Economia Politica. Rivista di teoria e analisi
Abstracts of articles published in no.1, 1999
Sommari degli articoli pubblicati nel n.1, 1999
Summaries
Introductory Note
Technology, Economics and Unemployment: Changes of the Society
by Giannino Parravicini
In the second half of the 20th century, economies of industrialised countries have witnessed a continuous process of innovation, that has deeply transformed our society. This scientific progress has brought technological innovation and organisational innovation as well. Productivity has continuously grown, often without a clear uniform trend, due to the different factors that help shaping market behaviour. While on the one hand the production growth has been followed by the reduction of labour demand and by the large increase of structural unemployment, on the other hand the possible saturation of “physical” consumption (material goods) is increasing market opportunities for immaterial goods dealing with education, health and other individual services.
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Articles
Equilibrium Unemployment, the Nature of Competence, the Organization of the Firm (J.E.L.: J4, J6, L2)
by Donatella Gatti/I>
This paper explores the micro determinants of diverging rates of unemployment in Europe, Japan and the US. Building on a definition of different micro-institutional settings encompassing: (i) the structure of the firm; (ii) the system of vocational training; (iii) the labor market, a model is proposed which determines the equilibrium rate of unemployment in an efficiency wage framework combined with a flow equilibrium condition. The main result is that the structure of the firm and the nature of workers' competence are key-determinants of differences in the equilibrium rate of unemployment across developed countries.
The Slavery of Anarchy. Bruno de Finetti's Writings on Economic Equilibrium (J.E.L. B31)
by Chiara Rossignoli
Bruno de Finetti's main writings on economic equilibrium date back to the thirties. Taking Pareto's works as main reference, de Finetti develops a critique of competitive equilibrium from a methodological-ethical point of view. He follows Pareto and Barone's approach in separating the optimality of equilibrium from the competitive mechanism. From the mathematical point of view, his contributions are very remarkable. In 1937, he gives to the concept of Pareto optimum a formal treatment, anticipating necessary conditions which were given only after the war by Kuhn and Tucker in the context of non linear programming. He also introduces (in 1949) the concept of quasi concave function.
Review Article
Why Is Consumption "Excessively Sensitive" to Income ? Evidence form Micro-Data (J.E.L. D11, D12, D91)
by Gabriella Berloffa
A well known result of empirical tests of the Life-Cycle hypothesis is that consumption appears too sensitive to the current level of income. When analysing this excess sensitivity problem - as it has been labelled in the literature - a possible confusion might arise because the words "excess sensitivity" often describe different phenomena, such as the response of consumption to anticipated and unanticipated income shocks, to the level of income at time t or to its predictable change. The aim of this survey is to illustrate the information about the different types of excess sensitivity obtained so far from the analysis of micro-data and the various explanations offered in the literature, highlighting the empirical evidence that supports each of them, as well as the theoretical and empirical implications of each explanation that have not received adequate attention.
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