RISULTATI RICERCA

The essay gives an account of the important contribution that the German Chris-tians and their churches offered to reconstruction of Germany after the fall of the Third Reich. In the wake of the Second World War both, the Catholic and Lu-theran church, committed themselves to a mission of relief and material assistance for the German population, but, above all, attempted to overcome the situation of profound moral and spiritual misery, in which the Nazi regime had reduced the Germans. Supported by the pastoral letters and the official documents of the Catholic bishops and the Protestant priests, the author analyses the different posi-tion of the two confessions, concerning the question of the collective guilt, the relationship with the occupying forces and the contribution given to the democ-ratic restoration of the German society. The essay examines the connections be-tween the two churches and the political system in post-war Germany, following the events linked to the foundation of the Christian Democratic party and its role in the first years of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Author analyses the itinerary which brought the Italian Bishops away from the fragmented situation characterising them the outset of the Italian Unity, towards a new, Unitarian national profile. The process which made Bishops converge to Rome and distance themselves from the former pre-Unity capitals, took place un-der the guidance of the Holy See, along with the process of ecclesiastic centralisa-tion stressing the role of the pontiff as leader of the Italian Church, at least until 1978. Such a process reached its apex with Pius XII. Albeit not linearly, the church structure seemed to follow the same process undergoing within the State. Staffing Southern Dioceses with priests coming from Northern Italy is an example. During the Twentieth Century, thrice the Pope was from Lombardy (Pius XI, John XXIII and Paul VI), while the top hierarchy of the Italian Bishop’s Conference never en-listed a Southerner as President or Secretary-General. With the pontificate of John Paul II, we begin to see a Unitarian national episcopate, with proper structures, in-stitutions, resources and financing means.

The essay deals with the existing connections between religious and civil authori-ties in the light of power relations mediated, in the long run, by the catholic party. The originality of the centrist stance taken by the Belgian party, in power for thirty years from 1884 to 1914, is reaffirmed by the coexistence of several political and ideological inspirations, keeping a balance between conservative drives complying with the Roman Curia and Christian-democratic tendencies inspired by more fe-cund European ideologies. The experience of trade unions, fully independent from Rome, the setting up of a comprehensive bilingualism and the strenuous faithful-ness to the doctrine of Malines, will lay the foundations of an original political formula of catholic union restored after World War I: an original government pro-posal scarcely studied in Italy so far envisaging cohabitation with liberal and moderate forces which was to have a heavy impact on the catholic presence in Belgian society.

The institution of Episcopal conferences were under way in Europe during the first period of the 19th century, coinciding with the pontificate of Pius IX. In the German regions the dynamics taking place between the conventus episcoporum, the Vatican and the governments of 1848 up to 1878 presented a very interesting case. This period saw the attempts of regional and national conferences that were a response to the needs that sprang out of the State-Church relationship that the bishops were called to address at a collegial level in accordance to the directives given by the Vatican. What become of great interest however, was the almost dip-lomatic role played by the Episcopal conference of Fulda during the Kulturkampf due to it becoming the bridge between the central organs of the Catholic church and the Prussian government, the subject of which the final part of this paper is dedicated to.

The author offers a picture of the social, political and over all religious modifica-tions, that take place in Latin America after the indipendentist moviment. The arti-cle wishes to present the hard situation during the period 1823-1846, under the light of two important prospectives: the reorganization of the ecclesiastical space, and the political strategies, utilized by the Holy See to contain the rising climate of secularization, following to the Latin America indipendence.

This contribution focuses primarily on the overall conclusions of the chapter about the British Telecom case-history, from a regulatory viewpoint. However, there are some specific points which deserve comment from a regulatory perspective. The key elements of the assessment of performance pre and post privatisation in this chapter focus primarily, though not exclusively, on productivity, prices and capital investment, and I will present some thoughts on each of these. My main concern is that privatisation should be seen as a package with other policies. It also reinforces my support for the conclusions that its impact alone is unlikely to be huge.

In this response to the case-study of BT, it is explained how privatisation, competition and regulation form part of a complex system of industrial evolution. The paper examines the dynamics of BT culture, and seeks to draw out how privatisation has changed behaviour. It argues that the past fifteen years have been a period of experiment and learning that has greatly changed the culture of residual control. The net impact of these changes has been more favourable than the Milan study perhaps suggests. The importance of counterfactuals in carrying out cost/benefit analysis is underlined and it is emphasised that large scale policy choice must be understood in the context of a comparison of two imperfect institutional systems; no set of institutions is likely to achieve in practice all that can be imagined in theory.

In this paper we discuss new evidence on the performance of British Telecom before and after privatisation. We use a unique data set based on company accounts over forty years (1960-1999), and original data kindly provided by BT. For some output data we go back to 1915. We focus particularly on output, prices, revenues, costs, employment, productivity, profits and investments. Our key-finding is that operative profits were remarkably stable before and after divestiture, and that privatisation had no discernible impact on productivity trends. Major changes were however related to variations in financial arrangements and regulatory pressure.