RISULTATI RICERCA

In 1953 Herbert Simon provided an explication of the causal relation which was to become quite popular among economists. The “causal ordering” was established in a complete system of equations, whose nature has not been completely clarified, neither in the 1953 nor in subsequent papers by Simon and other co-authors. This paper purports to show that serious problems are likely to arise when equilibrium conditions are explicitly included (as it should be) among the equations composing the model. This is especially true when the causal ordering is used for assigning modal indeces to factual propositions, as in the analysis of counterfactuals proposed by Simon-Rescher. So, despite its similarity with the explication of causality advanced by other authors (Wold being the explicit reference), it is not sure that Simon fully succeeded in explicating the “intuitive” notion of causality.

As Bas van Fraassen clearly put it in his Laws and Symmetry (1989), any adequate philosophical account of laws of nature must at least solve two main problems: the problem of identification and the problem of inference. After a short presentation of these two problems and a brief survey of several, in my view unsuccessful, regularist and necessitarian philosophical attempts solve them, a neo-Aristotelian necessitarian account of laws is offered, which resorts to dispositions or causal powers, and which provides an attractive solution to the two problems raised by van Fraassen. Such neo-Aristotelian account also explains why there are regularities in nature and why laws support the truth of counterfactual conditionals. The papers ends with a succinct discussion of the connection of dispositions with experience.

Carbon dioxide Emission is one of the environment degradation resulted from economic activities. The study aims at revealing the relation of macroeconomic indicators with carbon dioxide emission in ASEAN 5 countries. Carbon dioxide emission is a dependent variable explained by macroeconomic indicator variables such as GDP, trades, energy consumption and exchange rates as an independent variable. The data employed are time series data, the annual data in ASEAN 5 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippine and Sin-gapore) from the period of 1975 to 2011. The research employs two methods of analysis; narrative descriptive qualitative and VAR (Vector Auto Regressive) method. The estimated research findings indicate different results concerning macroeconomic indicators affecting the carbon dioxide emission in ASEAN 5. AR results reveal that GDP in Indonesia has sig-nificant negative effect while the energy consumption shows a significant positive effect. Meanwhile, the variables such as GDP, trades and exchange rate have a significant positive affect in Malaysia. In Singapore, energy consumption has a significant effect and the exchange rate has positive significant one. Lastly, the Philippine shows that exchange rate variable indicates a significant effect towards carbon dioxide emission.

The notion of "causal web" emerged in the epidemiological literature in the early Sixties and had to wait until the Nineties for a thorough critical appraisal. Famously, Nancy Krieger argued that such a notion isn’t helpful unless we specify what kind of spiders create the web. This means, according to Krieger, (i) that the role of the spiders is to provide an explanation of the yarns of the web and (ii) that the sought spiders have to be biological and social. This paper contributes to the development of the notion of causal web, elaborating on the two following points: (i) to catch the spiders we need multi-fold evidence - specifically, mechanistic and difference-making - and (ii) for the eco-social approach to be explanatory, the web has to be mechanistic in a sense to be specified.

As with any scientific revolution, quantum mechanics entailed a profound revision of our fundamental epistemological concepts and also of our worldview as a whole. This was the case for the concepts of causality and reality. Around these concepts, there arose in the third decade of the last century a heated debate in which almost all the scientists and philosophers of the time took part and which in a certain sense is still going on today. The Author provides a reconstruction of the various different positions, from the "conservative" attempt to defend determinism to the most radical stochastic positions, and singles out in Ernst Cassirer’s solution the most convincing approach.

This paper offers a personal view on recent developments in the field of spatial econometrics. The approach is subjective and certainly biased. I focus on three issues that I consider of the utmost importance and which are at the basis of the discipline, namely spatial causality, the question of identification in spatial models, and the problem of selecting the (most appropriate) spatial weighting matrix. These three topics are receiving increasing attention in the spatial econometrics literature, although there are still many issues to be resolved. They will most likely be areas of intense activity in the near future.

La terra è tornata ad essere un asset chiave per la crescita economica delle nazioni. A riguardo, il caso cinese è di particolare interesse. La Cina infatti necessita di risorse naturali esterne per mantenere gli attuali tassi di crescita e la cosiddetta diaspora cinese è una strategia per affrontare lo squilibrio demografico di genere. L’Africa è quindi un partner cruciale per sostenere la strategia di espansione globale cinese. Sullo sfondo di queste considerazioni, l’articolo analizza l’acquisizione di terre nel continente africano da parte della Cina. Si delineano innanzitutto i fattori economici e demografici che spingono la Cina verso le terre africane. Viene poi analizzato il caso dei villaggi Baoding, che hanno per lungo tempo costituito un elemento di attrazione e propaganda degli investitori cinesi in Africa. Infine, si prendono in considerazione le strategie e l’ampiezza del land grabbing cinese in Africa, con riferimento alle conseguenze sui regimi di proprietà fondiaria e alle relazioni tra capitale e lavoro.

