RISULTATI RICERCA

An international debate on which economic instrument should be used to reduce pollutant emissions has begun since the nineties when the awareness of climatic risks aroused and first attempts to introduce a European carbon tax were made. Although this project failed, several national programmes of carbon/energy taxes have been developed with a common concern for industrial competitiveness of energy and/or carbon-intensive firms. Therefore, double dividend schemes have been applied to reduce existing distorsive taxes while introducing a higher burden on energy products. This paper reviews the most important European case studies and analyses the effects of the introduction of a carbon tax in Italy on energy expenditure and economic profitability of Italian manufacturing enterprises. This tax has been introduced in 1998 and should have progressively increased up to the final tax rates in 2005. However, this process halted in the year 2000 as the world energy prices increased and the ultimate rates have never been applied. Nonetheless, our analysis offers relevant insights both because energy excises are a major instrument in environmental policy and because industrial activities affected by energy taxes will also be affected by the tradable permits scheme recently adopted by the European Union. The study is performed with a microsimulation model to simulate changes in energy excises and the associated reduction of social contributions to achieve the double dividend. Existing empirical analyses have usually been carried out at aggregate or sectoral level, but the effects on costs both of carbon tax and of compensative measures differ at the firm level, thus it is significant to study the impact on economic profitability on individual units of analysis. The data show that energy expenditure as a component of intermediate costs varies by economic activity as well as the energy mix used in the production process, thus suggesting possible competitiveness problems for some firms as taxation is linked to the carbon content of each energy source. A further element is the sectoral and dimensional variability of prices of some energy products which introduces an additional information to evaluate the impact of rising international energy quotations. The empirical results show a large sectoral and dimensional differentiation of economic effects although the estimated impact on competitiveness is negligible for most sectors. The difference is due to the energy intensity of production and to the energy mix for each process as well as to the quantity of labour employed. In general, the tax burden in the year 2000 has produced fiscal savings compared to the previous tax rules, as the reduction of social contributions has been higher than the cost due to the carbon tax. However, some exceptions occur: economic activities where heavily-taxed products are used such as coal and coke are not fully compensated by the social contribution cut: this is the case of metal products and the production of non metallic mineral products. Moreover, small and medium enterprises benefited more than large industrial firms. As the EU tradable permits scheme will fully come into force and a policy mix of excises and permits on energy products will deploy its effects on the same group of energy-intensive firms, this set of fiscal environmental rules is likely to produce dissimilar effects by economic sectors and by firm size which are worth investigating.

Sustainable development in the EU: a political and economic explanation (by Salvo Creaco) - ABSTRACT: Seeking to identify the principal actions needed to make sure that the process towards sustainability be given a much wider impulsion, the Fifth Environmental Action Programme of the EU underlined the increasing need for the application of a broader range of instruments aimed at influencing decisions which affect the environment. In this perspective economic tools were seen as the most adequate and powerful instruments available for efficient use and management of natural resource base in addition to and complementary not only to direct regulations but also to social pressure, negotiation and other forms of moral suasion. Thus, at the beginning of the 1990s, the European environmental policy began a transformation from merely growth-oriented model to sustainable development, moving into its second stage of environmental agenda. Widening the portfolio of policy instruments represents a main aspect of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme as well. In the search for innovative and sustainable solutions to the problems of the internalisation of the negative as well as positive impacts of production and consumption patterns on the environment, the new Programme requires, inter alia: encouraging reforms of subsidies that have considerable negative effects on the environment and are incompatible with sustainable development; analysing the environmental efficiency of tradable environmental permits as a generic instrument and of emission trading with a view to promoting and implementing their use where feasible; promoting and encouraging the use of fiscal measures such as environmentally related taxes and incentives, at the appropriate national or Community level; promoting the integration of environmental protection requirements in standardisation activities. In order to analyse whether the process towards sustainability started in 1992 has taken roots, several evaluation studies revealed that broadening the range of instruments had proved to be more difficulty than envisaged when the recent European environmental policy was adopted. With the inevitable consequence that the most common environmental policy solution had frequently continued to be direct regulations. The scant progress in widening the range of instruments for control and behavioural change confirms the existence of a large disagreement between the normative prescriptions of economic theory and decisions effectively taken within the political process. If a large divergence between theory and practices often prevails, the relevant issue is then to understand why EU and Member States have failed to refer to the proposed wider box of instruments. In this direction, this paper points out the usefulness of the contribution that public choice theory can provide for understanding why particular environmental instruments are actually adopted and implemented. According to the individualistic approach of public choice, the paper deals with the issue concerning the choice and implementation of environmental policy tools through the analysis of the functioning of two strictly connected markets: the political market and the para-political market, and tries to give an explanation as to why in representative democracies, in which forces may be identified as demand and supply, an incentive-oriented environmental policy has many difficulties of being implemented.

