scholarly journals UN’ANALISI ISTITUZIONALE DEL DECLINO DELL’ECONOMIA ITALIANA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Coordination Games ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Schumpeterian Growth Theory

This paper attempts an interpretation of Italy’s recent economic decline, which began two decades before the Great Recession. It argues that its deeper roots lie in the political economy of growth. This interpretation is illustrated through a discussion of Italy’s recent growth trajectory and of its politico-economic equilibrium. The emphasis is placed on the country’s convergence to the productivity frontier and TFP performance, and on the evolution of its social order and institutions. The lens through which this case is reviewed, to illuminate the origins and evolution of the current constraints to growth, is drawn from institutional economics and Schumpeterian growth theory. It is exemplified by analysing two alternative reactions to the insufficient provision of public goods: an opportunistic one—employing tax evasion, corruption, or clientelism as means to appropriate private goods—and one based on enforcing political accountability. From the perspective of ordinary citizens and firms such social dilemmas can typically be modelled as coordination games, which have multiple equilibria. Self-interested rationality can thus lead to a spiral, in which several mutually reinforcing vicious circles lead society onto an inefficient equilibrium characterized by low political accountability and weak rule of law.

The Political Economy of Italy's Decline

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Lorenzo Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Coordination Games ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Private Goods

This book offers an interpretation of Italy’s decline, which began two decades before the Great Recession. It argues that its deeper roots lie in the political economy of growth. This interpretation is illustrated through a discussion of Italy’s political and economic history since its unification, in 1861. The emphasis is placed on the country’s convergence to the productivity frontier and TFP performance, and on the evolution of its social order and institutions. The lens through which its history is reviewed, to illuminate the origins and evolution of the current constraints to growth, is drawn from institutional economics and Schumpeterian growth theory. It is exemplified by analysing two alternative reactions to the insufficient provision of public goods: an opportunistic one—employing tax evasion, corruption, or clientelism as means to appropriate private goods—and one based on enforcing political accountability. From the perspective of ordinary citizens and firms such social dilemmas can typically be modelled as coordination games, which have multiple equilibria. Self-interested rationality can thus lead to a spiral, in which several mutually reinforcing vicious circles lead society onto an inefficient equilibrium characterized by low political accountability and weak rule of law. The book follows the gradual setting in of this spiral, despite an ambitious attempt at institutional reform, in 1962–4, and its resumption after a severe endogenous shock, in 1992–4. It concludes that innovative ideas can overcome the constraints posed by that spiral, and ease the country’s shift onto a fairer and more efficient equilibrium.

Vicious Circles and Multiple Equilibria: The Spiral

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Lorenzo Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Coordination Games ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
Weak Rule

This chapter summarizes the theoretical framework of this book, and draws from it the lens through which the roots of Italy’s current decline are then retraced in its history. It exemplifies the main argument by discussing two alternative reactions to the insufficient provision of public goods: an opportunistic one—employing tax evasion, corruption, and clientelism as means to appropriate private goods—and one based on enforcing political accountability. It argues that from the perspective of ordinary citizens and firms such social dilemmas can typically be modelled as coordination games, which have multiple equilibria. Self-interested rationality can thus lead to a spiral, in which several vicious circles run in parallel, reinforce each other, and lead society onto an inefficient equilibrium characterized by low political accountability and weak rule of law. It concludes that in transition societies ideas, freer from the grip of the spiral, can exploit endogenous shocks to reverse it.

The Conceptual Framework: Growth, Institutions, and Social Orders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Lorenzo Capussela
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Reversible Process ◽  
Main Determinant ◽  
Social Orders

This chapter lays out one part of the theoretical framework of the book, drawn from institutional economics. This literature maintains that institutions are the main determinant of long-term growth, and that to remain ‘appropriate’ institutions must evolve in synchrony with an economy’s progress through the stages of its development. Their evolution depends on a society’s openness to political creative destruction. Limited-access social orders tend to constrain it, to safeguard elites’ rents, and typically undermine progressive institutional reforms, breaking that synchrony. The transition from that social order to the open-access one is an endogenous and reversible process, in which inefficient institutions, which allow elites to extract rents, coexist with appropriate ones, which constrain their power and make it contestable. The hypothesis is advanced that Italy has not yet completed this transition, and that the tension between its efficient and inefficient institutions can endogenously generate shocks, which open opportunities for equilibrium shifts.

