Italian Economists Research Articles

Antonio de Viti de Marco as a Political Commentator in the Daily Press

The Italian economist Antonio de Viti de Marco is well known as the founder of the pure theory of Public Finance, and as one of the inspirators of Public Choice. However, outside Italy nothing is known about his political commitment, an aspect that was truly important for him and closely linked to his scientific work. This paper explores his collaboration with daily newspapers in the context of early 20th century Italy, in order to project information beyond Italy’s borders about his political role.

Correlation between the Issues of Processing Textile Sector in Pakistan

This research investigates the Statistical Correlation on Internal Issues of Processing textile sector in PakistanData were collected from Primary as well as secondary sources It is a statistical research technique in decision making that is used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It separates the few major problems from the many possible problems. It is named after Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist. It was revealed Initially as the issues of Processing Sector were about 5, after performing Pareto analysis the output shows total counts equivalent to 813. As it is suggested to take about 80% to solve the overall issues but here the 80% is nearer to 4 issues. Therefore it is decided to take about 82.5% through which 4 issues may be selected as shown in the Pareto chart 6-6. However 3 issues are equal to 527 which is about 64.8%.that may not be sufficient.

Heterogenesis of ends: Herbert Spencer and the Italian economists

The influence of Spencer's ideas is now generating a good deal of analysis. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer's work on economic thought. It also analyses the way in which this work was interpreted by the Italian economists. In particular, it investigates the influence of Spencer's theory of evolution on the thought of Pantaleoni (1857–1924) and Nitti (1868–1953). These two representative Italian scholars were on opposite sides for their economic methodology and the issue of government intervention in the economy. The paper clarifies whether their two divergent visions on social change could both be in accordance with Spencer ideas.

Ethnologische Betrachtungsweisen: Wittgenstein, Frazer, Sraffa

Abstract The late Wittgenstein is reported as saying that he owes his ‘anthropological approach’ to Piero Sraffa. In February 1932, however, Wittgenstein reproaches the Italian economist with misunderstandings similar to those he had criticized in the work of the Scottish anthropologist James Frazer six months before. According to a well-known anecdote, a gesture of Sraffa’s had a momentous influence onWittgenstein’s philosophical development.The ‘grammar of gestures’ elaborated by him in the early 1930s is an attempt to answer questions such as those raised by his friend’s Neapolitan gesture. There is a substantial difference between what the late Wittgenstein calls his ‘ethnological way of looking’ and the stance he had adopted in his early criticism of Frazer’s Golden Bough in June/July 1931. In February 1932,Wittgenstein replied to Sraffa’s objections with arguments similar to those he had already raised against Frazer’s very different method. Sraffa pushed Wittgenstein to adopt natural history and to transform his philosophy into an empirical approach. However, in the early 1930s Wittgenstein refused to do either. In order to learn how to look at philosophical problems with an ‘anthropological’ eye from Sraffa, he will need to learn, against Sraffa, not to reduce philosophy to anthropology (natural history). Years later,Wittgenstein still insists on the contrast he had marked between himself and Sraffa: Using imaginary scenarios he intends to show how a superficial analogy can mislead us to mistaking institutions, having an entirelydifferent nature, for economic systems - resulting in them seeming ‘irrational’, ‘unlogical’.

Editorial: Paolo Sylos Labini (1920-2005)

The article introduces to the new issue of the Review, which roughly corresponds with the tenth anniversary of the passing away of Paolo Sylos Labini (PSL). As explained by Roncaglia (2008), the very name of the PSL Quarterly Review is dedicated to the Italian economist, due among other things to the long run relation between PSL and the old series of this journal. The paper discusses PSL’s contributions in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review , focusing on his forecast of the recent global crisis, published in 2003. This contribution already contained precise reference – often backed by data for the USA and other economies – to trends and ‘explanations’ of the crisis that several mainstream economists (e.g. Robert Lucas) claimed were impossible to see before the crisis itself. These include the accumulation of excessive household debt, excessive complacency on the side of the Fed, speculative bubbles in the US stock exchange and real estate markets, and the deflationary pressures caused by radical technological innovations. PSL’s example shows that the economists can and often do provide useful services to society, provided they build on solid theories. JEL: B31, B32, B22

