Vita e Pensiero

This introduction provides a survey of the collected papers. At the same time it develops an critical analysis designed to illustrate the file rouge which links the material included in this special issue.

This paper assesses the role of competition in explaining efficiency in the Italian manufacturing industries. Technical efficiency differentials are measured by applying the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method on a panel of firms from 43 industries at 3- digit level, over the 1983-1991 period. The average level of efficiency of each industry is then related through econometric techniques to some factors reflecting the degree of competition. Economic literature states that a tougher competitive environment is efficiency enhancing and we find a negative link between efficiency and concentration. Moreover, efficiency declines more slowly when the level of concentration is higher, whereby suggesting a non-linear relationship. These results have policy implications. The processes of liberalisation and privatisation in Italy should take into account the benefical effects of a more competitive environment.

International economic sanctions are a recurring feature of political interactions. This paper provides, through a gravity model approach, an estimation of the impact of sanctions on international trade. The study reports panel estimates between the US and 49 target countries over the period 1960- 2000, inclusive. The results show that extensive sanctions have a large negative impact on bilateral trade, while this is not the case for limited and moderate sanctions. A second estimation focuses on the impact of unilateral US sanctions on bilateral trade between target countries and the other G-7 countries. The results show that unilateral extensive sanctions have also a large negative impact, while limited ones induce a slight positive effect on other G-7 countries trade. In the first case the hypothesis of negative ‘network effects’ is confirmed, while in the latter the sanctions-busting argument should be defended.

We study how immigration policies are determined under voting in a two-country model where immigration redistributes income from wages to capital. Migration decisions are endogenous, there exist border enforcement costs and preference for home-country consumption. We model the migration policy as a pure entry rationing rather than a necessarily porous screening system. Unlike the existing results of polarization, our findings show that preferences over frontier closure are distributed on a continuum, going from total closure to total openness. Thus, the Condorcet winning immigration policy may well be an interior solution. Our results fit the real-life observation that both perfect closure and perfect openness are rare events. We also study the case of a referendum over two alternative policies and show that its outcome depends upon the location of the median voter with respect to the individual indifferent between the two alternatives.

The theoretical result according to which the wage is higher when bargaining and efficiency wages interact, is tested by estimating a formally derived wage equation on an Italian firm-level panel from 1990 to 1999. The 1993 July Agreement, which fostered the adoption of decentralised incentive mechanisms, is used as a natural experiment. The main results are the following: a) Subsequent the adoption of the 1993 Agreement, the elasticity of wages to firm profits increases from 2.6 to 3.6%; the corresponding estimated wage premium is equal to 3.6% of the average wage; b) Relative to the whole sample of firms, those that signed the decentralised contract show higher wages, more persist- ent wage dynamics but lower variable wage premia; c) For the same firms, a significant increase of the rent sharing is obtained through the diffusion of individual incentives and productivity evaluation procedures; d) a considerable bias is introduced if are not profit endogeneity and unobservable fixed effects are not accounted for.

Abbonamento annuale a RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI.