RISULTATI RICERCA

Assuming that the concept of social capital has a heuristic capacity if applied to the study of international migrations, the article employs it as a key to understand the features of Moroccan immigration in Lombardy, with specific attention to female immigration, which is less known and investigated by the research in Italy. By making use of the concept of social capital is possible to explain settlement strategies of the Moroccans and their integration dynamics in the local labour market. However, studying the peculiarity of these phenomena, it becomes clear that it is necessary to consider the different types of social capital as first Putnam and more recently Woolcock and Fiedl suggested, distinguishing by three types: bonding, bridging, linking in order to understand which one is the more common in an ethnic group, the Moroccans, that is described as a familistic community. Furthermore, the article tries to investigate both the link existing between social capital and human capital, and the role that local institutions could have in developing social capital.

L’obiettivo del presente lavoro è l’analisi della relazione fra performance innovativa e fattori socio-istituzionali a livello territoriale. Emergono come rilevanti oltre al capitale sociale altre variabili quali l’attivismo istituzionale e l’accumulazione di esperienze di azione collettiva fra imprese. A parità di condizione, per le imprese l’adozione di innovazioni risulta più probabile in un contesto locale dove il capitale sociale e elevato (e i fenomeni di illecito economico e criminalità sono contenuti), il tessuto delle relazioni sociali risulta esteso, le istituzioni intermedie svolgono un ruolo attivo e la tradizione di esperienze positive di cooperazione tra imprese appare particolarmente ricca.

The fundamental purpose of the article is to analyse the concept of social capital from a critical perspective. After being introduced into the social sciences by the economics (Loury) and political science (Putnam), this concept has gained an high credit in the sociological research. From a theoretical point of view, a central question is whether or not this concept can make advances for the social theory, once compared with the traditional background of sociology. In this regard, the usual stress that has been laid on social relations as specific element of this concept signals a characteristic which is doubtless highly relevant from a sociological point of view, but which has not been elaborated and conceptualised through an innovative perspective in the theory of social capital. Moreover, one can also observe the fact that such an element (probably showing an original, economic and political interest in the sociological paradigms) is usually applied only to specific social phenomena, such as group solidarity, thus being expunged from other types of phenomena, such as money and power, which, once adequately analysed, are instead rooted in their own forms of social relations that is, in their own forms of social capital.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of the growth of 510 Italian NTBF during the time span 1990-2001. Firstly, it considers the relation among growth, size and age of firms. Secondly, it focuses on the role that human capital of founders and selective public funds play in determining firm growth addressing the consequences of potential endogeneity of public subsides to human capital of founders. Results show that smaller firms grow quickly. Contrary to common evidence, age impact positively on firm growth; industry-specific characteristics can explain this result. Firm growth is also influenced by those characteristics of founders related to their "vocational" attitude, as proxied by the academical choice, and to their inter-industry work experience. Once correcting for potential endogeneity of public subsides, we demonstrate that they do not favor the growth of NTBFs. There is evidence of self-selection on the access to public subsides by the most capable founders.

Francesco Saverio Nitti’s economic thought has been widely studied, but the influence of education on economic progress and growth is still relatively neglected in the relevant literature. This paper identifies two mechanisms by which, according to Nitti, human capital positively affects the economic system. Firstly, education contributes to economic growth because it spurs innovation. The second mechanism has its roots in Classical economic thought: education affects the economic system as it influences people’s behavior by making them wiser. Nitti reinterprets this approach, by establishing a link between human capital and social capital. In his view, education makes people able to collaborate and to hinder antisocial behaviour, such as the corruption and patronage that hampered Italian economic and social development. Finally this paper examines the role of human capital in Nitti’s program for the development of southern Italy.

The attention to business networks, therefore to the business relationships among companies, supply chain operators, manufacturers and consumers, aimed at commercial transactions, exchange of information, sharing of norms and associations of resources become an asset in the definition of modern strategies of competitive advantage for agribusiness companies. In this perspective, the short chain represents an interesting business model network, rooted in the specific territorial context, which, through specific organizational characteristics and diversified multi-functional activities, is enhanced by human and social resources, internal and external (at the company), and able to act on the local aggregation process and territorial value creation. Share capital and human capital become, therefore, the determining factors for the effectiveness of the short food supply chain experiences, especially in the inland areas, and for wider dissemination and sharing of the value created. Aim of this work is an analysis of the functional relationships between social capital and human capital in farms, diversified and multifunctional, which have taken paths of short chain. For this purpose, the empirical verification aimed to investigate how the quality of human capital affects the effectiveness of relational networks and how it could lead to have impacts on the performance of short chain, improving its ability to create value for the enterprise and for the territory. The results of the study made possible to understand the mechanisms and the strategic variables of this innovative mode of direct governance of transactions between producer and consumer-citizen, in specific territorial rural systems, and to indicate useful policy implications.

L’articolo analizza dal punto di vista storico e teorico il rapporto tra capitale umano e migrazioni. In particolare, descrive un percorso in cui diverse teorie considerano i migranti come agenti economici che, spostandosi geograficamente, tentano di accedere a opportunità di reddito più elevate, incrementando così l’ef¬fetto dei loro guadagni nel ciclo vitale. Tale ricostruzione va dalla comparsa della prima rudimentale teoria del capitale umano di Adam Smith (1776) fino alla moderna prospettiva teorica di Larry Sjaastad (1962), che fa perno sul grado di trasferibilità delle conoscenze e competenze proprio attraverso i fenomeni migratori. Seguendo questa traiettoria, l’articolo sostiene che i procedimenti che si utilizzano entro la teoria del capitale umano consolidano, anche nell’applicazione ai fenomeni migratori, un approccio metodologico che fa riferimento all’analisi costi-benefici. Oltre che in alcuni riferimenti alla cultura economica classica o addirittura precedente, ciò è individuabile seguendo tre snodi storiografici significativi: il dibattito europeo sul valore economico della vita umana tra Otto e Novecento; il confronto di matrice statunitense sul valore dell’uomo a fini assicurativi negli anni ’30; l’analisi sui differenziali salariali decretato dal successo della Chicago School nei primi anni ’60.