Statistical Correlation on Internal Issues of Spinning Textile industry in Pakistan

This research investigates the Statistical Correlation on Internal Issues of Spinning Data were collected from Primary as well as secondary sources It is a statistical research technique in decision making that is used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It separates the few major problems from the many possible problems. It is named after Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist. It was revealed that Textile spinning sector detail of analysis performed for reducing a huge number of issues explored from textile industry of Pakistan in the era of trade liberalization. The research in this part of framework starts by conducting a survey of the textile industry of Pakistan for the collection of data through questionnaire consisted of the explored issues. The data collected through survey is then used to perform Pareto analysis and bring up the prioritized issues after reducing them by using statistical tool SPSS. Then statistical Correlation is performed on the prioritized issues reduced through Pareto analysis to find the level of relationship among these issues, so by solving one issue the other may routinely be solved.

Mapping Issues of Textile Industry of Pakistan with Trade Policy Framework

The current research investigates Mapping Issues of Textile Industry of Pakistan with Trade Policy Framework. Data were collected from Primary as well as secondary sources It is a statistical research technique in decision making that is used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It separates the few major problems from the many possible problems. It is named after Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist. It can summarize all types of data. It can be applied to almost anything. It was revealed that four issues may be solved by the Government through trade policy of Pakistan as shown in figure 7-12 below. First and issue that in the international Markets Preferential Treatment is provided to the competitors and the second issue about Imposition of Anti-dumping duties on Pakistan’s exports may be solved by Rationalizing Tariff Protection Policy (TPP) High tariff protection maintained over a period of time tends to erode competitiveness and affects consumer welfare. Therefore to protect Industry from High Tariffs, Ministry of Commerce will adopt some guiding principles to create a competitive environment that caters for dual aspects of providing level playing field for Pakistani firms in international markets; By Signing Favorable international agreements, Promote competitive markets in Pakistan, Ensure conformity to international agreements and practices, Promote domestic and foreign investment, Create level playing field for Pakistani firms in international as well as domestic markets, Due consideration to consumer welfare, Cater to the changing needs of Pakistan’s economy and create an enabling environment to pursue the legitimate goal of Industrialization in Pakistan. Due to the prompt implementation of the above policy measure by Government on 12th December 2013 European Union granted GSP-Plus status to Pakistan, It gives exporters duty-free access to 27 European countries. GSP (Generalized system of Preference) is exemption of WTO member countries from tariffs by considering as a least developed nation and granted till 2017. It is a chance to export more than US$1 billion worth of products and earn profits of more than Rs1 trillion per year.

Pareto Analysis on National Issues in Textile Industry in Pakistan

This research investigates the Pareto Analysis on National Issues in Textile Industry in Pakistan. Data were collected from Primary as well as secondary sources It is a statistical research technique in decision making that is used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It separates the few major problems from the many possible problems. It is named after Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist. It was revealed that Textile spinning sector detail of analysis performed for reducing a huge number of issues explored from textile industry of Pakistan in the era of trade liberalization. It was revealed that high cost of production, industrialists are highly risk averse, lack of training programs, R&D facility of 6% has been withdrawn, no collective method for solving the industrial problems, changing name from EPB to TDAP is not the solution, textile / garments city project can be a powerful tool, industrialist shifting business to other countries , lack of funds, labors shifting to other countries, there is a huge paper work which takes a great time, lack of interaction between industry & academia, constraints for the Industry. Finally, the identified global issues are; removal of quota, awareness about the trade liberalization, worse image of Pakistan internationally, restriction of EU to buy raw material from them, lack of ETP, evaluation of factory, delay in delivery, lack of diversification in the direction of trade, Only developing country to sign the ILO conventions completely, millions of dollars spent to destroy Pakistan’s image internationally, quality issues, labor-intensive production, Increase in the foreign buyers’ check, Imposition of antidumping duties, preferential treatment to the competitors, competitors are much stronger.

