Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Luciano Fanti Title: Chaos in the "Forward-looking Expectations-augmented Phillips Curve" with "Price Catch-up" Abstract: Chaos in the "Forward-looking Expectations-augmented Phillips Curve" with "Price Catch-up" (di Luciano Fanti) - ABSTRACT: In this paper we investigated the dynamical properties of a text-book "expectations-augmented Phillips curve" model with the forward-looking behaviour argued by Phelps and Friedman, extended with a pro-cyclical mark-up. The main results are that far-sighted forward-looking agents can destabilise the neoclassical labour market and that "saddle-path stability" can never occur; this can be considered another example of "indeterminacy" of the Walrasian equilibrium. Moreover, including compensation for past unexpected inflation, persistent oscillations and chaotic behaviour (very robust as well as very realistic) appear, interestingly when agents tend towards perfect foresight. When convergence to the Walrasian equilibrium fails, the emergence of a chaotic attractor produces a ?Phillips curve? - type behaviour as a true long-run phenomenon. Therefore on the one hand we showed that the Phelps-Friedman?s view of the Phillips curve with an endogenous price inflation section, may generate an ?indeterminate? as well as unstable labour market equilibrium. However, on the other hand, the criticism levelled by Phelps-Friedman at the use of the Phillips curve as a policy tool is confirmed here to the extent that the long-run Phillips curve is only the result of the existence of a chaotic attractor. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19072&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077001 Number: 1 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Minh Quang Dao Title: Determinants of Internal Migration in Developing Countries Abstract: Determinants of Internal Migration in Developing Countries (di Minh Quang Dao) - ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to explain differences in rural-urban migration rates among developing countries. According to the Harris-Todaro model (1970), migration decisions are made based on differences in expected, rather than actual, income between urban and rural areas. Since data on urban (or manufacturing) wages and urban (manufacturing) employment and labor force are not available for many developing countries and may be unreliable even when they exist, we choose to use the ratio of agricultural value added per worker to GDP per worker as a normalized proxy variable for rural wages and argue that the level of wages in the urban industrial sector is constant as it is determined by institutional factors such as politically motivated minimum wage legislation, efficiency wage practice by multinational corporations, and labor union pressure. Thus, variations in the ratio of agricultural value added per worker to GDP per worker may influence migration decisions of rural residents in developing countries. One important implication of the Todaro model is that indiscriminate educational expansion will result in increased migration and unemployment in urban areas. To capture this effect, we use an educational index variable, as it is readily available from the UNDP?s Human Development Report. We also hypothesize that the extent of a country?s road network, its population, area, density, and whether it is a former colony all influence internal migration rates within it. Empirical tests using three samples of developing countries show that results are more robust when interaction variables are included to account for collinearity among independent variables. In particular, we find that agricultural value added per worker is strongly significant in explaining variations in internal migration rates in two samples while the coefficient estimate on the educational variable does not have the expected sign. Road network is significant only in the case of lower-middle income countries and its impact positive when interaction variables are excluded. Population size and density may exert pressure on rural residents to migrate to urban areas in search of better economic opportunities, while the impact of colonization is only felt in the case of low-income developing countries. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19073&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077002 Number: 2 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Alfredo Del Monte Title: Forum su flessibilit? e mercato del lavoro: introduzione Abstract: Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19074&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077003 Number: 3 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Guido Cella Title: Mercato del lavoro, occupazione, Mezzogiorno: una flessibilit? dal "volto umano"? Abstract: Mercato del lavoro, occupazione, Mezzogiorno: una flessibilit? dal "volto umano"? (di Guido Cella) - ABSTRACT: Dramatic reforms recently proposed to change the system of rules governing the Italian labour market maintain that: i) it is possible to reconcile an increased flexibility of the employment (the Blanchard precarit?) with a higher confidence of the representative worker about the continuity and stability of his income flow; ii) employment flexibility is the only remedy to the unemployment problem of Southern Italy (Mezzogiorno). The paper tries to show that the arguments supporting these two propositions are flawed under many basic aspects. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19075&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077004 Number: 4 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Alfredo Del Monte Title: Flessibilit?, articolo 18 e crescita economica Abstract: Flessibilit?, articolo 18 e crescita economica (di Alfredo Del Monte) - ABSTRACT: The paper analysis labour law recently approved by Italian Government and its effects on employment growth. The main thesis of the paper is that the new labour market law will have no positive effects on the rate of employment ,on the size of firms, and on the size of the black labour market in Italy. On the other hand if workers interpret the new law as an hostile act, morale in the firms would fall and so would firm?s profit. Our conclusion is that the effect on productivity growth and employment of the new law will be the opposite of what Italian government expects. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19076&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077005 Number: 5 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Giuseppe Ferraro Title: La flessibilit? in entrata alla luce del "Libro Bianco" sul mercato del lavoro Abstract: La flessibilit? in entrata alla luce del "Libro Bianco" sul mercato del lavoro (di Giuseppe Ferraro) - ABSTRACT: The author reconstructs in a methodical approach all different contractual models of workers employment, subordinate and self-employed, in the scope of the broader issue of work flexibility, as well as of the government proposals in the White Book on labour market. The considerable diffusion of the flexibility "at entrance" observed in the recent years, by one side makes the introduction of new more elastic forms of employment poorly justifiable, while on the other side suggests an overall analysis of all the expressions of the flexibility in work relationships, both those operating inside labour contracts and those projected on the labour market and on the social security system. Particularly, a marked flexibility "at entrance" seems to be not compatible with other forms of flexibility "at exit", unless it is considered in the framework of a radical reform of the social security system, which is difficult to realize, at the moment. The really possible objective consists in defining a better balance between cyclical needs of the production system and the needs of stability of work relationships, as a key factor for a qualitative and dynamic development. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19077&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077006 Number: 6 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Lilia Costabile Title: Aspetti economici del "Libro Bianco del Ministero del Lavoro" Abstract: Aspetti economici del "Libro Bianco del Ministero del Lavoro" (di Lilia Costabile) - ABSTRACT: This paper examines the recent White Book of the Italian Ministry of Labour, and its proposals for reforming the Italian labour market. A careful scrutiny of this document?s arguments shows that the White Book?s "reformism" is not well grounded. Using both empirical and theoretical arguments, this article shows: (i) that substantial wage moderation, together with widening wage differentials between Northern and Southern Italy, do not lend support to the White Paper?s arguments underlying its proposal that the contractual mechanism and the incomes policy introduced in 1993 should be abandoned; (ii) that the proposed reforms in the norms concerning firing costs and contractal typologies may provide the wrong incentives to firms, by encouraging them to substitute short term, fragile employment relations for long term, robust ones, thus contributing to lower human capital investment and deteriorating economic performance. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19078&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077007 Number: 7 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Floro Ernesto Caroleo Title: Alcune considerazioni su "Laws and Economics" in tema di mercato del lavoro Abstract: Alcune considerazioni su "Laws and Economics" in tema di mercato del lavoro (di Floro Ernesto Caroleo) - ABSTRACT: Near consensus arose in the 1990s and still remains unchallenged that labour market institutions and government intervention bear major responsibility for having made European unemployment so high. The OECD and other international economic organizations suggested that unemployment is essentially due to the rigidities of rules and regulations operating in the labour market. The policy consequence was that the European employment strategy should implement a radical reform of the institutions to restore flexibility in the labour market. In turn, such a statement implies that there is unconditional adhesion to the "law of one price" and to what could be called the "law of one institution", namely the market considered to be the most efficient supplier of resources. This paper states that there is neither empirical evidence of nor theoretical foundation to the labour market flexibility option. Moreover, a large institutional variability should allow every individual country to create the best combination of structural reforms and social equity. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19079&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077008 Number: 8 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Laura Ferrari Bravo Title: Il ruolo della sperimentazione clinica nel processo di sviluppo del farmaco: l'effetto "Arrow" e la competizione tecnologica Abstract: Il ruolo della sperimentazione clinica nel processo di sviluppo del farmaco: l'effetto "Arrow" e la competizione tecnologica (di Laura Ferrari Bravo) - ABSTRACT: The economic literature on sequential innovations acknowledges that the successful firm earns a monopoly position only until the next innovation arrives. Such a dynamic process - which Schumpeter (1942, p. 83) labeled "creative destruction" - implies that leadership on the market by one firm is only a matter of time, since a new innovating firm will sooner or later displace the former incumbent. In the pharmaceutical industry, this sort of reasoning, which connects to the so-called Arrow effect, conflicts with empirical evidence on leading companies experiencing long lasting high market shares. Since these companies operate at the leading edge of technology by accounting for most of the research done, we believe that at least for the pharmaceutical industry there are elements of the R&D process neglected by the literature on innovation which may question the validity of the Arrow effect. We therefore model the behavior of pharmaceutical firm by introducing the role of clinical trials in shaping R&D decisions. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19080&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077009 Number: 9 Template-type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Giuseppe Di Vita Title: Inferior Goods: A note Abstract: Inferior Goods: A Note (di Giuseppe Di Vita) - ABSTRACT: In this short note we reinforce the known result that in cases of two goods, under hypothesis considered, if one good is inferior the other should be superior, such that necessary goods are ruled out of our analysis. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Note: Pages: Volume: 2002/77 Year: 2002 Issue:77 File-URL:http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=19081&Tipo=Articolo PDF File-Format: text/HTML Handle: RePEc:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/Ste2002-077010 Number: 10