Search

Organised crime tightens its corrupting influence on politics through violent intimidation. Anti-crime measures that increase the cost of corruption but not of the exercise of violence might accordingly lead mafia-style organizations to retaliate by resorting to violence in lieu of bribery. On the other hand, this kind of anti-crime measure might also induce criminal clans to go inactive, owing to the lower expected payoff from the "business" of influencing politics, which would reduce violence. To determine which of these possible effects is prevalent, we undertake an empirical assessment of the impact of city council dissolution for mafia influence in Italy as prescribed by Decree Law 164/1991 in discouraging violence against politicians in the period 2010-2019. Our difference-in-differences analysis shows that in the dissolved municipalities the enforcement of the Law reduces violence and that the effect persists (at least) for two electoral rounds. The most likely driving channel of this result is the renewed pool of politicians elected after compulsory administration. These findings are robust to a series of endogeneity tests.

Organized crime reinforces its corrupting influence on politics through violent intimidation. Anti-crime measures that increase the cost of corruption but not of the exercise of violence might accordingly lead mafia-style organizations to retaliate by resorting to violence in lieu of bribery. On the other hand, anti-corruption measures might also induce criminal clans to go inactive, owing to the higher “entry barriers” to the “business” of influencing politics, which would reduce violence. To determine which of these possible effects is prevalent, we undertake an empirical assessment of the impact of city council dissolution for mafia influence as prescribed by Decree Law 164/1991 in discouraging violence against politicians in the period 2010-2019. Our difference-in-differences analysis shows that in the dissolved municipalities the enforcement of the Law reduces violence, the effect persisting for two electoral rounds. Also, we find spillover effects moderating violence in undissolved neighboring municipalities. These findings are robust to a series of endogeneity tests.

This work analyses the effect of the two preference voting systems – proportional system with blocked lists of candidates vs proportional system with open list of candidates - on the quality of politicians. The exogenous variation in the Italian Parliament electoral system (Law n. 270/2005) - which marked the switch from an open to a closed list - allows us implement a Difference-inDifferences approach to compare the change in politicians' quality (as their education level) across the treatment group (the Parliamentarians) and the control group (the regional councillors) of politicians before and after the electoral reform is enforced. We find that the introduction of the reform lowered the politicians' ability. The result is common for Senators and Deputies and it is robust to the inclusion of control variables and to the restriction of treatment group to pastappointed Parliamentarians. This evidence suggests that voters are able to choose more qualifying politicians than political parties and it may be an argument in favor the re-introduction, in the electoral law, of preference voting schemes.

This paper analyses the contribution of public investment to growth in southern Italy in the second half of the twentieth century (1951-1995). The period saw the only convergence in modern times of the Mezzogiorno towards the Italian average (1951-1973), followed by divergence (1974-1995). Using cointegration analysis we find a statistically significant positive effect of public investment on the growth of the Mezzogiorno in the period 1951-1995. The Bai-Perron tests suggest that economic growth followed two distinct regimes, the first regime of accelerated growth in the years 1951-1973 (average growth rate 5.3%), and the second regime of low growth in the period 1974-1995 (average growth rate 1.6%). This result is confirmed by the testing procedure of Hansen (1992) which indicates a break in the determinants of GDP per unit of labour in 1974. The estimates of the model on time series of the two periods show statistically significant parameters of public investment in the first regime, but not in the second regime, when economic growth is sustained by business investment and technical change. The paper suggests that public capital may have a significant positive role in episodes of growth accelerations if the quality of the institutional environment is high, but it can lose its effectiveness if bureaucratic corruption and rent-seeking strongly affect public policy.

Democracy can take different forms and expressions among cultures and societies around the world, and, therefore, it can be characterised by different degrees. Accordingly, we asked how the degree of democracy affects economic growth. We choose the degree of political competitiveness among political parties as measure of the degree of democracy. We estimates cross-country panel data non-linear empirical growth model, taking into account the endogeneity of political competition through a new instrumental variable. The relationship between political competition and growth appears as an inverted U, and it is robust to the use of different political competition measures and to the short and long run analysis. This result allows us to calculate an ‘optimal’ level of political competition that maximises economic growth, which corresponds to a sufficient level of competition in the political vote market. We believe that this result emerges from the trade-offs generated by the various channels through which different levels of democracy (as those of political competition) affect growth.

Previous empirical studies analysing the effect of electoral systems on growth lack unanimous answers as they miss-specify mixed systems in the empirical setting, that is, they neglect to consider the proportionality degree of mixed electoral systems. This work supplies the missing answers by properly distinguishing the three types of electoral rules using a proportionality degree index, that is, the Gallagher index. We estimate a non-linear relationship between the Gallagher proportionality index and the per capita GDP growth using cross-country panel data. Our findings show that the proportionality degree is significant for growth; mixed systems (characterised by an intermediate level of proportionality), combining the different advantages of both proportional and plurality systems, solve the problem of the accountability-responsiveness and the political-government instability trade-offs. As a consequence, they reach relatively higher growth rates with respect to more “extreme” electoral rules.

This work provides a new way to analyze of the effect of electoral system and corruption: through its degree of proportionality. It seems the correct way to consider them because their proportionality degree varies under the same PR, plurality and mixed system. Results show that those degrees of proportionality which allow both voters’ and opponents’ monitors to exercise their power, induce politicians to avoid corrupt behaviour. This happens when we increase plurality elements into PR. But it is beneficial only up to certain proportionality degrees, after which the corresponding level of corruption begins to grow. For governors the choice of their proportionality degree becomes, therefore, fundamental.

