RISULTATI RICERCA

Recenti studi hanno evidenziato come pratiche genitoriali disfunzionali (quali il controllo psicologico) si correlino con esiti maladattivi nei figli. L’obiettivo del presente studio è quello di indagare i meccanismi che sottendono l’insorgere di un uso dipendente delle nuo-ve tecnologie. 311 partecipanti, tra i 18 e i 26 anni, hanno compilato alcuni questionari. I risultati hanno evidenziato una relazione tra controllo psicologico genitoriale e dipendenza da Internet, da smartphone e da social network, attraverso la mediazione della suscettibilità al controllo. Questo studio contribuisce all’avanzamento della letteratura in merito alla com-binazione di fattori sociali e personali nell’eziologia delle nuove dipendenze e offre spunti alla riflessione sulla possibilità di considerare il controllo psicologico come una forma di abuso emotivo.

The Parenting Role Interview (PRI) is a research tool which has been introduced into a res-idential assessment home for parents referred for difficulties in interacting with their chil-dren, potential neglect/abuse issues and previous trauma. Staff were trained in the PRI to be used as part of their standard assessment procedure of parenting competence. This study describes a qualitative evaluation, through interviews and focus groups, of practitioner re-sponses to the PRI in a voluntary agency service setting. Transcripts from the interviews and focus groups were analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. Two main themes were drawn out from the data. The first theme revolved around the mainly positive impact of the PRI within the assessment service including the impact on staff, service users, the service as a whole and court reporting. The second theme focused on the applicability of the PRI to the service users focusing on the difficulty of fitting the measure around service us-ers’ experience of parenting and complex needs. Findings showed a number of key benefits from using the PRI within the overall assessment process particularly with regard to the objective nature of the measure and its ability to bring concrete examples. Limitations of the approach included time constraints and adaptations needed for the measure within this ser-vice user group. Overall the approach showed successful translation of research knowledge and methods in an assessment service.

Historical reports of mothers’ adverse experiences related to childhood neglect or abuse of her offspring have rarely been studied in older age samples. We know child maltreatment relates to life-long negative impacts including adult adversity, problem partner relationships, insecure attachment style and problem parenting. It is also often transmitted inter-generationally. Examining such transmission historically can give us access to previous generations still burdened by largely untreated impacts. This retrospective study was conducted in 100 dyads-paired older age mothers and their midlife daughters, to look at earlier family context for transmission of risk of child maltreatment. Mothers’ high levels of adult adversity, insecure attachment style, marked incompetence as a parent together with her partners’ disorder or criminal behaviour significantly related to daughters’ childhood maltreatment. The mothers’ own neglect/abuse in childhood showed a non-significant trend in relating. Logistic regression showed only mothers’ insecure attachment style and partner problem behaviour modelled daughters’ neglect/abuse. A detailed case study from the sample illustrates these findings. The study shows how historical information can be collected through intensive interview. This can illuminate intergenerational transmission from a period when safeguarding interventions were minimal and in mothers entering older age. It can also aid practitioner understanding of the origins of child maltreatment risk and transmission.

This study investigated how individual differences in the quality of maternal parenting, (i.e. caregiving) and daughter attachment security (i.e. care seeking) contribute to depressive symptoms in daughters. The Parenting Role Interview (PRI), was used to estimate the qual-ity of mothers’ parenting in a sample of 25 UK-based mother-adolescent daughter dyads (daughters were adolescents, with a mean age of 13.6 (± 1.5) years). Levels of depression were assessed in both mothers and daughters using appropriate versions of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and daughters also completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment. Results showed that daughter-mother attachment security and maternal parenting quality were both linked to daughter depression levels, however in a regression analysis, only attachment security predicted daughter depressive symptoms, suggesting that the daughter’s internalised bond with her mother hold more significance for psychological health outcomes.

The current paper focuses on the disclosure divulged by Italian Regions in their Anti-corruption Plans. It draws from the literature on the legitimacy theory to un-derstand whether the information provided is driven by symbolic legitimacy pur-poses to pursue formal compliance or by substantive attempts to secure greater levels of accountability. To this aim, the study employs a meaning-oriented con-tent analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis to assess the degree of thor-oughness and the heterogeneity of the information, also identifying possible fac-tors explaining any differences. The findings offer interesting implications for theo-ry, practitioners, and policy makers.

