Sviluppo economico e sviluppo umano: una nota sulla classificazione ONU di alcuni paesi

A composite indicator of social inclusion for European countries

Social inclusion is one of seven key challenges of the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy. We use a set of sub-indicators to measure social inclusion for 26 member countries of the European Union. In particular, we aggregate four basic indicators in a multiplicative composite indicator via a DEA-BoD approach with weights determined endogenously by imposing proportion constraints. We obtain a score of social inclusion that allows us to grade 26 European countries in 2008, 2009 and 2010 during the European phase of the financial and economic crisis.

Educational systems efficiency in European Union countries

Abstract We use the PISA 2006 results to analyse students’ proficiency in EU countries with regard to two indexes that represent the home background, viz the educational resources available at home and the family background of students. However, many factors affect proficiency and therefore, using a DEA-bootstrap, we intend to measure the efficiency of the European educational systems as capability to ensure high students’ competencies despite adverse conditions about the educational resources available at home and the family background. Results show an unexpected differentiation among EU countries. In particular, the most developed countries often show disappointing students’ proficiency d…

Laboratorio di Statistica Economica con R

Questo libro costituisce materiale di supporto ed integrazione alle lezioni di LABORATORIO DI STATISTICA ECONOMICA svolte nell’ambito del Corso di Laurea in STATISTICA ED INFORMATICA PER LA GESTIONE E L’ANALISI DEI DATI (SIGAD) della Facoltà di Economia dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo. La ragione di questo progetto editoriale è nell’assenza di un testo dedicato da offrire agli studenti. Ciò, naturalmente, non esclude che il volume possa risultare utile anche in contesti didattici più generali quale supporto per un percorso applicato di alcuni classici temi eco- nomici ben aldilà dello specifico corso per il quale è stato progettato. Nell’offerta formativa dell’Ateneo di Palermo, il L…

Order-M Frontier and Performance of Territorial Areas: an Example for Italian Regions.

Composite Indicator of Social Inclusion for European Countries

Social inclusion is one of the key challenges of the European Union (EU) Sustainable Development Strategy. We use four indicators from EU policies to measure social inclusion for the 27 member countries of Europe. In particular, we aggregate the four indicators in a multiplicative composite indicator via a DEA-BoD approach with weights determined endogenously with proportion constraints. We obtain a score of social inclu- sion that allows us to grade the 27 EU countries from 2006 to 2010. In this way, we highlight the specific role played by the four indicators in determining improvements and deteriorations of social inclusion during the European phase of the financial and economic crisis.

A Measure of Trust: The Italian Regional Divide in a Latent Class Approach

Social differences within countries may partly explain the lack of economic convergence and the persistence of regional disparities. The case of Italy is emblematic: economic gap between North and South remains at high levels with large differences in social capital and in trust. In this paper, we use the micro data from the ISTAT “Aspects of Daily Life” Survey to build a measure of “trust in others” and a measure of “trust in institutions” through a latent class model to attribute a trust score to the Italian households and the Italian regions and, in this way, to add elements of knowledge useful to policies. Our measures confirm a persistent territorial divide although the regional mappin…

Presenza della donna, contesto socio-economico e performance dell'agricoltura in un approccio regionale.

Aspetti di redditività e produttività delle principali banche italiane.

Caratterizzazioni territoriali nella distinzione dimensionale delle banche italiane.

Trasformazione produttiva, specializzazione e contagio spaziale: alcune considerazioni a partire dai SLL della Sicilia.

Composite Indicator of Social Inclusion for the EU Countries

Social inclusion is one of the key challenges of the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS). We use the main indicators identified by Eurostat within the operational objectives of the specific European policies to measure social inclusion for the 27 member countries of the European Union. In particular, we aggregate four basic indicators in a multiplicative composite indicator via a DEA-BoD approach with weights determined endogenously with proportion constraints. We obtain a score of social inclusion that allows us to grade the 27 EU countries from 2006 to 2010. In this way, we highlight the specific role played by the four indicators in determining improvements and deter…

PROFILI DI RISCHIO DEI CREDITI BANCARI ITALIANI: UN'ANALISI PER GENERAZIONI DI FINANZIAMENTI

Contributi relativi alla convergenza della produttività del lavoro. Un’analisi della frontiera produttiva per le regioni italiane.