Recent studies have shown a more effective and efficient use of education and training resources together with the economic returns to education do not seem sufficient enough to motivate high-school graduates to enrol at university. This clarifies that in recent years in Italy, there is proof of a downward trend in the transition rate of students moving from high school to university which highlights a tendency towards a disinvestment in human capital. The aim of this study is to examine the socio-economic and cultural issues which affect the decisions made by young high-school graduates to defer entering the labour market by investing in a university education. Using regression techniques and panel data (Re. the 20 Italian regions from 1999 to 2009), the impact made by two groups of variables (i.e. cost and context) has been analyzed on the rate of transition from high school to university at regional level. The empirical results show that the variables with a significantly positive impact on this transition firmly depend on the prevailing economic situation of the country. The promotion of economic growth should not depend on an investment in human capital. Public intervention in support of further education (now almost entirely borne by households) is therefore necessary to avoid triggering a vicious circle of inevitably negative consequences. The recent university reforms suggest that this observation did not inspire the legislator in any way. Instead, the situation seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

In a randomized, phase 3 study, superior complete/near-complete response (CR/nCR) rates and extended progression-free survival were demonstrated with bortezomib-thalidomide-dexamethasone (VTD) versus thalidomide-dexamethasone (TD) as induction therapy before, and consolidation after, double autologous stem cell transplantation for newly diagnosed myeloma patients (intention-to-treat analysis; VTD, n = 236; TD, n = 238). This per-protocol analysis (VTD, n = 160; TD, n = 161) specifically assessed the efficacy and safety of consolidation with VTD or TD. Before starting consolidation, CR/nCR rates were not significantly different in the VTD (63.1%) and TD arms (54.7%). After consolidation, CR (60.6% vs 46.6%) and CR/nCR (73.1% vs 60.9%) rates were significantly higher for VTD-treated versus TD-treated patients. VTD consolidation significantly increased CR and CR/nCR rates, but TD did not (McNemar test). With a median follow-up of 30.4 months from start of consolidation, 3-year progression-free survival was significantly longer for the VTD group (60% vs 48% for TD). Grade 2 or 3 peripheral neuropathy (8.1% vs 2.4%) was more frequent with VTD (grade 3, 0.6%) versus TD consolidation. The superior efficacy of VTD versus TD as induction was retained despite readministration as consolidation therapy after double autologous transplantation. VTD consolidation therapy significantly contributed to improved clinical outcomes observed for patients randomly assigned to the VTD arm of the study. The study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT01134484.

"\"\\\"A recent issue in political economy is studying how different institutional systems influence economic performance. This work enriches the scarce empirical literature concerning the effects of mixed electoral systems on economic growth. We estimate a quadratic relationship between the Gallagher proportionality index of an electoral system and the per capita GDP growth using the Italian regional Committee electoral results. Our finding is that an intermediate level of proportionality characterizing an electoral rule is more likely to lead to greater rates of economic growth with respect to more “extreme” rules. Moreover, we verified that the way in which corruption affects regional growth depends on the proportionality of the electoral system.\\\"\""

We analyze the rate at which cost shocks are passed through to prices when the market exhibits network externalities. We find that the pass-through rate is smaller in the presence of network externalities. Also, the deadweight loss created by a cost shock is smaller in a network market.

This work contributes to empirical studies on decentralization and corruption by trying to resolve the uncertainty that the literature so far has shown. It also gives reasons supporting the ‘best’ decentralization structure which a country can adopt to discourage corrupt behaviour, and suggests an intermediate degree of decentralization. The trade-off between the moral hazard and the adverse selection aspect of the principal-agent framework, that emerges in this literature, can be better captured by a non-linear specification (e.g. cubic, as the more general non-linear model); neither very small nor very high degrees of decentralization are appropriate against corruption, but an intermediate one. Being monitored by the voters, local politicians, in a intermediate decentralized setting, have an incentive to perform in the voters interest and, being local resources they manage not very much, they have little incentive to appropriate part of such resources for personal use.

I present a simple model of determination of the equilibrium size of a network with indirect network externalities. Indirect network externalities can generate complementarity between goods, and then the demand functions for the network good are those of the complementary goods: the result in the determination of the equilibrium size in a market with indirect network externalities is the “classical” result with complementary goods. I calculate the number of consumers of each group that should be optimal for firms in different market structures, as perfect competition, monopoly and duopoly. The result is that the equilibrium size of the network with indirect network externalities depends on the market structure; it is wider in perfect competition than in monopoly and duopoly; because of the externalities, perfect competition is inefficient, that is, the equilibrium size in this market structure is smaller than the equilibrium size chosen by a social planner; prices charged in a duopolistic market with indirect network externalities are greater than prices charged in a monopoly market, and then, the equilibrium size in duopoly is smaller than in monopoly; this is the classical result that we obtain with complementary goods, generated by the indirect network externalities, and it is different from the result in markets with direct network externalities in which the equilibrium size in duopoly is greater than monopoly because the competition with substitute goods.

The osteonecrosis of the jaw is a new emergent disease, secondary to prolonged use of bisphosphonates. Bisphosphonates are a class of drug used in prevention and cure of bone diseases such as malignancy or bone metabolic diseases. In this article, we have tried to summarize, for patients taking IV or oral bisphosphonates-therapy, the most important informations on the pathogenesis and the risk factors in osteonecrosis of the jaw with particular attention about the preventive policies.