Costs, benefits, and international financing related to the water sector in the Danube and Black Sea region in the perspective of WFD implementation (by Susanna Paleari) - ABSTRACT: Further to constitute a challenge for many EU15 countries, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is going to represent the main reference for the process of approximation of water legislation of ‘accession countries’, as well as water policy and legislation of many ‘third countries’ of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In this work we focus on expected investment costs, estimated benefits, and external financing programmes for water policies and WFD implementation in an extensive geographical area, the Black Sea region, which includes the Danube Basin (that is the second largest European water basin after the Volga Basin) and covers industrial and agricultural areas of 22 countries. As we are primarily interested in the economic aspects of water policies and the WFD implementation in the above geographical area, we will develop a joint analysis of: (a) the available estimates on the size of investments in the water sector required to approximate the provisions and/or (depending on single countries) the principles of WFD; (b) the available estimates on the expected benefits from implementing EU water legislation and the WFD; (c) the flows of international assistance and financial resources available during the next few years for investing in water-sector infrastructures and management in the countries of the Black Sea region. The approximation of EU water legislation and the implementation of the WFD will entail huge investment costs by accession countries during the next decades and water is expected be the most significant area of investment within the environmental sector in the majority of these countries. The attempts to estimate economic and environmental benefits indicate that the same process of compliance with EU legislation and the WFD will produce significant benefits for the economy and the environment of these countries. During the last part of the 1990s, however, the trends of actual expenses in environmental and water infrastructures in the countries of the Black Sea region as a whole have been lower than the estimated level required for the implementation of water legislation and the WFD. For this reason, international financial assistance and economic resource transfers to these countries, in the framework of EU enlargement and European integration, can have a key role in boosting investments in the water sector towards approximation to the EU water legislation. The extension and the overall financial endowment of the complex network of the existing water programmes and initiatives is impressive and seems to be great enough to establish an upward, sustained trend of water-related investments in the countries considered, thus bringing to a good process of approximation to EU standards.

How can the WFD cost categories made more feasible? (by Ingo Heinz) - ABSTRACT: One of the key challenges laid down in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is to evaluate water services in such a way that the charges for such services reflect all their costs. The prices for water supply and other services have to capture the costs incurred by the provision of these services. However, in practice there are different views on this cost-recovery principle. One of them confines it to the costs of the equipment needed to ensure the provision of the services the so-called financial costs. Another approach incorporates the environmental costs, which are usually not taken sufficiently into account in cost calculations of water users. They are related to environmental damage caused, for instance, by overuse of waters or excessive water pollution. The economic evaluation of environmental damage is sometimes difficult or not possible at all. The costs of preventing and mitigating such damage are therefore often used as a proxy. A third cost definition refers to the resource costs. This category can be interpreted as those costs that are caused by a failure to use water resources optimally. A typical example is an inefficient water allocation among different water users due to a ‘wrong’ assignment of water rights. By changing such an allocation additional benefits from water use may be obtained. Another example is insufficient investment in installations to ensure water supply in the future. From a long-term perspective, the future benefits can exceed the present costs. The WFD has recognised these three cost categories. However, there are some uncertainties regarding the definitions and calculation methods. In particular, the definition of resource costs may cause confusion in distinguishing them from the environmental costs. For instance, an excessive depletion of water resources can cause both environmental damage (e.g. impaired forests) and resource costs. However, the resource costs should be understood as the additional economic value of water that is required to reach an optimal or sustainable use of water. There are several tools, such as the cost-effectiveness analysis, the cost benefit analysis or even hydro-economic models (such as developed in the Jucar river basin, Spain) which can help to determine the forgone economic benefits and the corresponding charges. With regard to the term financial costs, further clarifications also appear to be necessary, even though this type of cost calculation causes less methodological problems. There are various cost calculation methods, which can lead to considerable differences in the computed costs. For instance, discount rates in calculating the annual capital costs can differ (interest rates on capital markets versus social discount rates). The financial costs of water services can be very sensitive to changes in the value of the discount rate applied. Even a small increase in this value can make a project ‘too expensive’. A further clarification may be needed with regard to the depreciation method for calculating the annual capital costs (usually the main component of the financial costs of water services). Should they be calculated on the basis of current or future replacement values? Should they include additional investments needed in the future? In the following, the possibilities for and the limitations of the application of the ambitious WFD cost and water pricing approach will be analysed. Recommendations will also be made with regard to a clearer definition of each of the three cost categories.

