotto il profilo giuridico, se si guarda, da un lato, alla posizione di debolezza in cui essi versano rispetto alle controparti contrattuali (con conseguente esigenza di una loro tutela come "contraenti deboli") e, dall'altro, al ruolo emblematico che essi assumono ai fini del piů generale interesse al buon funzionamento del mercato.

L'elaborato analizza le relazioni bilateralmente commerciali asimmetriche che attraversano i vari tasselli economici della filiera agroalimentare. Il presente contributo, dopo una breve descrizione del comparto di mercato in esame, fortemente polverizzato dal lato dell'offerta, tenta di ricostruire il sistema di rimedi a disposizione del "contraente debole" vittima di pratiche commerciali sleali. L'analisi è condotta alla luce della recente Direttiva europea n. 2019/633 in materia di "unfair trading practices" nei rapporti tra imprese nella filiera agricola e alimentare.
The paper analyses the asymmetric business-to-business relations that run through the various economic elements of the agri-food chain. After a brief description of the market sector under consideration, which is highly atomised on the supply side, the PhD thesis attempts to reconstruct the system of remedies available to the 'weaker party' victim of unfair commercial practices. The analysis is conducted in the light of the recent European Directive No. 2019/633 on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain.

Origini e sviluppo della tutela dei consumatori sul mercato. La tutela dei consumatori con specifico riferimento al ruolo della informazione nell’ambito del contratto fra consumatore e professionista. Dalla rilevanza della informazione alla problematica della violazione degli obblighi informativi pre-contrattuali. I recenti interventi modificativi sul codice del consumo nel contesto della riforma approntata dal legislatore eurounitario. Politiche di regolazione e consumatori. Profili processualistici: la tutela dei consumatori nella prospettiva stragiudiziale.

Dall'inizio degli anni '90, i problemi di contrattazione verticale e le loro implicazioni sono stati ampiamente studiati nella letteratura dell'Organizzazione Industriale. Infatti, l'analisi della relazione tra mercati upstream e downstream è importante non solo per valutare l'impatto che le diverse forme di contratti hanno sul benessere totale e sul surplus del consumatore, ma anche per comprendere la caratterizzazione della struttura del mercato. Questa tesi è divisa in due capitoli riguardanti la contrattazione verticale e la struttura del mercato. Tenuto conto del fatto che sono presenti numerosi elementi che giocano un ruolo interessante, come la contrattazione sotto l'informazione asimmetrica, le decisioni di entrata e la scelta del mercato da parte delle imprese verticali, tutto il lavoro è orientato ad un’analisi di come questi elementi interagiscono tra loro e come le diverse forme di accordi contrattuali tra produttori e dettaglianti (two-part tariffs, i contratti lineari, la clausola di mantenimento dei prezzi di rivendita o il quantity forcing) influiscano sulle decisioni di ingresso e sulla scelta del mercato. Inoltre, una novità di questo articolo è considerare la struttura del mercato come endogena e studiare le conseguenze di questa ipotesi, aggiungendo nuove intuizioni a questo fiorente filone di letteratura.
Since the beginning of 90's, vertical contracting issues and their implications have been widely studied in the Industrial Organization literature. For instance, analyzing the relationship between upstream and downstream markets is important not only to evaluate the impact that the different forms of vertical contracts have on total welfare and on consumer surplus, but also to better understand market structure. This thesis is organized in two chapters dealing with vertical contracting and market structure. Since, in this set-up there are many elements playing an interesting role, like contracting under asymmetric information, entry decisions and market choice by vertical related firm, throughout the work there is an analysis of how these elements interact between each others, and how different forms of contractual agreements between manufacturers and retailers, as two-part tariffs, resale price maintenance and quantity forcing, affect entry decisions and market choice. A novelty of this thesis is to consider market structure as endogenous and to study the consequences of this assumption, by adding new insights to the burgeoning existing literature on entry in vertical relationships.

