Search

The paper combines a systematic literature review and a cluster analysis to investigate the progress and challenges of policy instruments designed to mitigate coal mining externalities. Coal is a widely abundant fossil fuel and it is forecasted to remain in the energy mix for many years to come. However, coal mining is responsible for multiple social and environmental externalities that need to be fully internalized in the coal supply market. Around the world, multiple policy instruments have been adopted to mitigate externalities but our review reveals that several coal mining externalities remain largely neglected, including impacts to biodiversity. The cluster analysis provides a comprehensive reading of the literature findings and reveals that policy instruments can moderate the negative externalities of coal mining but the majority of current coal mining policies lack a formal assessment and quantitative performance measures. It is noteworthy, that market-based instruments as well as innovative instruments are more effective than command and control at internalising coal mining externalities especially coal mine methane. A second cluster analysis by country highlights the heterogeneity of policy instruments adopted and the mix of success and failure. We conclude that few successful policies exist, that there is a need for more policy evaluation and that growth in coal mining poses challenges for our sustainable future.

The author examines the argument elaborated by Pigou in his Employment and Equilibrium. A Theoretical Discussion which was the first comprehensive answer Pigou gave to the analysis put forward by Keynes in his General Theory. The chapter consists of seven sections. In the first, the motivation of the chapter is outlined. In the second, third, and fourth sections, the author will concentrate on how Pigou elucidates the conditions necessary for an economic system to attain a short period flow equilibrium. In this context, the author elaborates an “open” macro model which can be “closed” in two different ways. The chapter will also present a diagrammatic analysis of Pigou’s theory in the two cases elucidating the structure and the working of the model. Differences with the author’s previous book (TU) related to (real/monetary) wage inflexibility and the importance of monetary factors are also described and discussed. Pigou however does not limit himself to deal with the short period but engages in an interesting discussion of the long period centered on the notion of stationary state that is the object of section five. In this way, he admits that Keynes’s theory is not limited, to the short run. In arguing along these lines, he comes close to describe what will be recognized later as the Pigou effect. A short comparison with the renewed stagnationist theory is sketched. The sixth section includes a brief discussion of the comparative statics and dynamic analyzes elaborated by Pigou. A final section including a few conclusions completes the chapter.

The aim is to outline the peculiar approach to the interpretation of economic events elaborated by Marcello de Cecco. This will be accomplished mainly by reference to two of his early works, "Saggi di politica monetaria" (1968) e "Economia e finanza internazionale" (1971), In addition it will be suggested that his interest in the working of the international monetary system and in monetary economics could be traced back to his early training in the University of Parma under the guidance of Antonio Pesenti in the late 50’s.

The chapter reviews the contribution of series of economics and encyclopaedias to the development of Italian economic thought in the interwar period, providing general information on the main series of economics (especially on Nuova collana di economisti stranieri e italiani) and major encyclopaedias (Enciclopedia italiana, Dizionario di politica, Enciclopedia bancaria). The following topics are treated: (i) Can a single specific line of fascist economic thought be identified, or on the contrary the case was that there were a few authors who attempted to elaborate a corporatist theory clearly distinct from traditional theory, and various economists who opted for a conciliation between corporatism and traditional theory? (ii) To what extent was Italian economic thought influenced by more radical attempts to construct a new economic theory or alternatively by the proponents of a less conflictual balance between the two approaches? and (iii) Can the works examined here be considered marked by regime propaganda or have they left a more lasting trace?

First published online: 17 August 2019 National and international governments aim to promote the responsible management of the natural capital but measuring its contribution to economic growth is still a challenging exercise. The natural capital supports a plurality of environmental functions whereas the economic growth is frequently measured by aggregated indicators. In this paper, we propose an extended version of the Genuine Saving macro indicator to account for water and soil depletion. Further, as natural capital is spatially heterogeneous we estimate Genuine Saving for Italy for the period 2000–2015 at the regional level. Whilst the case study produces specific results for Italy the methodological framework is broadly applicable to other states. The Italian comparison shows that soil and water provide an absolute change of roughly 1% of the GS but average relative regional variations are between 5 and 33% of GDP, showing that the geographical scale of sustainability analysis is a crucial element for responsible management of national assets. The methodological contribution suggests that the Genuine Saving can support policy makers in developing targeted policies for sustainable growth.

Growth Patterns and Structural Features: Italy's first phase of post-war development - the role of aggregate demand, Massimo Di Matteo Comment, Hiroshi Yoshikawa The Italian economy after the Bretton Woods era (1971-2001), Alessandro Vercelli and Luciano Fiordoni The Italian labour market and production system - structural features and main developments, Carlo De Gregorio, Andrea de Panizza, Roberto Monducci and Leonello Tronti Comment, Kenichi Sakai. Aspects of a Dual Economy: Old and new dualisms in the Italian labour market, Roberto Schiattarella and Paolo Piacentini Comment, Sumi Iwamoto Development policies in the Italian Mezzogiorno - lessons from the past, Maurizio Franzini Rethinking development policies in Italy, Fabrizio Barca Evolution of production structure in the Italian regions, Carlo Andrea Bollino and Marcello Signorelli Comment, Micaela Notarangelo and Giovanni Russo. Corporate Governance and Industrial Organization: Continuity and change in Italian corporate governance - the institutional stability of one variety of capitalism, Ugo Pagano and Sandro Trento Production outsourcing in Italian manufacturing industry, Alessandro Innocenti Comment, Katsuhito Iwai Italian districts in the international economy, Rodolfo Helg Comment, Yoshiuki Okamoto Banking system and the dualistic development of the Italian economy, Cesare Imbriani Comment, Osamu Ito. Social Institutions and Networks: The fiscal decentralization and the autonomy of the local government, Carlo Filippini and Giampaolo Arachi Comment, Hiroko Kudo The Italian third sector - an overview at the beginning of the century, Marco De Marie and Stefano Cima Comment, Yousuke Mamiya The family and social networks in the socio-economic development of Italy, Andrea Toma Comment, Masao Kotani The Italian welfare system between the European unification and the globalization processes - a suggested interpretation, Paolo Calza Bini, Comment, Nobuhiro Hiwatari.

The chapter examines the core framework of A. C. Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment (TU) with the aim of providing a rational reconstruction of his analysis of the determinants of unemployment in the short period. This is accomplished without any comparison with Keynes’s criticism of TU, as often found in the previous literature. I reconstruct Pigou’s two-sector model, which only accounted for output in the wage good sector but not in the non-wage good sector, as a complete two-sector model to reveal his implicit assumptions about the passive behaviour of non-wage earners in the non-wage good sector. I also find classical elements, most notably the wage fund doctrine and the hypothesis on profits, in Pigou’s approach, which partly explains why the model is incomplete when viewed in terms of its neoclassical elements. In the “A Rational Reconstruction of the Two-Sector Model” section, I sketch a mathematical model to make Pigou’s analysis consistent. The chapter shows how unemployment is determined and how economic policy to deal with it is conceived in the work of a major exponent of the pre-Keynesian approach.

Through a critical discussion of a un unpublished essay by Richard Goodwin (found in the Goodwin Archive in die university of Siena) this paper presents a social philosophy for the XXI century of an evolutionary type. A comparison with another leading figure of evolutionary thought, namely von Hayek, is carried out in order to find similarities as well differences. As a byproduct die paper explores the changes of the political ideas of a great economist as shaped by the terrible events of die XX century.

The shift to more sustainable energy regimes requires the implementation of the right mix of policy options to internalize fossil fuel externalities. In this paper the attention is dedicated to the coal. Coal is the main fossil fuel for energy production and also the key driver of emerging economies (China, India). On the other end, the coal has been the driver of developed economies (EU, US) and a systematic review of policy options can offer several insights on the path to sustainability. Whereas coal combustion externalities (mainly CO2) are well regulated, policies for coal mining externalities are mainly neglected. Policy options present several characteristics and a formal discussion of the nexus externality and efficiency is provided. The result of a systematic web search for the coal mining externalities is presented. The strength of this search is to review several national and international reports/papers on coal mining effects. Policies for environmental and societal externalities are reviewed. Results show that the command and control is still the most popular instrument. However, mature economies (e.g. US) have successfully shifted towards voluntary agreements. These instruments promote efficiency and minimize distributional effects. It also emerges that landscape and biodiversity lost are not well regulated.

The article briefly describes the structure and contents of Goodwin's Archive, recently established in the Library of the Faculty of Economics “Richard M. Goodwin” of the University of Siena. This may be of interest for the whole research community given that the Catalogue of the Archive will be soon available on the Archivio Storico degli Economisti (ASE) web site – at http://www.cribecu.sns.it/ase – which is organised and maintained by the Societa Italiana degli Economisti . To give evidence of the richness of its contents, we reproduce the transcription of “The confessions of an unrepentant model builder”—a handwritten manuscript we found in the Archive, and upon which we comment from the point of view of modern economic analysis.