In questo articolo si descrive il lavoro svolto negli ultimi quattro anni dal gruppo di specialisti che, nell’ASL 5 della regione Piemonte, si occupa di DCA. La problematica è multifattoriale e complessa, ed il gruppo di lavoro risponde all’esigenza di prendersi cura in maniera integrata degli indivisibili aspetti che modellano la complessità degli individui (aspetti fisici, psicologici, relazionali, ambientali). Per questo motivo sin dalla prima visita, che possiamo chiamare accoglienza, due clinici incontrano le persone sofferenti, anche accompagnate dai familiari, ascoltando le difficoltà e rispondendo alla richiesta di aiuto in maniera integrata e specifica.

I Servizi di Psicologia della regione Piemonte rappresentano una particolarità rispetto ad altre regioni in quanto nascono per rispondere in modo specifico alle esigenze organizzative e assistenziali delle singole aziende; questo ha determinato evidenti differenze nelle organizzazioni dei servizi stessi. Ciò ha anche permesso l’attivazione di numerosi progetti e aree specifiche di ricerca che spesso sono differenti nei diversi servizi e rappresentano una ricchezza per il sistema sanitario regionale. Lo scopo di questo articolo è di proporre una lettura delle attività dei Servizi di Psicologia utilizzando i dati provenienti dai flussi informativi standardizzati; inoltre si propone una censimento qualitativo delle aree di attività attuali e le linee di sviluppo a breve termine: burn out, customer satisfaction e psicologia dell’emergenza.

La riduzione dei tempi di ospedalizzazione e l’utilizzo di tecnologie sempre più sofisticate limitano molto la relazione tra paziente e operatori sanitari. In particolare, nonostante siano noti i benefici psicologici e in termini di outcome di un colloquio informativo da parte dell’infermiere professionale prima di un intervento chirurgico, difficilmente esso viene effettuato. Il presente studio, pur nella semplicità del metodo, dimostra come un colloquio informativo da parte della nurse di anestesia riduce l’ansia connessa all’attesa dell’intervento chirurgico e al timore del dolore. In un’ottica di etica e deontologia professionale, questo sarebbe già motivo sufficiente per introdurre tale tipo di colloquio nella prassi quotidiana. In un’ottica amministrativa tuttavia, è necessario effettuare uno studio più approfondito che evidenzi eventuali benefici nel decorso post-operatorio.

Nella presente ricerca qualitativa sono stati intervistati otto pazienti con impianto ICD al fine di valutare le caratteristiche dell’adattamento (cambiamenti egosintonici vs. cambiamenti egodistonici) e la QdV (buona vs critica). Nonostante i risultati non possano essere generalizzati a causa del disegno di ricerca e del limitato numero di soggetti intervistati, le narrazioni dei pazienti confermano che per alcuni pazienti l’ICD rappresenta un elemento di rassicurazione che migliora la QdV, mentre altri lo considerano un condizionamento difficile da tollerare. In conclusione sono discussi alcuni possibili piani di intervento che potrebbero contribuire al miglioramento della QdV: l’informazione, l’educazione e la consultazione psicologica.

Viene presentata una attività di ricerca-intervento sulla promozione della salute, secondo l’approccio biopsicosociale proposto dall’OMS (1983), particolarmente rivolta agli adolescenti, assumendo che proprio in adolescenza possono manifestarsi alcuni comportamenti problematici (alimentazione scorretta; consumo di alcol e fumo di sigarette; sesso precoce e non protetto; vita sedentaria); che anche la scuola ha un ruolo essenziale da svolgere nella promozione della salute; e che la mera informazione non ha un effetto significativo per la promozione di una cultura della salute e per l’adozione di un consono stile di vita. Ad un intervento informativo è stato affiancato anche un processo formativo, teso all’acquisizione di specifiche life skills. Prodotti testuali e multimediali definiti ad hoc sono stati proposti ad adolescenti (356 soggetti), in un piano di ricerca di tipo quasi-sperimentale. Tramite un questionario, utilizzato nella fase di pre- e post-test, sono stati rilevati: atteggiamento verso la salute, conoscenze, abitudini, intenzioni, percezioni del rischio, locus of control, autoefficacia e benessere. I risultati evidenziano una tendenza a riferire abitudini sane e valori elevati per tutte le variabili, tranne che per la percezione del rischio. L’intervento in-formativo nel suo insieme ha prodotto un aumento nella percezione del rischio e nell’autoefficacia, con una diminuzione di internalità del controllo della salute e della sola dimensione psicologica del benessere. Relazioni positive sono state riscontrate tra il benessere e le altre variabili rilevate, tranne nel caso della percezione del rischio, con cui sussiste una relazione negativa. Di una certa importanza si sono dimostrate anche le differenze tra i soggetti per genere, età e formazione.

