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Spatially unequal demographic dynamics lead to a progressive fragility of a territory and its socio-economic system. In Italy, municipalities in demographic malaise tend to be increasingly small in size and peripheral in location, and their local spatial aggregation increased over time. A spatial approach is here proposed to investigate the dynamics across time and space of the population variations in Italian municipalities. Global and local spatial autocorrelation analysis and several models of regression were run using as study variable the average growth rates at municipality level. The spatial autocorrelation of the study variable is quite high and stable over time. The regression results show that spatial models (SAM and SAR) outperform the non-spatial model (OLS) and that SAR is the best model. The results also underline that the variation of population is significantly affected by its values in the neighbouring municipalities, confirming the spatial nature of the phenomenon. The presence of schools in the municipality emerges as a key factor for the increase/decrease of the population. Moreover, the decomposition of the effects into direct and indirect effects shows that all the independent variables produce their effects almost 70% directly and 30% indirectly.

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Ethnic residential segregation in Italy is an emerging key question, which will be crucial in the definition and implementation of both urbanistic and social policies. This paper focuses on this phenomenon in the Italian city of Palermo. We use individual data for all the population residing in the city at 31 December 2011, organized by ethnicity and district. Firstly, we describe the spatial distribution and the residential segregation of foreigners in the city, applying many different segregation measures. Among the others, we also apply the Duncan and Duncan dissimilarity index. Finally, we apply a recent methodological approach, which allows reducing the bias of the Duncan’s index and performs better than previous bias reduction techniques, in terms of both mean bias and mean square error.

La segregazione residenziale etnica in Italia è una questione emergente, che sarà fondamentale nella definizione e attuazione di politiche urbanistiche e sociali. Questo articolo si focalizza sull’analisi del fenomeno nel comune di Palermo. Utilizziamo i dati della popolazione residente in città nel 2011 in tutti i quartieri suddivisa per etnia. Facciamo dapprima ricorso a tecniche di analisi spaziale tradizionale al fine di descrivere la segregazione residenziale degli stranieri e, tra le altre misure, calcoliamo l'indice di dissimilarità di Duncan e Duncan. Successivamente, applichiamo un approccio metodologico recentemente proposto in letteratura che consente di correggere la distorsione dell’indice di Duncan e di avere una performance migliore anche in termini di errore standard Ethnic residential segregation in Italy is an emerging key question, which will be crucial in the definition and implementation of both urbanistic and social policies. This paper focuses on this phenomenon in the Italian metropolitan area of Palermo. We use individual data for all the population residing in the city at 31 December 2011, organised by ethnicity and neighbourhood ("quartiere"). Firstly, we describe the residential segregation of foreigners and, among other measures, we apply the Duncan and Duncan dissimilarity index. Then, we apply a recent methodological approach, which allows reducing the bias of the Duncan’s index and performs better than previous bias reduction techniques, in terms of both mean bias and MSE

This paper intends to figure out why immigrants remit, what characteristicsthey have and, in particular, which of these individual characteristics influence (and inwhat sense) their propensity to remit. In particular, it intends to verify the existence of a"time effect" during the migration process. The time effect suppose that the propensityand the intensity of remittances becomes less consistent as far as the immigrantintegrates into the host country and the ties with the country of origin become lessintense. In practice, according to this hypothesis, the evolution of the migration plantowards stabilization in the new country, rather than to return home, would lead themigrant to invest more (humanly and economically) in the host country, while reducinghis emotional and economic commitment to the family left in the country of origin. Weuse the 2009 IT-Silc survey "Reddito e condizioni di vita delle famiglie con stranieri"carried on around 6,000 households having at least one foreigner component. Thissurvey provides many details on foreigner's characteristics, remittances attitudes andreturn plans, and allows us also to consider the composition of the family both in placeof origin and of destination.

This article investigates the determinants of remittance behaviours among foreigners in Italy and intends to gain a better understanding of the temporal pattern of remittances. The analysis is based on data from the 2009 “Italian Statistics on Income and Living Conditions of Households with Foreigners”. The decisions on whether to remit and how much to remit are separately yet simultaneously estimated using a zero-inflated beta regression model. The findings reveal that remittances are driven by a mix of altruistic and self-interest motives that may persist for many years. Many covariates included in the model have a different effect on the propensity to remit and on the relative amount of remittances. We find some evidence that the average propensity to remit follows an M-shaped trajectory over time. However, the model specification including only time and time squared proves that the inverted-U shape trajectory, well-established in the literature, still remains a better choice in terms of parsimoniousness and flexibility. Among those who remit, time since migration does not have any significant effect on the normalized amount remitted.