Regional differences in Italian students' performance: a simulation model

This work presents the first results of a research project seeking to build a simulation model able to reproduce the differences of Italian students’ performance at regional level. A preliminary qualitative cause-and-effect model defines the main variable involved in the inter-generational skill formation processes, as well as their interplay with the job market context and the triggering of motivational forces for new skill acquisition. Such model was designed according to a system dynamics perspective, considered suitable for capturing the interrelatedness of key variables and for providing useful simulation tools to conduct and communicate future scenario analyses.     Keywords: regional…

Performance della intermediazione creditizia nelle province italiane (1999-2005).

La relazione tra occupazione e sviluppo

Exploring the sources of labour productivity growth and convergence in the Italian regions: some evidence from a production frontier approach

This paper investigates labour productivity growth and regional convergence patterns in Italy over the time span 1982–2000. Starting from some evidence of spatial polarisation within Italian economy, the analysis aims at exploring the sources of this tendency. To this end, an approach based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) production frontiers is employed which allows to decompose labour productivity growth into efficiency change, technological progress and capital deepening, looking then at the relative contribution of each component to regional convergence. Moreover, some measures of human capital and public capital are used as augmentation factors of the conventional inputs. The study …

Territori e contesti dello sviluppo economico: dati e tecniche statistiche in un approccio storico

Questo volume raccoglie alcuni studi e ricerche storiche che evidenziano il ruolo del territorio e dei contesti spaziali per la promozione dello sviluppo economico e sociale. L'approccio è per l'appunto storico, cioè riferito a dati e contesti di analisi tra i decenni 1990 e 2000 al fine di meglio comprendere alcuni aspetti della realtà economica italiana del recente passato e quale ulteriore base di riflessione della mancata crescita e produttività del nostro Paese.

Credito e sviluppo: alcune considerazioni sui divari regionali

Core-Performance delle principali banche italiane tramite stima di regressione quantile.

Recente evoluzione della struttura produttiva siciliana: una nota con riferimento agli 82 Sistemi Locali del Lavoro.

Divari economici e variabili di contesto. Un'analisi non parametrica per le regioni italiane

Contesto economico e sociale delle regioni italiane in un'analisi di performance.

Dinamica dell’occupazione e crescita economica nei Sistemi Locali del Lavoro italiani.

Composite indicator of financial development in a benefit-of-doubt approach

We use data by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to build a Composite Financial Development Index (CFDI) alternative to the WEF financial index. Unlike the WEF index, the CFDI optimally combines seven dimensions with non‐fixed weights determined endogenously without recourse to subjective opinions of experts. The CFDI is obtained by applying a Data Envelopment Analysis linear programming model with proportion restrictions on weights calculated in a Benefit‐of‐Doubt approach. In this way, the CFDI scores allow us to group 60 countries by different levels of financial development identifying dimensions that contribute to good or poor financial performances, taking into account the different char…

I DIVARI CENTRO-NORD/MEZZOGIORNO NEL COSTO DEL CREDITO: UNA NOTA SUL RUOLO DI ALCUNI FATTORI ESPLICATIVI.

Educational Efficiency in a Dea-Bootstrap Approach

We use the PISA 2006 results to analyse the students' proficiencies in 24 European Countries with regard to two indexes that represent the educational resources available at home and the family background of students. Many factors affect the proficiencies and therefore, using a DEA-bootstrap method, we intend to measure the efficiency of the European educational systems as capability to ensure high students' competencies despite adverse conditions about the educational resources available in students' home and the family background.