The province of Siena, Italy, enacted a new garbage plan (NGP) with the objective of increasing separate waste collection (SWC), shutting down six landfills and increasing incineration. The aim of the paper is to evaluate costs and benefits of the NGP. The hypothesis is that willingness to pay (WTP) should reflect the value to the community of having better environmental quality, according to the Contingent Valuation literature. The paper reports the results of a contingent valuation (CV). The sample was divided into two subsets: firms and households. Through the information gathered via a detailed questionnaire, parametric and non-parametric estimates were elaborated to analyse the WTP of the population for the benefits flowing from increased SWC, increased incineration and shutting down of landfills. These values were expressed as a share of the tax actually paid. Although a small subset of firms and households valued increasing incineration less positively, requesting compensation, on the whole interviewees (with large differences between firms and households) had a net positive WTP for the provisions included in NGP. Parametric estimation procedures enabled us to analyse the economic as well as social and demographic factors affecting these results. These elements are useful for computing a value for the waste charge that also reflects external effects. Finally, we estimated household income elasticity of WTP for the increase in SWC and found less than one: environmental quality is not a luxury good.

In the paper I bring to the attention of the economists and historians of economic thought the idea of economic dynamics that can be found in the first book by Morishima published in 1950 but has been totally overlooked. It has a great interest not only because there it appears for the first time the application of new mathematical concepts (“structural stability”) but also because Morishima pursues a way of dynamizing general equilibrium theory that has been neglected in the postwar developments inspired by Samuelson's Foundations. The paper has three parts. In the first and second I outline the development of economic dynamics and its applications to general equilibrium elaborated by Morishima; in the third a comparison between the prevailing idea of economic dynamics as originally put forward by Samuelson and that elaborated by Morishima is advanced and discussed.

This article describes the years of Goodwin’s ‘third life’ at the University of Siena, stressing in particular his main contributions to economic theory, the evolution in his political and philosophical ideas and his love of art. First, after a brief description of his arrival in Siena and of the background he found there, we explore some of his contributions of the period and we argue that his achievements in the explanation of irregular growth cycles are remarkable and still open to further analysis and generalisation. Second, we remark that, as testified by an unpublished essay, in these years of dramatic changes such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall, his social philosophical beliefs underwent a significant evolution. Finally, we conclude with a tribute to Goodwin, the abstract painter.

In the paper I present and discuss an unpublished essay of Richard Goodwin found in the Goodwin’s Archive at the University of Siena on the theme of social philosophy. I will illustrate the main points of his text, briefly compare these late views with those entertained at the beginning of his scientific life (namely his Harvard dissertation on Marxism also kept in the Archive) and add a few remarks in connection with the implications for economics suggested by his analysis.

Attilio da Empoli (1904-48) is a relatively unknown Italian economist who for various reasons, included a premature death, is not recognized as an innovative scholar. One of the main preoccupation of da Empoli’s scientific research was to analize and refine the concept of equilibrium. In the paper I review two main attempts in this direction elaborated in books and papers mostly in Italian (or in a not easily accessible book). The first concerns the introduction of the concept of ultramarginal cost to complement Marshall’s analysis. I show that da Empoli is a forerunner of several concepts to be introduced later, such as kinked demand curve, entry preventing price, limit price, etc. In particular I compare da Empoli’s analysis with Sylos Labini-Modigliani’s theory. After this work da Empoli continued his research and, in the context of a discussion about the theory of international trade, came across a difficulty with the Marshallian analysis of short and long periods. In the second part of the paper I review the discussion that took place in the Rivista Italiana di Scienze Economiche stressing three aspects. First, the analysis was not confined to the comparison of two equilibrium positions (as traditionally made in the pure theory of trade) but it was investigated how the costs that the economy incurs in moving from free trade to autarky may modify some traditional results. Secondly, a link can be established between the concept of ultramarginal cost and the analysis of “costi intermedi” put forward by Borgatta and Mazzei. Thirdly, the analysis of those costs calls into question the problem of time and the different definitions of equilibrium according to the temporal dimension involved. Da Empoli spotted a contradiction in the definitions of short run equilibrium that Marshall gave in his Principles and, on the basis also of the most recent literature on the subject, an interpretation of his position that leads to a rejection of the concept of long run stationary equilibrium will be proposed.

