{"title":"Reconsidering the economic and political reasons of the euro area crisis: Diverging fundamentals or self-fulfilling expectations?","authors":"P. Posta","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.282_3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.282_3","url":null,"abstract":"This article nests the explanations of the euro crisis in terms of economic, political and institutional causes within the diverging fundamentals vs. self-fulfilling expectations debate. It argues that explanations based on fundamental divergences refer to a subset of economic variables only, while those based on self-fulfilling expectations refer to political and institutional variables. However, since there is no reason not to include the latter among the fundamental variables of an economy, there is no need to refer to negative self-fulfilling expectations as an explanation for the crisis. In the paper, the role played by political and institutional variables, namely federal and monetary solidarity, is formalized in a simple model of diverging fundamentals that goes beyond the consideration of economic variables only. JEL Classification: E58, E65, F36, F45, G01","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41307246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changes in wealth distribution in Italy (2002-2012) and who gained from the Great Recession","authors":"Ignazio Drudi, Giorgio Tassinari, F. Alboni","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.281_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.281_2","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of the paper is to analyze changes in families’ assets between 2002 and 2012; to measure changes in the degree of inequality; and to identify which social groups (or classes) have gained from these changes, using the decomposition procedure of the Gini concentration ratio proposed by Dagum (1997). The paper introduces two important methodological innovations. First, the definition of household wealth employed here is net wealth minus the value of the household’s home (if owned). Second, we develop a new method for computing the Gini coefficient in presence of negative values, and for decomposing it. JEL Classification: D10, D31","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47279861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Explaining trade imbalances in the euro area: Liquidity preference and the role of finance","authors":"Hubert Gabrisch","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.281_3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.281_3","url":null,"abstract":"Extant literature nearly exclusively explains the current account imbalances in the euro area by blaming wage policy. Mainstream economics considers wage policy as responsible for both trade imbalances and the split between debtor and creditor countries. In contrast, this article argues that cross-border capital flows come first, and affect aggregate demand and production costs. Trade flows and the real exchange rate adjust to financial flows. The rationale of this reversed argument is Keynes’ liquidity theory of interest. The policy implications drawn from the argument point in the direction of more capital controls rather than controls on wage formation. JEL Classification: E12; E43; F36","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42230631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Change and continuity","authors":"Alessandro Roncaglia, Carlo D’Ippoliti","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_1","url":null,"abstract":"The short editorial introduces the new volume and provides information on the new composition of the board of editors","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42056808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural change and economic growth: Advances and limitations of Kaldorian growth models","authors":"Guilherme R. Magacho","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_3","url":null,"abstract":"Many different approaches have addressed the issue of why were some developing countries able to reduce the income gap with developed economies while others were not. However, few approaches take into account the process of structural change. This paper reviews the theoretical basis of the Kaldorian approach for the relationship between structural change and countries’ long-term economic growth, emphasising its recent developments and its limitations. According to Kaldor, structural change towards specific sectors continuously increases countries’ growth rates through a cumulative causation process. Although he had stressed it exhaustively, only recently Kaldorian models have explicitly incorporated this feature. Nevertheless, these models still face significant limitations to show how a cumulative causation process takes place in an open economy. The paper discusses the most relevant such limitations, and suggests options for future directions. JEL codes: 041, E12, F43","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66230051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paths in contemporary economics and sciences of artificial that originate from Simon’s bounded rationality approach","authors":"M. Egidi","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643_70.280_2","url":null,"abstract":"The article reviews the paths of artificial intelligence and behavioural sciences started by Herbert A. Simon. The author critically reflects on past and current state of crucial behavioural assumptions such as rational expectations and bounded rationality.","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43721478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Land reform in Italy","authors":"M. Bandini","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.228941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.228941","url":null,"abstract":"The article provides a comprehensive picture of land reform in Italy - now perhaps the problem of greatest interest for Italian agrarian policy, and one of the most important for the general economic policy of the country. The author first gives an informative account of the underlying economic and political-social motives, before illustrating the three Acts under which the Reform is being carried out and summarising the regulations concerning the establishment of the Land Reform Agencies. The article concludes by an examination of the technical problems arising in the three main and successive phases in the implementation of the land reform: expropriation of the lands; their subdivision among the peasants and land improvement works; and the final stage of technical and financial assistance to the new farms.","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2014-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"68524538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economy and sociology","authors":"G. Gini","doi":"10.36004/nier.es","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36004/nier.es","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyses the reciprocal relations between Economics and Sociology. The author begins with Pareto’s position on general Sociology, which entails a fairly strict division between the two fields of scientific enquiry, calling attention to the new points of view that make it advisable to modify this approach. On this connection, the author first emphasises the distinction between that economic life, often held to be the normal ‘material’ of economic science and which is only the expression of bourgeois economic organisation, and the economic life of other organisations based on fundamentally different conditions. Secondly, he notes the survival of these other forms of organisation in bourgeois society - which therefore is considered as an agglomeration of dissimilar elements. The author then makes a comprehensive study of the scanty observations gathered in a field other than that of the bourgeois organisation. In his opinion this material should be elaborated and should find its place in the analytical economic schemata forming part of a discipline called “Integral Economics”. On the other hand, the task of “Economic Sociology” is to point out the regularities of the economic conduct of individuals and of the economic structure of social groups as they occur in real life.","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2014-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70086169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wage rates, credit expansion and employment","authors":"V. Lutz, F. Lutz","doi":"10.13133/2037-3643/12683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13133/2037-3643/12683","url":null,"abstract":"The article aims at dispelling a widespread misconception, the notion, propagated by popularisers of the views of Keynes, that all cases of unemployment can be successfully remedied by a monetary and fiscal policy aimed at raising the volume of aggregate demand. Secondly, it attempts to restate the conditions that are necessary if such a policy is to succeed in bringing about full employment. The analysis made by the authors proceeds by reconstructing the genuine position taken by Keynes and by the examination of the more significant post-Keynesian developments on the importance of the relative movements of prices and wage-rates for the success of a policy for reabsorbing unemployment, based on the expansion of credit and therefore of total demand. Following in the wake of the classical tradition and of Keynes himself, the authors confirm the importance of the price-wage relationship, making the necessary qualifications and reservations suggested by the growing refinement of economic research and by the evolution of real facts.","PeriodicalId":44488,"journal":{"name":"PSL Quarterly Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2014-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66229909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}