Abstraction, dissociation, and mental labor: Paul Szende’s social epistemology between physiology and social theory

In this paper I focus on the Hungarian intellectual and politician Paul Szende’s sociologically oriented epistemology. I trace the influences of physiology, psychology, economy, evolutionary theory of his day on his sociological theory of abstractive knowledge, and discuss the close connection between physiological, social, and economic aspects in the early sociology of knowledge. My discussion continues with an examination of Szende’s differentiation between two economic effects within social epistemology: on the one hand the ‘economy of thought’ in the tradition of Ernst Mach, with its physiological, organic, and integrative functioning of knowledge; on the other hand, the socio-economic effects of social selection, exclusion, and societal antagonism. Besides the Marxist and more specifically the Austro-Marxist environment of Szende’s writings, I trace the influence of the economic theory of Italian economist Achille Loria on Szende’s understanding of the antagonistic nature of the transformation of knowledge. The paper is set at the intersection of philosophy of science and history of science. It relates epistemological issues to historical, social, and scientific developments in Szende’s day and thus combines a philosophical analysis of Szende’s sociological theory of knowledge with historical research into the natural, social, and economic sciences of his time.

Economics and Anti-Semitism: The Case of Maffeo Pantaleoni

The relationship between economics and anti-Semitism has always been a controversial subject. The question is complex by nature: to describe an author as an anti-Semite means to cast a shadow over his thought, with consequences that are much more serious when there is a limited amount of documentation and firsthand accounts. In this article we examine the case of Maffeo Pantaleoni, one of the most influential Italian economists of the nineteenth century and at the same time an intellectual who was among those most closely involved in anti-Semitic propaganda. In the case of Pantaleoni, it is not necessary to ask the question of whether and to what extent his anti-Semitism could be defined as “mild” or “ambivalent” and therefore in line with that expressed by a large part of Western culture during the first half of the twentieth century. In this study we document a clear and open anti-Semitic attitude that, however, has remained ignored up to now by economic historiography. In this article we discuss the possible relationship between Pantaleoni’s anti-Semitism and his work as a theoretical economist, within a methodological framework inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s philosophy and sociology of science.

Heterogenesis of Ends: Herbert Spencer and the Italian Economists

The profound and extensive influence of Spencer’s thought is now generating a good deal of analysis, as is his contribution to evolutionist philosophy, to pedagogy, ethics, and anthropology. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer’s theoretical work on economic thought. It also analyses the way in which this work was discussed and interpreted by the Italian economists at the turn of the 19th Century. In particular, it investigates the influence of Spencer’s theory of evolution for the thought of Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924) and Francesco Saverio Nitti (1868-1953). These two very representative Italian scholars, both belonging to the liberal-radical political area, were nevertheless on opposite sides for their economic methodology and the issue of government intervention in the economy. However, they both found their divergent inspiration in Spencer. Extending the study of the reception of his work to the Italian sociologists, this paper explains how, from those same theories, two diametrically opposed visions and perspectives on social change could arise.

Augusto Graziani: Theoretician, Applied Economist, Historian of Economic Thought—An Appraisal

Augusto Graziani, one of the leading Italian economists in his generation, brought to economics the gifts of an analytically-oriented mind, crystal-clear logical reasoning, flawless erudition, and a passionate interest in the political and policy implications of both theoretical models and empirical analysis. After a presentation of Graziani’s life and career, this article investigates the links connecting his theoretical evolution from general equilibrium analysis to circuit theory, his interpretation of the development of the Italian economy, and his approach to the history of economics. While recognising change in his analytical framework, I argue in favour of a basic continuity in his thought around the central themes of capital accumulation and the origins of its ownership and control.