In the attempt to answer three (interrelated) questions, we concentrate on a crucial step in Goodwin’s (RMG) life: his move from Cambridge, Mass. to Cambridge, UK. Why did RMG not get a permanent position at Harvard? How did RMG reach the decision to settle down in Cambridge, UK? Why was it that RMG never finished the book on economic dynamics he had started to write at Harvard? In answering these questions we show that the material available in the Goodwin Archive at the University of Siena is invaluable and adds much to the ‘known story’. Richard M. Goodwin, economic dynamics, archive, Harvard University, Cambridge University.

Highlights the theory of competition advanced by da Empoli in the late 1920s. The main point is the existence of discontinuities in industrial concerns. This leads to the possibility that prices exceed marginal costs and depend also on ultramarginal costs, a new concept elaborated by da Empoli. They are costs that are incurred when the firm is producing beyond the marginal production. Also reviews the various implications of this approach. Stresses the innovative character of his approach and evaluates this in relation to contemporary and successive literature.

Two major trends in the world economy are international migration and environmental degradation. The object of the paper is to analyze the connection between these two trends, which have generally been analyzed in isolation. Here we represent a world economy in which the exploitation of natural resources as well as the migration of labor have a global character. We discuss the welfare impact of migration and exploitation of natural resources. and policies to address these issues.

Notes on the Contributors - Introduction F.Coricelli, M.di Matteo & F.Hahn - A Schumpeterian Perspective on Growth and Competition P.Aghion & P.Howitt - Innovation and Growth: The Relation between Short and Long Term Properties of Processes of Economic Change M.Amendola & J.L.Gaffard - The 'New' Growth Theory: Old Wine in New Goatskins H.D.Kurz & N.Salvadori - The Contributions of Endogenous Growth Theory to the Analysis of Development Problems: An Assessment P.Bardhan - Development and Theories of Endogenous Growth T.N.Srinivasan - Modern Economic (Endogenous) Growth and Development M.Syrquin - Growth and Development Theories L.Taylor - Economic Policies, Economic Shocks and Economic Growth W.Easterly - Growth, Debt and Economic Transformation: The Capital Flight Problem G.A.Calvo - Economic Growth under Alternative Development Strategies: Latin America from the 1940s to the 1930s A.Solimano - Index

In June 1985 Richard Goodwin and myself participated in a major conference on long waves in Weimar organized by IIASA and the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic. On that occasion I met prof.Thomas Kuczynski who alerted me to the absence of a translation in any western language of the book by Kondrat’ev and Oparin, Major Economic Cycles, published in Moscow in 1928. He kindly informed me that the book has two major features. On one hand we find the first thorough discussion of the long wave hypothesis by a number of economists and statisticians, on the other we have the first — and more refined — elaboration by Kondrat’ev of his theory of major cycles.

Over the last decade there has been an increasingly widespread feeling that conventional static economic theory is unable to offer a convincing analysis of the evolution of economic systems and reliable proposals for remedies to the situation of stagflation. As a consequence, in the last five or six years there has been renewed interest in the analysis of long waves described by Kondratieff (1926, 1928), which were consigned to oblivion after World War II. As early as 1913 Pareto wrote a paper, taking France as an example, which sketched very clearly the argument that the world economy was characterized by long-term oscillations. The idea was that a study of long-term tendencies, or the forces and mechanisms that shape and govern them, would help in answering in a more satisfactory way the questions posed by the real world.

After more than a decade the situation of the world economic system is now being increasingly regarded (possibly) as a new phase in the evolution of the economic system rather than as a transitory period in an otherwise uninterrupted period of growth. Indeed there is now a certain degree of awareness among economists that conventional static macrotheory may be considered insufficient for a really satisfactory explanation of a whole decade of stagflation.

I take this occasion as an opportunity to reflect upon what I have been learning from Richard Goodwin over the last few years since he has been associated with the Institute of Economics in Siena. I am interested in economic dynamics and therefore I will limit myself to say something on this topic though I am well aware that Richard’s interests are much wider and that I could have learned much more. I will expose some reflections that came to my mind when reading again, on a recent occasion, Harrod’s The Trade Cycle and Richard’s papers on the growth cycle and on the multiplier-accelerator models (see Goodwin (1982)).