RISULTATI RICERCA

Looking Behind Income Dynamics in Later Life - Later life can be seen as period of income stability compared to other stages of the life course, and a key issue for older people in low income households is that they have limited means of pro-actively improving their financial situation. This article draws on a qualitative longitudinal study which explored how older people experienced changes in their financial circumstances across a two year period. The findings demonstrate that even where people did not feel that their financial circumstances had changed overall, this did not necessarily indicate a steady state. The study explored the interrelationship between changes in income and outgoings, as well as changing needs, and this article provides an insight into how social and personal resources are drawn on to help manage financial change and maintain stability. In doing so, it illustrates the extent of work that can be involved in maintaining a steady state in constrained circumstances.

Following Families: Working Lone-Mother Families and Their Children - Analysis of poverty dynamics based on large-scale survey data shows that there is limited mobility across the income distribution for most individuals and families. Some people may get better-off over the lifecourse, as their careers develop and wages rise, but overall most poor people do not become very rich and most rich people do not become very poor. Lone parents are at high risk of poverty in the UK, but this poverty risk is reduced for those who are in employment and who receive state financial support through Tax Credits to supplement their wages. This article reports on longitudinal qualitative research which has involved repeat interviews with lone mothers and their children over a period of three to four years. The analysis here explores the experiences of sustaining employment while living on a low, but complex, income and highlights the challenges faced in seeking financial security in this context.

Disability and Family Forms: Messages from the UK for Understanding Family Poverty Dynamics - There is limited evidence concerning the effect of impairment and disability experiences on the dynamics of family forms. We can summarise, from large cross-sectional data including the 2001 Census, that having a disability is associated with lower rates of marriage, controlling for age, and having fewer children. Some impairments appear to have very large effects. Our analysis then draws on longitudinal data from BHPS and FACS and suggests that for some disabled people there are significant barriers in accessing partnerships and parenting. This increased likelihood of lone parenting amongst disabled adults and parents of disabled children is of note in relation to a range of policy areas, including maternal employment, care (including parenting), child care and economic well-being. Our analysis also considers movements into and out of poverty; some of the effects of disability occur through a higher risk of poverty, but there remain effects attributable specifically to disability.

Income Dynamics and the Life Cycle - This article argues that our understanding of income and poverty dynamics benefits from taking a life-cycle perspective. A person’s age and family circumstances - the factors that shape their life cycle - affect the likelihood of experiencing key life events, such as partnership formation, having children, or retirement; this in turn affects their probability of experiencing rising, falling, or other income trajectories. Using ten waves of the British Household Panel Survey, we analyse the income trajectories of people at different stages in their lives in order to build a picture of income dynamics over the whole life cycle. We find that particular life events are closely associated with either rising or falling trajectories, but that there is considerable heterogeneity in income trajectories following these different events. Typically, individuals experiencing one of these life events are around twice as likely to experience a particular income trajectory, but most individuals will not follow the trajectory most commonly associated with that life event. This work improves our understanding of the financial impact of different life events and provides an indication of how effectively the welfare state cushions people against the potentially adverse impact of these events.

Poverty Dynamics and Agency - This focus of this article is the inter-relationship between structure and agency in understanding the dynamics of poverty. The article begins with some general reflections on the nature of agency, its relationship to structure, and models of agency in the context of poverty. It then outlines a resources or assets-based model, drawing in particular on the international development literature on livelihoods. This is followed by a typology of agency, which situates poverty dynamics in relation to a number of different kinds of agency exercised by people living in poverty: ‘getting by’ or everyday coping; ‘getting (back) at’ through ‘everyday resistance’; ‘getting out’ of poverty; and getting organized’ to effect change. The article then focuses on "getting by" as well as ‘getting out’ since the one is likely to be a prerequisite for the other. It concludes by re-affirming the need for interventions to embrace both agency and structure.