Questa ricerca si focalizza sul possibile ruolo svolto dalla scuola nel consumo di sostanze psicoattive in Italia e nei Paesi Bassi, e indaga la relazione, nel tempo, tra alcuni aspetti dell’esperienza scolastica ed il coinvolgimento nell’uso di sostanze psicoattive. La ricerca ha previsto la somministrazione, due volte a distanza di un anno, di un questionario ad un campione di 473 soggetti, di ambo i sessi, di età compresa tra i 14 e i 19 anni, frequentanti diversi tipi di scuola media superiore. I risultati indicano che successo scolastico e importanza attribuita alla scuola si configurano come i principali fattori di protezione. In particolare essi sembrano più efficaci nel proteggere dal coinvolgimento nell’uso delle sostanze più diffuse in ogni nazione, quali marijuana e tabacco in Italia e alcol nei Paesi Bassi.

Il presente lavoro propone una chiave di lettura del disagio adolescenziale in termini di categoria fluida (Rosch, 1978) poiché, accanto ad aspetti più marcatamente patologici, coesistono aspetti legati alla normale fatica di crescere. Partendo da questa considerazione teorica si è cercato di approfondire le diverse rappresentazioni di adolescenti o adulti, in quanto categorie sociali interessate con un diverso grado di responsabilità al problema (Emiliani, 2003). La ricerca ha, quindi, coinvolto ragazzi e ragazze con un’età compresa fra i 16 e i 17 anni, un gruppo di genitori con figli di età inferiore ai 10 anni e un gruppo di genitori con figli adolescenti. A ciascun gruppo sociale è stata presentata una storia fluida di disagio, interpretabile, cioè, in termini di rischio o come espressione di un normale processo di crescita, che terminava con una richiesta di aiuto rivolta, alternativamente, a un amico, a un familiare, a uno psicologo, o a nessuno. La nostra ipotesi è che la percezione del disagio e le rappresentazioni legate alla richiesta di aiuto cambino fra adulti e adolescenti. I dati hanno messo in luce diverse interpretazioni della storia non solo fra adulti e ragazzi, ma nel gruppo di adolescenti, anche rispetto al genere.

Le funzioni dei comportamenti a rischio in adolescenza sono state indagate per lo più utilizzando dei metodi quantitativi. La rappresentazione cosciente da parte degli adolescenti dei motivi del loro comportamento è stata invece considerata raramente. L’obiettivo di questo studio è di indagare il punto di vista dell’adolescente sulle ragioni per avere rapporti sessuali, per usare droga e per non usare il preservativo, attraverso un’intervista semi-strutturata, sottoposta ad analisi del contenuto. Il campione è costituito da 70 adolescenti per le interviste sulla droga e da 82 per le interviste sul sesso, con età compresa tra 14 e 19 anni. I risultati evidenziano che, sia per il rapporto sessuale, sia per la droga, le ragioni più citate sono l’appar¬tenenza al gruppo e la sperimentazione. Emerge una sostanziale congruenza tra i dati quantitativi presenti in letteratura e quelli emersi dalle interviste.

Nel presente contributo vengono discusse alcune spiegazioni dei comportamenti a rischio durante l’adolescenza che chiamano in causa il ruolo delle relazioni sociali (come fattore di rischio o di protezione) nell’ambito di diversi contesti di vita: la famiglia, il gruppo dei coetanei, il vicinato e la comunità. Si sottolinea l’importanza di dedicare maggiore attenzione all’analisi delle loro interconnessioni e allo studio di contesti tradizionalmente meno considerati come quelli della comunità, alla luce anche dei più recenti approcci alla prevenzione e promozione della salute nell’ambito della psicologia della salute di comunità.