the present report illustrates the research path developed during the PhD program in Economics at the University of Genova and discuss its results. The report consists of three independent chapters which reflect the chronological order of the activities carried out during the program. In the first 2 chapters, two articles are discussed. They belong to the research field inaugurated by Townsend (1987), that is, the analysis of deprivation in urban contexts and the relation between socio economic conditions and health status. The first article consists in a detailed analysis of the distribution of deprivation in the metropolitan city of Genoa and of its relationship with the health status of the resident population, represented by a generic measure of health such as premature mortality. Information on 14 variables used to assess deprivation was available at the level of the Unità Urbanistiche. These are small administrative units with territorial homogeneity and historical and cultural traditions which appear to be suitable for statistical analyses. An exploratory factorial analysis identified two groups of variables which, according to definitions in the literature, identify the two dimensions of deprivation, material deprivation and social deprivation. For each dimension, two indices were calculated on the basis of two non-compensatory methodologies, the Mazziotta Pareto Index and the Pena Distance Index. Health status was measured through a measure of premature mortality, measured through the calculation of age-standardized SMR. The calculation of the attributable risk was used to evaluate the proportion of the excess mortality observed in various areas which can be attributable to deprivation, and a geographical analysis is presented. The results of the work, in line with the available evidence, confirm the association between material deprivation and premature mortality, but fail to show a relationship with social deprivation. The second article presents the results of an analysis of deprivation in Argentine urban areas, with the aim of assessing the presence of a relationship with the average health status of the residents Based on data extracted from the 2017 Survey on Permanent Families in Argentina (EPH), a continuous survey carried out on 32 urban areas in Argentina, five variables were identified, four relating to material and the fifth to social deprivation. The Mazziotta-Pareto Adjusted Index was calculated to provide a synthetic and quantitative measure of the level of deprivation. An analysis of hierarchical clusters was carried out to group different urban areas into deprivation classes and analyse the state of health. The primary measure of the health status used in this study was Life Expectancy at birth. The results, in line with the literature, allow to conclude that the proposed mixed deprivation index accounts for a significant proportion of the variability in Life expectancy at birth across urban areas. In the third chapter , a study is presented that was developed in in the research field of contract theory. In particular, it refers to contracts in the presence of information asymmetry and the consequent moral hazards and it is aimed at providing policy makers with a tool for an informed use of resources while identifying the sources of inefficiency and waste. The study is focussed on the problem of defining contracts for the provision of transport services for people with disabilities in a Principal-Agent context. The main issues derive from the hidden actions of the agent and the uncertainty which is due to the type and level of disability of the user which give rise to problems of incomplete information. The work consists of two parts. In the first, the conceptual framework, the theoretical tools and the main assumptions are presented, including: the description of a principal-agent relation under asymmetric information; the optimization problem of the principal; the description of the causal variables, which are the effort applied by the agent in the supply of the service and the disability condition of the user, which, in general terms, is referred to as "complexity"; the statistical tool used to model the probability related to the uncertainty which characterizes the service analysed, which is the logistic function; the relation between independent variables and outcome variable; and the agent’s risk aversion. The second part of the study includes the description of two empirical models which, through various simulations, analyse how causal variables affect the probability of the positive result that is the regular performance of the transport service, the expected principal expenditure and the expected agent utility. The results suggest that, as expected, the more complex the disability condition of the user is, the greater expected expenditure of resources is, but the analysis of the dynamics of the contract, which has actually highlighted the opportunity for unfair behaviours of the agent, suggests that moral hazard is stronger in situations where the user is less complex. As the user’s level of disability increases, the agent is less inclined to implement opportunistic behaviours as the uncertainty of the final result increases exogenously.

La gestione dei costi del rapporto di finanziamento bancario rappresenta un terreno privilegiato d’indagine per comprendere le dinamiche degli assetti di forza e degli equilibri economici nei contratti di durata. Dal momento della negoziazione a quello esecutivo, emergono infatti plurime chiavi di lettura del sistema di distribuzione dei rischi e di manutenzione della relazione economica. L’insieme dei problemi suscitati dalla prassi fornisce, da questo punto di vista, notevoli indicazioni e consente di delineare rimedi efficienti ed equi nel ventaglio di ipotesi che possono presentarsi innanzi all’operatore giuridico, nel caso in cui il rapporto sia staticamente o dinamicamente sbilanciato a causa dell’opportunismo contrattuale o di una sopravvenienza rilevante. Autonomia privata e assetto giurisdizionale in senso ampio svolgono un ruolo essenziale in una realtà che muta continuamente forma, mescolandosi alla sfuggente materia economico-finanziaria: per questo motivo, è più che mai indispensabile ricostruire l’armamentario interpretativo del giurista a partire dall’analisi sul campo della giurisprudenza e della prassi bancaria. In tal modo, viene in evidenza l’insufficienza di soluzioni rigidamente dogmatiche: è preferibile, invece, differenziare le scelte rimediali sulla base di un’analisi multilivello, che coniughi il profilo economico con la dimensione etica del rapporto contrattuale. The cost management of bank financing represents an excellent topic to deal with the dynamics of economic balances in long-term contracts. From the moment of negotiation to the executive one, in fact, several keys to understanding the risk distribution system and the maintenance of the economic relationship emerge. The set of problems raised by the practice provides, from this point of view, significant indications and allows to outline efficient and equitable remedies in the range of hypotheses that may arise before the legal operator, in the event that the relationship is statically or dynamically unbalanced due to contractual opportunism or a significant contingency. Private autonomy and jurisdiction in a broad sense play an essential role in a reality that constantly changes form, mixing with the elusive economic-financial matter: for this reason, it is more than ever essential to reconstruct the interpretative instruments of the jurist starting from the analysis on the field of jurisprudence and banking practice. In this way, the insufficiency of strictly dogmatic solutions is highlighted: it is preferable, in fact, to differentiate the remedial choices based on a multilevel analysis, which combines the economic profile with the ethical dimension of the contractual relationship.