Lower and Middle Class Poverty - Several studies carried out using a dynamic approach show that poverty, although at different degrees of intensity and duration, is no longer an issue concerning only a defined portion of the population living in typically disadvantaged circumstances (e.g. in deprived areas), but is increasingly affecting other social classes that would normally benefit from adequate living conditions, including the growing poorer middle class and those with insecure or low paid jobs. We are not just referring to socially isolated groups of people, but to an intermediate heterogeneous social area, a dissimilar aggregate of individuals experiencing different trajectories of social mobility: members of the impoverished middle class, low income families reduced to poverty by different life events, people with unstable jobs and inadequate family and social support. Although with a different background, they have in common a more lasting precarious condition and a higher risk of poverty compared to other members of the middle class who can rely on better incomes and stronger social support and to the wealthier social classes. These social groups share, at least for a short period of their life, very difficult living conditions potentially affecting several aspects of their existence and limited resources to rely upon to sustain their life projects.

Poverty Dynamics Revisited: from Methods to Substance. The Development of Longitudinal Research in the UK - The benefits of a longitudinal or dynamic approach to research are now widely accepted. In recent years, the availability of such data continues to improve, covering administrative based sources (including population registers) as well as sample surveys. Further features of this research field include; (a) a growing recognition of the usefulness of qualitative approaches to the collection and analysis of longitudinal data, and (b) an emphasis on the policy implications from longitudinal analysis given analysts’ increased familiarity with the technical challenges posed by such data. Theoretical developments have examined the concept of ‘resilience’, and continue to address questions of structure and agency and the unfolding of differentiated life-courses.

R&D and innovation in Italian manufacturing firms: some evidence from the MET 2009 survey - This work provides results from a survey based on a very large sample (25,000 firms) of Italian manufacturing firms carried out by MET in 2008. This survey, completed straight before the deepening of the financial crisis, aims to offer a detailed picture of the Italian industrial system with its regional, dimensional and sector-based variability. We show some evidence related to innovation and R&D activities. Intense heterogeneity among Italian regions is identified (other than north/south dualism). The main contribution of the work is to provide some measures of innovation and R&D for the smallest firms. Firm size is particularly relevant in explaining the intensity of R&D and the spread of innovation. Nevertheless, there is a key role of small firms in explaining the aggregate innovation performance both at regional and national level. Strong links between Innovation, R&D and Internationalisation are confirmed. R&D activities among small firms have specific characteristics: external research is widespread with an important role played by laboratories shared with other firms.

Innovation and performance in the long run: the case of Europe - In this article we present the results of a recent work on the long-term mechanisms of innovation and performance in Europe which contributes to the European innovation scoreboard. Data from different waves of the Community Innovation Surveys (CIS) have been used as an instrument for understanding the evolution of innovative patterns in the long run. In particular, we provide a test on the long-run stability of innovation data. Moreover, a model deemed to capture the complexity of the innovation-performance relationship is proposed and estimated using CIS data.

Air travel routes and high speed rail connection between Milan and Rome after the Alitalia crisis This paper analyses the first available data about changes in passenger traffic and air/rail fares after the Alitalia crisis and the substantial reduction of the travel time between Milan and Rome, due to the improvement of high speed rail on this connection. As recently happened in similar cases within Europe, the rail has gained a significant share of traffic previously attracted by air transport services. Apart from that, a real price competition is prevented by a number of inefficiencies which are mainly due to the monopolistic position of the new Alitalia on the route Milan Linate-Rome Fiumicino and problems of accessibility affecting our airports, and partly our rail stations too. The role of the various authorities potentially involved is burdened, in the last instance, by infrastructural deficiencies.

The Alitalia crisis and the future of Malpensa airport: lessons from international cases This paper considers different cases of de-hubbing in Europe and the US to analyze their effect on airport traffic and passengers’ welfare. The final objective is to derive some possible implications for the development of Malpensa. We find that when a carrier abandons a hub there is always a significant and immediate decrease in passenger volumes and network quality. We find that de-hubbing is not likely to be completely reversible. It is the short-term reaction of airports, by favouring the entry of low-cost and network carriers that brings about irreversibility. In the mediumterm the analyzed airports recover traffic and network quality. Even if intercontinental direct services decrease, there are also advantages from the passengers’ perspective, among which cheaper fares for low-cost short-haul flights. However, Malpensa still retains valuable connections to the networks of the three major alliances and of other non-allied and low-cost carriers. One future development for the airport could be to take into itself to promote and coordinate transit passengers between independent airlines.

