RISULTATI RICERCA

The individuation of a specific style of the family with drug addicted individuals, shouldn’t be solely researched in a specific systemic model of drug addiction, but rather in a state of general suffering among the members of the family group. The choice to develop addictive symptoms is popular to the point that in order to understand it we must explore patterns and myths of the actual social context. In this context a variety of offers are made available, and they are able to meet precisely addictive needs, according to markets’ logic and social rules. In this way, dependence is established and mystified by the appearance of a free personal choice, of which drugs represent only one of the existing possibilities. Drug addiction phenomenon relational meaning then, pairs with morphostatic organisation and social myths. In a similar way to all other forms of symptoms, they strongly underline system disfunctions, and dramatically suggest change. Key words: Drug Addiction, social myths, symptom meaning

The author considers the secret in the light of the connection with family identity. Through the identifying of two secret’s typologies existing in the family, pathogenic secrets and creative, fantastic, mythic, ritualistic secrets, the effects on family identity are examined. The concept of familiar traumatic memory system is introduced and the difference between traumatic secrets, while secrets that construct and strengthen family identity are investigated. Key words: Family identity, secret, identity, personal being, intimacy, trauma, memory

Technology Adoption, Quality and Health Care Costs: A Review of the Literature ABSTRACT: This paper provides a review of the literature that has investigated the mechanisms underlying the diffusion of new health care technologies and its implications. The importance of regulation and of the intensity of competitive pressures associated with each possible regulatory solution have been confirmed both theoretically and empirically. Nonetheless, the lack of consistency among the results of different studies, observed in some cases, may suggest that more work is needed. Moreover, the specific characteristics of different diseases and of the corresponding technologies may play an important role as well. Specific sections are included in the paper to review contributions that address two issues that have probably received less attention than they deserve: the welfare implications of the diffusion of new medical technologies and the timing of adoption.

Firms’ Research and Development Activity and the Public Support: The Italian Case ABSTRACT: In the Lisbon strategy, Member States committed to making structural reforms to their economies. Within this context, the European Council called for R&D investment to approach 3% of GDP by 2010, of which 2% should come from the private sector. At the moment, in Italy R&D investment represents 1,2% of GDP, of which about 50% comes from the private sector. The Financial Law 2007 modifies the italian support system to R&D introducing tax credit for R&S in the period 2007-2009. The paper analyzes the effects of this tax credit. In particular, we calculate that at 2009 private investment in R&D approach to 0,88% of GDP. Therefore, it is necessary to go one step further.

Excess Burden: An Ill Defined Concept? ABSTRACT: The number and differences among alternative definitions of excess burden proposed in the literature, from seminal contributions by Marshall and Barone to the latest survey in the Handbook of Public Economics, stimulated the present paper where some of them are critically reviewed together with their ambiguities. Since its birth two notions of excess burden are available: an absolute notion (the excess burden of a single tax) and a relative one (the excess burden of a tax versus another): though distinct their differences blurred during years. The central thesis of this paper is that for excess burden to be a fruitful tool of analysis it should be interpreted as an intrinsically relative concept and the only way to avoid ambiguities in its interpretation is to define it in terms of either larger welfare loss of two equal yield taxes or tax structures or smaller revenue at a common final utility level.

Towards an Evolutionary Approach to Marshall’s Reciprocal Offer and Demand Curves ABSTRACT: In this article, the authors revisit Marshall’s curves of mutual supply and demand from an evolutionary standpoint. After discussing the relationships between the neoclassical approach (in its more general sense) and the Marshallian approach, the authors claim that Marshall’s position was essentially evolutionary and that this methodological stance is clearly evident in his theory on international trade. In particular, Marshall’s treatment of mutual supply and demand curves shows that what he had in mind was actually far removed from the scheme of things in which current academic tradition has incorporated the mutual supply and demand curves.