Management Accounting Systems (MAS) can help start-up companies to manage resource allocation and satisfy investors’ information needs. This study helps to investigate the main features of MAS adopted by Italian venture capital-backed start-up companies. Also, the study aims to analyse how venture capitalists monitor their investment through management accounting. Thirty semi-structured interviews were carried out to gather information from a corporate and an investor perspective. Our results show that both start-up companies and investors consider MAS as useful to make conscious and target-oriented decisions. MAS are used by investors to monitor the investee’s performance and contribute in aligning goals’ time horizon. In addition, MAS help investors to develop a cooperative relationship with start-up companies and to provide business advices. This study contributes to the agency-theory debate by showing that MAS help not only to reduce information asymmetries but also to foster a dialogue and to benefit from investors’ human capital.

The paper provides an analysis of Italian environmental taxes on electricity production and consumption in order to verify their consistency with the Polluters Pays Principle (PPP). The environmental external costs of air emissions generated by Italian thermal power plants are compared to environmental taxes paid by the same plants (fuel excise duties, SO2/NOx tax, ETS and levy on energy producers). As a basis for the comparison, the paper applies the methods for environmental external costs assessment recommended by the National Guidelines for the Evaluation of Investment Projects (2017). The PPP comparison highlights that the external costs related to thermal power plants emissions amount to about € 9,400 million (53.8 euro per MWh produced) whereas only € 350 million are actually paid through the above-mentioned environmental taxes (3.8% of the external costs generated). Indeed, the environmental taxes directly paid by all electricity customers in their bills (excise duty on electricity, system charges for subsidising renewable energy sources) are of the same order of magnitude of the external costs of power plants. However, seen from the PPP point of view, these two taxes have the drawback of environmental tax payment being made also by "green" customers, i.e. whose electricity is bought with the guarantee of being "produced from renewable energy sources". The authors argue that environmental taxes directly falling on electricity producers are consistent with the PPP and provide in principle a better price signal to electricity markets, rather than environmental taxes directly paid by customers. Shifting current environmental taxes from electricity consumption to production would support the implementation of two of the main targets of the National Energy Strategy (2017), such as the progressive phase-out of coal at 2025 and the 55% RES electric target at 2030, while increasing the coherence and fairness of taxes paid on electricity.

In some cost benefit analysis (CBA) applications, such as those used for the valuation of climate change damage, distributional weights are used to account for diminishing utility of marginal consumption. This is usually done by means of intra-temporal distributional weights, which are combined with discounting to account for inter-temporal equity and efficiency. Sometimes region-specific discount rates have used to account for differences in projected growth across geographical areas. Here I show that if intra-temporal distributional weights are used in combination with endogenous and region-specific discount rates, then this will lead to a double counting of per capita economic growth. This problem has been known for some years now - in the tight circle of top climate economist - but the peer-reviewed literature has been rather implicit about the matter. The contribution of this paper is therefore to make the problem explicit by handle it formally, and to expand its generality somewhat. It is demonstrated - using the PAGE2002 model - that correct the way of combining distributional weights and discounting yield about 20-30% higher estimates than the incorrect method. .

The UK’s draft Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan has been heavily criticised by its independent panel set up to advise on climate change, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The CCC found that the UK was not prepared for the likely temperature increases, that policies were not sufficient to meet the targets for the period up to 2032 and that policies for sectors other than electricity needed to be strengthened. The European Commission had some criticisms but in view of the UK’s plans to leave the European Union, they are likely to have little impact.

The Spanish National Energy and Climate Plan has been considered by many as one of the most ambitious ones presented in Europe. The Plan envisages a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2030 of 21% compared to 1990; a 42% share of energy end-use from renewables (74% in electricity generation); and a 39.6% improvement in energy efficiency. These targets, which go well beyond those agreed previously for Spain with the European Commission, are feasible, and widely shared by many stakeholders. However, for this Plan to become a reality, and for the economic opportunities it presents to materialize, more effort has to be put on the means deployed to achieve the ends desired. More ambition is needed in the detail, funding and innovation of the policies that will allow to meet the targets and to take advantage of the development opportunities. In particular, a stronger emphasis should be placed on the role of taxation and economic instruments, as proven tools to achieve these targets efficiently; and on the innovation and industrial policy required to generate jobs and economic development domestically.