Dynamic capabilities in the semiconductor industry. A historical analysis from 1947 to 2007 - The purpose of the paper is to contribute to our understanding of the semiconductor industry’s evolution from a dynamic capability perspective. The paper tries to analyze how winner firms in the worldwide semiconductor industry dealt with resources reconfiguration. This idea is explored in a historical analysis of firms’ behaviour in the semiconductor industry from 1947 to 2007. The paper proposes managerial and public policies implications along with proposals for further research.

The logic of industrial policy in Italy from world war II to "Industria 2015" - The paper aims at discussing the logic lying behind sixty years of industrial policy in Italy. It is argued that during this time State intervention has been characterised by the issue of an increasing number of laws (mostly persisting over time) devoted to specific objectives, but at the same time paralleled by a tendency towards the reduction of their selectivity through the widening (i.e. the loosening) of the boundaries of the universe of firms they were thought for. Such a logic seems to have made way in recent years for a relatively new approach, as stated in the program "Industria 2015", which has put at the centre of the stage the need for limiting State aid to a selected group of (horizontally identified) industrial activities. The paper also discusses some apparent shortcomings of this approach, emphasising that a risk for a new weakening of its selective logic is still at work.

Decreasing weight of manufacturing industry in Europe? Between terziarization and opening of the value chains - This paper aims at understanding the decreasing weight of the manufacturing industry in the main European countries. The results obtained in this paper by using inputoutput tables seem to suggest that what we are observing is far from being a process of deindustrialisation of the European economies. On the contrary, these changes can be seen as the results of the manufacturing firms’ attempt to increase their competitiveness on the international markets. In so doing they tend to focus more and more on non-prices strategies (innovation, marketing, distribution, etc.), leaving to the Emerging countries the most labour-intensive phases of the production process. These strategies lead to a rise in the high-skilled -service jobs within the manufacturing firms, which interact increasingly with service sectors.

Increasing complexity in electricity regulation: who benefits? - After a short description of the evolution of incentive regulation, this paper explores some of the issues arisen with its implementation in the electricity sector both in the UK and Italy. It points out the challenge for a regulator to implement an incentive mechanism under imperfect information, and focuses on some distortions emerged as a result of the design of the incentive scheme itself.

Is the financial crisis a test for Basel II? - In the last few months the debate about the Basel II framework has been intensified by the extent of the current financial crisis. The main discussion focused also on the impact of the new capital regulation over the business cycle fluctuations. Some market players fear that the new framework may be pro-cyclical as it is based on risk sensitive principles. Indeed the Basel II Committee is working on reforming part of the existent regulation. But, at the same time, the soundness of the main body of the framework has been confirmed by the supervisors. Anyway it is unreasonable to think that an extensive regulation concerning capital requirements is enough to prevent any excess of the financial market. In fact, the best lesson we may learn from the present crisis is that only a sound and cautious corporate governance leads to a responsible balance between financial profits and underlying risks. A brief description of the crises on the Italian market is also presented. The traditionally conservative lending practice of the Italian banking system seems to have shielded, in part, this economy from the crisis.

Italian manufacturing through the crisis and credit selection - The heritage of the most striking financial crisis developed from within industrialized countries in recent years will have an impact on industrial companies for many months to come. In addition, the real effect of the crisis and its possible solutions are not yet entirely clear both in terms of magnitude and duration. The "benign" (and procyclical) spillover effects from the financial to the real sectors of the economy are about to change, moving from an open-handed, cheap, general credit, as experienced in the past ten years, to a more one-by-one, pricey, selective approach. The question of the selection and allocative function of banks is crucial to sustain a short-term recovery while ensuring a long-term feasible and sustainable development. In this framework, understanding how resilient and competitive Italian firms are is pivotal to ensure allocative efficiency. The authors suggest that during the last decade conventional wisdom and hard data have often underestimated the industrial upgrading that has taken place in the country. This is not a negligible detail when called to evaluate and select credit - a scarce resource - which if unproperly allocated may significantly distort the development options of a country’s industries.