The Fanciful World of Clio

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Boldizzoni
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Contemporary Western Society

Cliometrics has evolved into a literary genre having little to do with numbers in the sense of econometric testing, though a lot to do with the deductive stance of the new institutional economics and of rational choice theory. At times these two approaches, which are not completely compatible, coexist even in the same author's work, giving rise to a sort of analytic schizophrenia. This chapter analyzes the recent developments in economic history. From the standpoint of methodology, it shows the confusion between history and path dependence or presence of “multiple equilibria” in a predetermined deductive schema. It argues that underlying these trends is an ideological slant, whether conscious or unconscious, aimed at exalting values such as individualism and materialism, which are typical of certain segments of contemporary Western society, and at projecting them unduly onto the past.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears: The Rise and Decline of the East German Economy, 1949–1988 / Blut, Schweiß, Tränen: Aufstieg und Niedergang der ostdeutschen Wirtschaft, 1949–1988

2000 ◽  
Vol 220 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Blum ◽  
Leonard Dudley
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Foreign Capital ◽  
German Economy ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
East German

SummaryThe rise of the East-German economy in the 1950s and 1960s and its decline in the 1970s and 1980s is difficult to explain by neoclassical economics. However; the observed life cycle may be explained by the inclusion of concepts from old and new institutional economics and from functional economics. Three distinct periods may be identified. During the “blood” period of forced development and autocratic rule, the information system and the system of property rights were roughly compatible with the economic structure. Then, in the “sweat” period, an attempt to overtake the capitalistic societies failed. Finally, in the “tears” period, economic decline could only be disguised by unsustainable inflows of foreign capital. This institutional explanation of the East-German collapse is tested with data for the period 1949-1988 and cannot be rejected.

Policing the Rural Crisis

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Hogg
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Social Breakdown ◽  
Local Media

Based on empirical research in a number of rural communities in north-western NSW, this article explores the dynamics of rural crisis as it is manifested in and through popular attitudes and campaigns around law and order. There is no denying that crime rates in many rural communities are high, often very high by national standards, or that local crime disproportionately involves Indigenous offenders (and Indigenous victims). However, the views expressed in interviews with established White residents, in local media and in organised campaigns around law and order are suggestive of a much deeper sense of threat and crisis. This, it is argued, can be explained in relation not simply to crime rates but the way in which crime is experienced at the local level and the manner in which it is connected to other unwanted change that is seen to threaten the integrity of these communities. In order to understand these anxieties it is necessary to explore historical patterns of settlement, the economic structure and the culture of rural communities. Indigenous Australians have, at best, occupied an ambiguous and fragile position in relation to membership of these communities, a form of ‘passive’ belonging, ‘conditional’ on deference to dominant White norms governing civic and domestic life. Local Indigenous crime can be a source of deep anxiety not only because it causes harm to person and property but because it is interpreted by many Whites as a repudiation of the local social order, a signifier of larger threats to the community and on occasions as a harbinger of social breakdown. The article explores some of the key themes emerging from interview material that characterise this sense of crisis and relates them to the larger pattern of change affecting many communities: economic decline, changing government policies and priorities, the growing relative economic and political power of Indigenous people, debates about native title and so on.

Greek media group may yet escape government clutches

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Media Control ◽  
The Media

Significance That Greece’s largest-selling daily newspaper Ta Nea (established in 1931) and DOL’s flagship Sunday newspaper To Vima (established in 1922) have suspended publication has sent shock waves through society and the media. It is a turning point in the long-term economic decline of the Greek media, which have been hard hit by the crisis. The decline has coincided with the more recent drive of the Syriza/Independent Greeks (Anel) coalition government for media control. Last month, DOL owner Stavros Psycharis, who faces charges of tax evasion and money laundering, appealed to the board of Syriza party newspaper Avgi for help. Impacts The government's efforts to control the media will undermine the anti-establishment rhetoric it employed before coming to power. Long-term dependence on bank loans and tax breaks and economic decline will aggravate the media’s lack of independence. DOL’s troubles will have wider ramifications as it holds shares in the popular Mega TV channel. If government attempts to control more of the media fail, it will show that checks and balances still exist in Greece’s democracy.

Dissatisfied Democrats or Retrospective Voters?

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allyson Lucinda Benton
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Presidential Systems ◽  
Opinion Polls

This article examines recent trends in Latin American voting behavior and casts them in terms of sincere (economic) and strategic (electoral) concerns. It argues that thanks to years of economic adversity, Latin Americans have developed long, sophisticated economic memories. Although this has resulted in rising frustration with democratic government, according to recent opinion polls, it has not always led voters to punish all parties responsible for hardship at election time. A panel study of the region’s presidential systems demonstrates that citizens punish incumbents by voting for established nonincumbents when electoral laws reduce opportunities available to small parties in the systems, even if nonincumbents have also been blamed for hard economic times. More permissive electoral systems, in contrast, encourage citizens to reject all parties responsible for economic decline. The analysis demonstrates how economic and electoral concerns interact to affect voting behavior, political accountability, and public opinion in Latin America.

Partner selection, coordination games, and group selection

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-81
Author(s):  
Michael S. Alvard
Keyword(s):  
Group Selection ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Partner Selection ◽  
Coordination Games ◽  
Frequency Dependent ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Additional Group ◽  
Dependent Processes

AbstractThe process of partner selection reflects ethnographic realities where cooperative rewards obtain that would otherwise be lost to loners. Baumard et al. neglect frequency-dependent processes exemplified by games of coordination. Such games can produce multiple equilibria that may or may not include fair outcomes. Additional, group-selection processes are required to produce the outcomes predicted by the models.

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