LIBRI DI ALFREDO DEL MONTE

Il volume presenta i risultati più importanti ottenuti nell’ambito del progetto RICART (Rete Innovativa di Collaborazione dell’Artigianato artistico in Campania), nato allo scopo di delineare lo stato del settore dell’artigianato artistico in Campania. Il progetto si è posto sia l’obiettivo di esplorare quanto le imprese del settore possano contribuire allo sviluppo del territorio, sia quello di individuare le modalità di aggregazione, condivisione e collaborazione più efficaci per favorire la crescita del settore e del territorio. RICART ha visto come partner partecipanti le sette università della Campania, il consorzio Universitario CUEIM, l’Istituto di Ricerca su Innovazione e Servizi per lo Sviluppo del CNR (IRISS - CNR), l'agenzia di formazione Prisma Consulting e le società PROTOM GROUP e ARES 2.0, con capofila l’Università di Salerno.

Alcuni risultati di ricerca dell’Osservatorio Socio-Economico per la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale a supporto dello sviluppo locale del Progetto SNECS (Social Network delle Entità dei Centri Storici). In particolare il lavoro prende in esame lo studio dell’industria culturale e creativa (ICC) in Campania, che ha goduto di larghi finanziamenti pubblici che non sempre hanno avuto l’effetto di incrementare l’effettiva collaborazione fra i vari soggetti coinvolti.

The Italian government is proceeding with the privatisation of the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FSI Group), and is considering a merger with the government-owned highways company. A further proposal has been made to merge the FSI Group with Azienda Nazionale Autonoma delle Strade SpA (ANAS), the state-owned company which owns and manages large parts of the national road network. In this article both aspects will be examined. We argue that changes could be made to the privatisation and reform process, learning from the British experience, which would bring substantial benefits to Italian rail users and taxpayers.

This paper shows that there is a unitary aspects in Graziani’s works on Southern question: the idea that is necessary to supplement the economics aspects that in different period have determined the policies toward Mezzogiorno with an analysis that explains the dynamic of Southern Italian social structure. The conclusion of Graziani is that the dominance in the South of social groups which are not interested in the process of industrialization is the main factor which prevents the Mezzogiorno from making further progress on the way of development. This paper examines also if there is an empirical evidence in the period 1951-2005 to support the Graziani dependent economy model. The paper shows that such evidence exists only from the period 1951-75. The conclusion of the paper is that the approach to Southern question made after 1980, Graziani an heterodox economist relative dominant thought but that his ideas has always aroused lively interest also from people that disagree with him.

In this paper we have shown how social network analysis could be used to evaluate the opportunity that government subsidize Innovative Networks (NPP policy). Our analysis are has shown that social network methodology could be helpful to evaluate the efficiency of transfer of information in different networks but does not allow a clear evaluation of the policy toward innovative networks. In this paper the experience of Italian policy toward technological industrial districts has been discussed and social network analysis applied to evaluate the ex post results of this policy. Two are the main results of our analysis. The first one is that we have shown the necessity to integrate the social network index with a more appropriate to measure the welfare effects of NPP policy.The second one is that we have not found clear effects of the policy toward innovative networks in Southern Italy.

The paper uses an original dataset to analyse the distribution of broadband take-up in the Italian provinces. Although the results should be approached with caution, from the perspective of cause-and-effect interpretation, we point out the interesting fact that broadband technology take-up is highly correlated to factors of wealth, level of education and degree of concentration of the offering, even after checking the demographic and typical morphology of the provinces. The first two factors would justify the alarm voiced by those commentators who fear the emergence of a new form of social inequality, driven by easy access to the new-generation of services available through the Internet.

Il problema del Mezzogiorno: dalla carenza di capitali all’intermediazione impropria Il pensiero economico sul Mezzogiorno si è profondamente trasformato nel corso degli ultimi 60 anni. Da un approccio che puntava sul meccanismo di accumulazione come strumento essenziale di sviluppo, e quindi di politiche a favore di un massiccio trasferimento di risorse dalle Regioni più ricche del paese al Mezzogiorno, si è passati ad un approccio che mette l’accento sul ruolo delle istituzioni e delle forze locali per risolvere la questione meridionale. Lo sviluppo del capitale sociale al Sud diviene così l’elemento essenziale su cui puntare per il Sud e, in questa ottica, trova una giustificazione anche il federalismo fiscale. Gli articoli di Barucci, scritti nell’arco di un trentennio, sono interessanti in quanto mostrano come il pensiero meridionalista, senza abbandonare l’idea della questione meridionale come questione nazionale, abbia cercato di affiancare ad essa proposte di intervento per il miglior funzionamento delle istituzioni al Sud.

This paper analyses the characteristics and the effects of fiscal policy of centre-left and centre-rights governments on the Italian public budget in the period 1995-2005.The paper will also discuss the Financial Law approved by the centre-left government in 2006. The centre-left governments followed, in the 90’, a tax and spend policy that had favourable effects on government budget, but not on the structure of public expenditure in a direction favourable to growth. On the other hand the centre-right government has not followed the policy that one could expect from a conservative government, a decrease in the level of taxation and of public expenditure. The centre-right government reduced, in the period 2100-2006, slightly fiscal pressure, but has increased public expenditure, adjusted for the cycle, relative to centre left government. The effect of such policy was a worsening of the government budget, a rise in the ratio between public debt and gross product, and an increase in the gap between. the rate of growth of GDP of Italy and of the UE community.The Financial Law 2007 approved by the centre-left government in 2006 will surely improve substantially public accounts but there are some doubts that will improve growth perspectives.

The paper analysis labour law recently approved by Italian Government and its effects on employment growth. The main thesis of the paper is that the new labour market law will have no positive effects on the rate of employment ,on the size of firms, and on the size of the black labour market in Italy. On the other hand if workers interpret the new law as an hostile act, morale in the firms would fall and so would firm’s profit. Our conclusion is that the effect on productivity growth and employment of the new law will be the opposite of what Italian government expects.

Regional Development and Public Spending: the Case of Italy (by Antonio Acconcia, Alfredo Del Monte) - ABSTRACT: In Italy redistribution and regional policies have been implemented since World War II; poorer regions have been receiving large amount of public funds, namely public consumption and infrastructure investment, to stimulate economic activity or, more generally, to increase welfare. Starting with this premise, the paper analyses the effects of public spending on regional growth in Italy. Taking advantage of both the spatial and the time dimension of the available data, we offer results of two distinct panel analyses which stress the cross-section or the time dimension, respectively. The main results are the following: there is a positive relationship between regional growth and infrastructure capital which mainly holds for the Manufacturing sector; within the Manufacturing sector, the impact of public investment on productivity is noticeably stronger for the low-income group of regions than for the high-income group of regions. No positive impact of public consumption on productivity is detected. Keywords: regional disparities; infrastructure investment; public consumption. JEL Classification: O18, H54