RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI

A peculiarity of the Italian socio-economic model is the pathological coexistence of migrants undertaking low value-added activities with a large number of natives out of employment (particularly in the South). Perpetuating this model consolidates an ample underclass of poor migrants, thus fueling inequalities and social tensions. It also feeds the discontent among low-income Italians who cannot find acceptable jobs and therefore ask for assistance. The net lifetime contribution to the public finances of migrants precariously employed in badly-paid jobs is unlikely to be positive.Moreover, an abundance of migrants, largely unskilled and with a low reservation wage, favours the ‘‘lock-in’’ of the Italian economy along its current trajectory, characterised by relatively few technologically advanced firms. The policies advocated here should increase the natives’ employment rate by making activities now undertaken by migrants more appealing, in the expectation that easier access to acceptable jobs would raise the fertility rate among young Italians.

The paper sets out to analyse the relation between military spending, Warfare and some measures of Well-being, in the current context of globalisation and convergence processes. On the one hand, growth drivers are attributable to gross fixed capital formation, attraction of foreign direct investment and ability to export. On the other hand, military expenditures, once again rising in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Europe, have negative effects on economic growth paths. The aim of the current paper is to verify such trends with economic development as well as indicators of subjective Well-being and institutional development, through analyses of bivariate correlations and some econometric models. The effects of displacement of public welfare in relation to productive investment or social and educational expenditure represent clear constraints that hamper a balanced and sustainable development and, in general, the social Well-being, as measured by new indicators of democracy level and happiness.

This paper is devoted to fiscal policy theory and to how its evolution influenced the policy principles implemented from the end of the WWII to nowadays. It shows how the theoretical foundations evolved, from the Keynesian theory according to which public expenditure was conceived as an instrument to sustain aggregate demand and achieve full employment, to the present theoretical framework in which, following the intertemporal approach, it has been downgraded to an external shock. After the occurrence of the great financial crisis a new process of revision started, according to which, in times of declining macroeconomic conditions, fiscal policy has not only short-run effects on income, but also long run effects on potential output. However, it did not yet translate into a new role for fiscal policy at least in the Eurozone.

Using a representative dataset of Spanish establishments and the quasi-experimental nature of the Great Recession, which started with the unexpected fall of Lehman Brothers, we examine how employers’ labour practices adjust to economic shocks. The establishment-level provides an insightful perspective on how firms deal with economic downturns in segmented labour markets. Although during the recession, temporary job creation and destruction continued to be greater than permanent job creation and destruction, the downturn severely impacted establishments’ permanent, as opposed to temporary, job creation and destruction rates. Furthermore, its impact on net job rates did not differ much by gender, except in construction, due to its primarily male workforce. Finally, as expected, establishments’ employment adjustment dynamics generally conformed to those of an aggregate shock impacting the whole economy. Nevertheless, a closer look at industry and region confirms some especially hard-hit sectors and regions, such as the construction industry, and the Canary and Balearic Islands.