Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Piero Bini Title: Economic expertise and policy beliefs - The think tanks of the Italian economy from the social conflict of the 1970s to the Maastricht Treaty Abstract: This paper explores the activities of five think tanks at work on the Italian economy during the 1970s and 1980s. They are: Cespe (Economic Policy Research Centre) and Csc (the research departement of the Confederation of Italian Industries) in the second half of the 1970s; Ceep (Economic Policy Study Center) from 1973 to 1992; Cer (Research Europe Center) from 1981 to 1992; Isel (Labour Economic Studies Institute) from 1981 to 1985. Based on the experience of these study centres, the paper considers some leading topics in the think tank?s literature, such as 1) the relationship between knowledge and power; 2) the challenging and problematic path between the economic expertise and the aspiration to influence the policy-making. In particular, the study-cases analysed show a variety of nexus between knowledge and policy, in some cases of a conflictual nature, in others of a dialectical nature, and in yet others legitimising one another. As a consequence of this focus on these 5 think tanks, some major issues of the Italian economy of that time are also brought to the attention of the reader: the ways then adopted to escape from inflation; the inability of the ruling powers to address the crisis of public finance and the soaring public debt; and the great uncertainty about the effectiveness of the quantitative parameters of the Maastricht Treaty in providing an appropriate solution for Italy. In general, the paper provides some reflections on the different guises in which economics seeks a place in public discourse. Classification-JEL: B2, D7, E65, H6, Z18 Keywords: Note: Pages:5-23 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60218&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002001 Number: 1 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60218 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Francesco Cattabrini Author-Name: Fabio Masini Title: Balance of Payment, Wage Indexation and Growth: the Role of CESPE in Italian Policy-Making in the 1970s Abstract: Italian policy-making changed dramatically during the Seventies. Exogenous events (like the end of the Bretton Woods system and the oil shocks) and endogenous transformations of the major economic (wage indexation, planning system, instrument of governmental intervention in industries, tax system, relationship between monetary authority and Treasury) and political institutions (workers statute, public health insurance, role of regions, school system) deeply changed the Italian society. Such changes were accompanied and often guided by experts, who exerted a major influence on policymaking. This influence mainly operated through some influential think tanks, which set the table for fundamental public policies. Among them, one of the most relevant was CESPE, the research centre of the Italian Communist Party, to which most leading Italian economists of the time gave their contribution, and that organized several workshops and published research and policy papers. The aim of the paper is to highlight the contribution CESPE gave to the transformation of Italian policy-making in the Seventies. Classification-JEL: A11, B2, E1, E65 Keywords: Note: Pages:25-48 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60219&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002002 Number: 2 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60219 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Alessandro Dafano Title: Re-founding a think tank: the Research Department of the Italian Industrial Association and its findings (1976-1980) Abstract: This work focuses on the Research Department established by the Italian Confederazione Generale dell?Industria (CSC), under the leadership of Guido Carli, between 1976 and 1980. This topic has been considered worthy of investigation because it represents an attempt to place Italy within a long-run stable macroeconomic path through supply-side policies and to foster a structural turning point able to overcome stagflation. Our specific goal is to stress the features of CSC as a modern think tank that worked through theoretical analysis supported by econometric research by both Italian and internationall economists. Classification-JEL: B22, B31, E65, N14. Keywords: Note: Pages:49-69 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60220&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002003 Number: 3 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60220 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Piero Bini Title: Tough Times for an Italian Think Tank - The "Economic Policy Study Centre" (Ceep) from its foundation to the end of the First Republic (1973-1992) Abstract: The paper deals with the experience of Centro Studi di Politica Economica - Ceep (Economic Policy Study Center) from its constitution in Turin in 1973 up to the early 1990s. The paper begins with some considerations on certain statutory, practical and organizational aspects of this Centre, together with its publishing initiatives involving various economic journals. Thereafter, the author analyses the special case of Giorgio La Malfa as head of Ceep and, at the same time, Minister for the Budget in the Italian Governments during the period 1980-1982. In the last part of the paper, the author describes the interesting annual debates arganized by Ceep on the topics of Italian budget deficits and the growing public debt as from 1988 up to 1992. In the course of the paper, the author offers various considerations on the influence this think tank exerted on the policy-decision process during its life. Classification-JEL: B2, D7, E65, H6 Keywords: Note: Pages:71-82 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60221&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002004 Number: 4 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60221 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Carlo Cristiano Title: Centro Europa Ricerche from its foundation to the end of the ?First Republic? Abstract: The Centro Europa Ricerche (CER) was created in Rome in 1981 by Giorgio Ruffolo in collaboration with Antonio Pedone, Luigi Spaventa and a few others. Although very close to the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), CER was frequently very critical of the governments in which the PSI took part. While supporting successive reforms of the scala mobile, CER was highly critical of the budgetary policy, with a rapid shift of emphasis from the insufficient and unequal revenues to the need for structural spending cuts from 1983 onwards. Parallel to this ran the analysis of Italian industries and their outlook. While pointing to slow growth of productivity and scant innovation as the main problems of Italian industry, CER lamented the lack of an industrial policy and did not share the Bank of Italy view on the effects of the central bank exchange rate management within the EMS. While the central bank considered it possible to stimulate organisational and technological innovation by means of an overvalued lira, CER denounced the negative effects of this policy on employment. At a later stage, CER also began to view the growing size of the tertiary sector with increasing concern. The situation emerging at the end of the 1980s was that workers laid off from the exporting sectors were finding employment in the less competitive tertiary sector, thus producing an upward pressure on prices which generated inflation and reduced the competitiveness of the entire economy. In response to this, CER proposed several reforms. The reforms proposed, and the arguments supporting them, to some extent anticipated the kind of reformism that would prevail at a later stage, when Italy decided to enter the EMU. However, the kind of reformism proposed at CER from 1982 to 1992 was not based on the idea that an external constraint ought to be imposed on a recalcitrant country. What CER was proposing was an autonomous process of reform, opposed to any external constraint ? la Maastricht. Classification-JEL: B2, H6 Keywords: Note: Pages:83-102 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60222&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002005 Number: 5 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60222 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Giovanni Michelagnoli Title: The case of ISEL within the strategy of CISL Abstract: The history of ISEL, the research center affiliated to the Italian Confederation of Labor Trade Unions (CISL), is to be considered closely related to the intellectual and personal vicissitudes of EzioTarantelli, the Italian economist who first prompted the creation of a trade union study center. Since its foundation (1981), ISEL activities have led to various publishing initiatives and formulation of the econometric model of the labor market (MOMEL). We will discuss how ISEL was originally founded in order to provide a suitable basis to support the key choices of the trade unions. Nevertheless, behind the rapid decrease in ISEL activity and its subsequent dissolution, which occurred in the immediate aftermath of Tarantelli?s death, lay the aim of giving back the trade unionists a degree of freedom in political terms. Classification-JEL: A12, B2, D7, E65 Keywords: Note: Pages:103-116 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60223&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002006 Number: 6 X-File-Ref: http://www.francoangeli.it/Riviste/References.ashx?idArticolo=60223 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Autori vari Title: Book reviews Abstract: Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages:117-145 Volume: 2017/2 Year: 2017 Issue:2 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=60224&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/SPE2017-002007 Number: 7