Alcune considerazioni sullo sviluppo economico dei Comuni siciliani tra i Censimenti del 1991 e del 2001

Relative Contributions to Convergence in Labour Productivity. Frontier Approach Evidence on Italian Regions.

Alcuni aspetti del fattore "spazio" nello studio dei sistemi locali: analisi dell'uso del suolo, stima e convergenza del valore aggiunto comunale per l'area dei Nebrodi

GDP Density Disparities in Old Europe: Theil Decomposition in Cross-Country Historical Perspective

The political, social and economic aspects of Old Europe have experienced profound changes over the last century. The levels and variations of GDP provide a good, though partial, representation of these changes with specific reference to the economic development. According to historical data, GDP shows strong increases in Europe; among these countries also Italy. But, what can we say about the cross-country income inequality? In this paper, we analyze cross-country disparities of GDP density from 1870 to 2008 in fourteen western European countries. In particular, we use a Duro-Esteban decomposition of the Theil index to identify the separate contribution of GDP per capita and population den…

La performance innovativa dell'Europa

La recente crisi mondiale e le risposte spesso lente ed inadeguate che ne sono seguite, hanno rallentato ed allontanato le prospettive di crescita economica di molte nazioni. Questa crisi ha mutato lo scenario economico con ripercussioni sul quadro sociale ed anche politico. In questo contesto di profondi mutamenti, appare interessante proporre un’analisi empirica aggiornata sullo stato dell'innovazione e della capacità innovativa delle nazioni europee e la posizione che, all’interno di questo quadro, assume l’Italia.

Location and productivity of the italian bank branches: what changes in the last years

How are the physical productivity and the location of italian bank branches changed in the last years? The paper estimates an unconditional beta-convergence model for provinces and SLLs in the segment 1998-2005. After the verification of statistically significant spatial effects, the beta-convergence model is improved with a spatial lag and spatial error specification. At last, a positive and significant speed of convergence for the productivity index is obtained among provinces in Italy and Mezzogiorno but not in Centre- North. On the contrary, the bank branches by population show a positive and significant speed of convergence in all the areas (Italy, Centre-North and Mezzogiorno) among S…

What can we learn from Long Time Series? Italian Living Standards after Unification and Dualism North-South

Using Italian time series since 1861, we explore the evolution of living standards afterpolitical unification both at the national and at the territorial level. Firstly, we use univariate statistical analysis on homogeneous national time series. Secondly, we employ available homogeneous series at a disaggregated level to measure territorial disparities across regions and four macro-areas. Notwithstanding that time convergence occurred quite rapidly at the national level after WWII, territorial differences became more marked in the period 1936-1951, both in terms of material and social well-being.However, in the final decades of the 20th century disparities among the macro-areas declined, es…

Alcune considerazioni sulla relazione tra grado di ruralita' e sviluppo economico nei Comuni siciliani.

Regional Disparities and Public Policies in Italy: Some Considerations in Light of a Performance Analysis

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Italian Government has attempted to implement a new generation of policies aimed at reducing regional disparities. It is claimed that compared to the past, these policies should be more far reaching since they emphasize the importance of the structural economic conditions in promoting growth and convergence. In this paper, we use a dataset of regional social and economic indicators in order to look at the evidence surrounding the outcome of these policies. A frontier approach seems to be suitable for the purpose of this research, as it yields a ranking of performance scores where regions can be compared in cross-sectional and a temporal dimension. Addit…

A BoD Composite Indicator to Measure the Italian “Sole 24 Ore” Quality of Life

The measure of Quality of Life (QoL) is still a topic widely discussed in literature. In Italy, the newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore” publishes a famous ranking that highlights strong disparities among provinces. In this paper, “Il Sole 24 Ore” and BoD-DEA methods are compared in order to show how different types of normaliza- tion and aggregation significantly influence the results making these rankings very fragile and questionable.

Entrepreneurship and space. A decomposition analysis on Italian data

Analisi socio-economica della Regione Sicilia per ATO (programma di aggiornamento del piano acquedotti, sezione B)