Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Cosimo Perrotta Title: Antonio Serra?s Development Economics: Mercantilism, Backwardness, Dependence Abstract: Antonio Serra wrote in 1613 an outstanding analysis, on the economy of the Reign of Naples, which is still very little known out of Italy; where he is largely recognized as the founder of the "Southern question". This article proposes a larger view of Serra?s pioneering achievements, by putting him in the context of the mercantilist approach for development, and of the general analyses both of backwardness and dependence. We try to show that mercantilism was in fact committed to the increase in production, not to the increase in gold (as the enduring bias wants). In this sense Serra was fully a mercantilist. He was the first to analyze the general features of economic backwardness: lack of manufactures, absence of a stable government which encourages export, investments and trade; lack of entrepreneurial occasions; poorness of trade. Serra also - together with the Spanish mercantilists - introduced for the first time the analysis of dependence, i.e. of the process that makes a backward economy dependent on - and blocked by - the prevailing interests of stronger economies. Apart from a few authors, this was to be rediscovered only in the 1960s by the economics of development. Classification-JEL: B11, B31, O10 Keywords: Note: Pages:5-19 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49477&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002001 Number: 1 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Ivo Maes Title: Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa: Macroeconomic and Monetary Thought, and Policy-making at the European Commission Abstract: Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa was one of the great architects of the euro. He is remembered in particular as co-rapporteur for the Delors Committee and as a founding member of the European Central Bank?s Executive Board. For Padoa-Schioppa, becoming Director-General of the European Commission?s DG II (from 1979 to 1983), was a defining moment in his career and life. This period is the main focus of this paper. At the Commission, Padoa- Schioppa?s main priority was the European Monetary System, which was launched in March 1979. He was closely involved in several projects to strengthen the EMS, to improve economic policy convergence and develop the position of the ECU. The other main objective for Padoa-Schioppa was the strengthening of DG II?s analytical capacity, especially its model-building capacity and its links with the academic world. As such, he played a crucial role in the professionalization of economics at the Commission and in preparing DG II for the important role it would play in the EMU process. This also shows that, for assessing the legacy of an economist, it is not only important to look at his own writings and contributions, but also how he shapes the institutions in which he participates. Classification-JEL: A11, B20, E60, F02, N14, P16 Keywords: Note: Pages:21-43 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49478&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002002 Number: 2 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Alberto Giordano Title: Free Labour, Free Women. Re-appraising Harriet Taylor?s Feminist Economics Abstract: Harriet Taylor has been long forgotten as an economist and political philosopher, while merely remembered as John Stuart Mill?s friend and belatedly wife. Never was fate more unjust: we only need to recall that Taylor - whose liberal background soon led her to be fascinated by socialist theories and the evolution of labour movements - wrote chapter VII of the fourth book of the Principles of Political Economy, the well-known On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes. Not to mention, moreover, her reflections on social mobility, women?s rights and female participation to the labour market, delivered in brilliant essays like Enfranchisement of Women. Detaching from mainstream Taylor?s scholarship, this paper tries to confer autonomy to her economic thought (compared to Mill?s) by suggesting that its original feature lies in the correspondence she established amid the liberation of the working classes and women?s enfranchisement, in order to place Taylor?s ideas in a more accurate intellectual perspective. Classification-JEL: B12, B14, B31, B54, J71 Keywords: Note: Pages:45-62 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49479&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002003 Number: 3 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Roberto Dell'Anno Author-Name: Vincenzo Maria De Rosa Title: The Relevance of the Theory of Fiscal Illusion. The Case of the Italian Tax System Abstract: This work analyses the phenomenon of fiscal illusion (Puviani, 1903) in the context of the Italian tax system. Financial (or fiscal) illusion refers to mechanisms which cause a cognitive alteration on the part of the taxpayer regarding the evaluation of the costs and benefits of public policies. Puviani (1903) was the first to classify the different types of financial illusions. He highlighted the main strategies used to hide the real costs of financing public goods and services through taxes (illusions on revenue) or to overestimate their usefulness (illusions on expenditure). The main conclusions of the work are that: (i) from a methodological point of view, there is a connection between Puviani?s theory of fiscal illusion and some of the assumptions of the behavioral approach and (ii) from an operational point of view, it is a useful tool to understand the motives that could have inspired several recent taxes and legislative measures within the Italian tax system. These results support the relevance of Puviani?s theory to the contemporary theory and practice of public finance. Classification-JEL: H20, H3, B29 Keywords: Note: Pages:63-92 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49480&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002004 Number: 4 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Lefteris Tsoulfidis Title: Public Debt and J.S. Mill?s Conjecture: A Note Abstract: Classical economists - mainly Smith, Ricardo and J.S. Mill - abhorred public debts because of their interference with capital accumulation. J.S. Mill in particular envisaged that a rising public debt leads to higher interest rates and falling real wages, a combination which may be consistent with a mildly increasing trend in the profit rate. Classification-JEL: B12, B13, B14, B16, H50 Keywords: Note: Pages:93-102 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49481&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002005 Number: 5 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Comitato di Redazione Title: Book reviews Abstract: Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages:103-144 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49482&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002006 Number: 6 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Giandomenica Becchio Title: Economics in the International Encyclopaedia of Unified Science Abstract: The International Encyclopaedia of Unified Science, 1938-1969 (promoted, above all, by Otto Neurath in Vienna and Charles Morris in the United States) was based on the feasibility of building a "unified science" and it was carried on through the publication of a special "encyclopaedia" to show the meaning of this philosophical project. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct, mainly from a historical point of view, the development of economic theory within this project: from the role of economics inside the Vienna Circle in the 1930s (more specifically in Neurath?s perspective) to the meaning of economics in Tintner?s volume, published in 1968. The role of economics inside the International Encyclopaedia is a part of the story of "the building of the economic "mainstream" (a quantitative and formalist approach to economic issues) during the 1950s and the 1960s in the USA. Classification-JEL: A11, A12, B25, B40 Keywords: Note: Pages:145-153 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49483&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002007 Number: 7 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Daniela Parisi Title: Learning Political Economy in the Chinese Popular Republic. Xu He textbook (1963-1973) and its Italian Edition (1975) Abstract: In 1975 the Publisher Mazzotta printed the two volumes of the Italian edition of the treaty of political economy, which had been published in provisional versions since 1963 and in definitive form in 1973. About thirty Chinese economists joined He Xu of the Chinese Popular University in his activity aimed at providing farmers, workers, and students with a tool presenting an interpretation of the economic system along a Marxian perspective. The essay furnishes an historical analysis of the scientific, ideological and political meaning of this editorial initiative. Verifying the existence of editions of this textbook apart from the Chinese original and the Italian ones would generate an interesting historical reading of the spreading of economic ideas across continents. Classification-JEL: A20; B14 Keywords: Note: Pages:155-156 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49484&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002008 Number: 8 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Massimiliano Vatiero Title: Prof. Ronald H. Coase. An Obituary Abstract: Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages:157-159 Volume: 2013/2 Year: 2013 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=49485&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2013-002009 Number: 9