This paper explores causes and implications of the auditor changes. We investigate the US setting in which the changes are voluntary and there is mandatory disclosure about the reasons for the change. The findings show that changes with a departing Big-4 are motivated by the auditor’s concerns about the client firm weaknesses in internal control processes and compliance with law. The changes between Non-Big-4 auditors are associated with the issuance of going concern qualified opinions, suggesting possible audit opinion shopping by client firms. The switches from a Non-Big-4 to a Big-4 auditor are associated with issues related to the application of accounting standards. Overall, our findings suggest that changes allow auditors to better organise their audit, and balance the objectives of their assignments and the maintenance of effective client relations. The balance of reasonably effective internal controls systems and of risk-proportioned audit fees is at the core of negotiations between audit and client firms. Also, the search for more effective audit and higher governance and financial markets reputation may motivate the switch from a smaller audit firm to a Big-4. The information regarding auditor changes can shed light upon the financial reporting practices and management behaviour, signalling to investors any potential misrepresentation, to the management potential risk areas and to regulators where they might need to intervene to enforce auditor and management independence.

L’indagine descritta in questo articolo ha l’obiettivo di identificare le cause e le possibili soluzioni della dispersione scolastica in Campania e di stimare i fattori che possano influenzare le opinioni di studenti e insegnanti. Lo strumento utilizzato è un modello econometrico che ben si presta ad elaborare dati di questio-nari e che rappresenta, in base a quanto rilevato, un approccio utile ed efficace anche in ambito educativo. I risultati mostrano che tali opinioni dipendono in maniera statisticamente significativa da fattori quali il genere, l’età, la localiz-zazione della scuola, il titolo di studio dei genitori, le motivazioni per cui si frequenta la scuola, oltre che, nel caso degli insegnanti, dagli anni di insegna-mento e dal ruolo più o meno attivo degli stessi nei confronti del fenomeno. La principale implicazione dello studio è che i programmi di intervento tesi a ri-durre la dispersione scolastica, dovrebbero essere tarati tenendo in debita consi-derazione i fattori di cui sopra, al fine di accogliere al loro interno le aspettative ed il punto di vista degli attori principali del sistema educativo

Il saggio analizza le cause economiche e sociali del significativo fenomeno emigratorio che interessò il Mandamento di Cuggiono tra gli anni ottanta dell’Ottocento e gli anni venti del secolo successivo. Il saggio dimostra come l’emigrazione di massa che si registrò in quest’area del Milanese non rappresentasse un fenomeno inedito, ma cosituisse invece una prosecuzione, su scala allargata, di tradizioni migratorie precedenti, che avevano da decenni costituito una componente strutturale dell’economia locale. Il saggio intende quindi fornire un contributo alla storiografia dell’emigrazione italiana, che ha a lungo trascurato le regioni settentrionali del paese e in particolar modo la Lombardia.

Over the past several years, cause-related marketing (CRM) has become an important tool that many companies use to differentiate themselves from competitors. However, this type of marketing has also received criticism. Consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical about the authenticity of these initiatives because some companies attempt to improve their image by hiding information that may be perceived as negative. Marketing literature has paid more attention to environmental CRM than to initiatives associated with other issues such as health and those related to women’s health. However, in recent years, a growing number of companies have implemented actions to support these concerns. This paper aims to contribute to this field by focusing on CRM initiatives to fund breast-cancer research and on their misrepresentations. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods via a semistructured questionnaire, this study confirms the influence of pinkwashing on consumer trust, consumer-perceived risk, and consumer confusion.

In the historiography of the history of Kazakhstan, the causal consequences of the vicious famine that occurred in the early 20s of the twentieth century are still being studied. The article provides a scientific analysis of the causes of hunger in the starving regions of Kazakhstan, including a detailed analysis of the consequences of famine that engulfed the western region of Kazakhstan. The research article presents archival documents, personal works of research scientists, memories of eyewitnesses of the famine. The article emphasizes that during the famine years that swept the western regions of Kazakhstan, due to the insignificant assistance from the state, the help of wealthy people and clergy from among the local population, provided to the starving population, thanks to which thousands of people were saved, was first involved in scientific turnover.

Sustainable development cannot be achieved by leaving behind vulnerable and marginalized groups like older persons who experience multidimensional inequali-ties and social exclusion. This study investigates the root causes, manifestations, and impacts of social exclusion faced by the elderly population in Kazakhstan through an interdisciplinary socio-anthropological lens. Utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, interviews, and empirical analysis, the research examines subjective experiences of loneliness, isolation, low social en-gagement, and barriers to accessing essential services among older adults. It high-lights how factors like health status, income insecurity, ageism, lack of social support systems, and physical/digital accessibility issues intersect to produce and per-petuate social exclusion. In the course of the work carried out, it was revealed that the process of reducing the phenomenon of social exclusion provides an oppor-tunity to increase the effectiveness of social policy, one of the key tasks of which is to ensure a high standard of living for the elderly. Among the results obtained, factors such as subjective feeling of loneliness, diagnosis of social isolation, low level of social activity, and so on, should be noted. Through a conceptual analysis, the main group of risks was considered, which includes a large list of various areas of public activity. Policy proposals include strengthening social protection, facili-tating intergenerational solidarity, inclusive urban planning, digital inclusion and enhancing accessibility to public services tailored to older persons’ needs.