The purpose of this paper is to review the main content of the draft version of the National Energy and Climate Plan for the years 2021-2030 of Poland. The main objectives, targets, policies and measures are described. Tools planned to be used to achieve the goals are presented. Ambitiousness of the plan, probability of achieving the objectives and difficulties that may be encountered in implementing the envisaged policies are discussed. The transformation of the Polish power sector, which has the biggest share in GHG emissions from all ETS sectors, has already begun. It is expected that the share of coal in the electricity generation mix will drop from the current ca. 77% to 60% in 2030. The biggest challenge in the non-ETS sector will be to achieve emission reduction targets in the transport sector. Emissions from transport are rising and are expected to continue to rise as a result of economic development and increasing passenger and freight transport.

The Netherlands has formulated ambitious energy and climate targets for 2030: 49% CO2 emission reduction by 2030 and 80 to 95% by 2050 in comparison to 1990. This target has been laid down in a Climate Act and pathways to meet this target have been negotiated and agreed upon in a public-private Climate Agreement, which will be signed in 2019. This way, the Netherlands has its ‘greenest government’ ever and by means of the dual approach - Climate Act in accordance with a Climate Agreement, the Netherlands is set out to become a sustainability leader. Yet, the Netherlands lags behind on meeting the European Union targets for 2020: 20% energy efficiency, 20% share of renewable energy, translated to 14% for the Netherlands and 20% CO2 emission reduction. In other words, catching up and becoming a leader will present a challenge. The objective of the present paper is to introduce and discuss the Dutch climate and energy policy, looking back at the decade 2000-2020 first, and then addressing the vision for the next decade (2020-2030). By doing so, an analysis is provided of the instruments introduced to support the pathways to meet the targets, exposing some issues and even some contradictions in Dutch policy. This paper is timely, as the minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy has introduced a legislative agenda in September 2019, of Acts to be updated or introduced in order to execute and realize the Climate Act and Climate Agreement successfully. This paper will contribute to the consistency of the policy and instruments to be introduced.

The Italian draft National Energy-Climate Plan (NECP), in accordance with the requirements of the Regulation on the Governance of the EU Energy Union, deals with the five dimensions of the Energy Union. However, energy security, the internal energy market and research, innovation and competitiveness are not examined in this paper. The present assessment of the Italian energy-climate plan proposal is limited to three dominant objectives: decarbonization, energy efficiency (or better: energy savings) and the deployment of renewables. This paper reviews the contents of the 2030 objectives and the tools proposed to achieve them and expresses an overall assessment of the NECP proposal presented by the Italian Government. Globally, the targets presented by Italy for 2030 are slightly higher than those assigned by the EU: 34.6% instead of 33% for emission reduction compared to 2005, a 30% instead of 29% share of energy from renewables in gross final consumption and an approximate 40% reduction of the energy demand instead of 32.5% (compared to the baseline scenario for 2030 of PRIMES 2007, which remains the reference of the European EED). The proposed objectives are ambitious and demonstrate Italy’s full adherence to the long-term vision of the EU Commission, which judged them positively in its assessment. The proposed interventions are very numerous and concern all economic sectors. Their implementation requires a capacity of the public administration which is not always available in Italy, which is also due to an institutional system that requires a high level of coordination between the various stakeholders. The intervention tools indicated are not novel with respect to those developed and used in the past. Furthermore, in some cases they are generic and in other cases, the concrete measures only cover a limited period and therefore only partially guarantee the achievement of the set objectives. This way of proceeding, although criticized by the Commission in its assessment of the Italian NECP, preserves comprehensible and indeed desirable degrees of flexibility due to the impossibility of predicting the evolution of variables such as technology, international prices or the response of private subjects to public interventions over a long period of time. However, if the results were not in line with expectations, action should be taken promptly, which is problematic given the time required for public decisions in Italy.