Schools of Thought and Economists’ Opinions on Economic Policy

In this paper we bring to data the hypothesis that differences in economists’ opinions on economic policy are related to differences in the school of thought (SofT) they belong to. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of survey responses from a representative sample of Italian economists. Two are the main results: First, differences in the SofT predict differences in economists’ opinions on economic issues, even controlling for individual, group, and community characteristics, spatial and knowledge heterogeneity, and political orientation. Second, dichotomous categorizations such as Mainstream vs Non-Mainstream or Orthodox vs Heterodox have poor explicative power as for economists’ disagreement on economic issues.

La incorporación del cacao ecuatoriano al mercado mundial entre 1840 y 1925, según los informes consulares

This article offers a reinterpretation of the process of the incorporation of Ecuadorian cocoa to the world market between 1840-1925. This revision uses concepts developed by the Italian economist Giovanni Arrighi: nominal incorporation, peripheral incorporation and non-peripheral incorporation. By their means, the article examines the variety of linkages that developed between the center and the periphery and within the periphery itself. More specifically, two moments of this process

Glimpses of Henry Schultz in Mussolini's Italy 1934

Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, Henry Schultz, spent a sabbatical year in Europe in 1933/34 working on his forthcoming monograph The Theory and Measurement of Demand (Schultz 1938). During the year he found time to travel in 6-7 countries meeting economists and other scholars. The article describes and comments his seven weeks long visit to Italy in March-April 1934. The glimpses of Henry Schultz in Italy are provided by Schultz’s own brief diary notes during that visit. In Italy he met with practically all the leading econometricians in Italy. In Milan Schultz met Valentino Dominedo and the article discussed whether this meeting provided the lead for Schultz to find Slutsky's 1915 article. Schultz was interested in the stand taken by Italian economists on Mussolini’s Corporate State and also in the situation of Jews under fascism. Schultz followed a tourist trail in Italy visiting also Roman and Etruscan remains and a number of places of Christian worship.

The strength of strong ties: How co-authorship affect productivity of academic economists?

Increased specialization and extensive collaboration are common behaviours in the scientific community, as well as the evaluation of scientific research based on bibliometric indicators. This paper aims to analyse the effect of collaboration (co-authorship) on the scientific output of Italian economists. We use social network analysis to investigate the structure of co-authorship, and econometric analysis to explain the productivity of individual Italian economists, in terms of ‘attributional’ variables (such as age, gender, academic position, tenure, scientific sub-discipline, geographical location), ‘relational’ variables (such as propensity to cooperate and the stability of cooperation patterns) and ‘positional’ variables (such as betweenness and closeness centrality indexes and clustering coefficients).

Who is the European Prince?: A More or Less Machiavellian Meditation on the European Union

The distinguished Italian economist and politician Tommaso Padoa Schioppa once spoke of European Monetary Union (EMU) as a “collective prince.” The essay takes this observation as starting point to reflect on princes not as individual leaders, but as institutions engaged in projects of political integration (which according to Machiavelli, could absorb collective wisdom over time and also prove more flexible than individuals). In particular, it is asked whether The Prince might shed light both on the history and the prospects of European polity-building. It is argued that the architects of Western European politics after 1945 prioritized vivere sicuro over any conception of vivere libero by institutionalizing a model of “constrained democracy.” Various “institutional princes,” the European Commission in particular, complemented this process at a European level. Finally, the article returns to the intriguing—and at first sight so counterintuitive—notion of a monetary system as Europe’s prince. Against the background of the Eurocrisis (generally considered an existential threat to the European Union as a whole), some possible Machiavellian futures will be sketched out, in particular a new version of a collective prince and, alternatively, a strategy that trusts what Machiavelli called tumulti—ongoing political conflict—ultimately to generate a more robust form of political unity. This latter strategy also puts its faith in popular judgment in a way that very much goes against the main currents of political developments in postwar Europe.

Hierarchical socioeconomic fractality: The rich, the poor, and the middle-class

Since the seminal work of the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, the study of wealth and income has been a topic of active scientific exploration engaging researches ranging from economics and political science to econophysics and complex systems. This paper investigates the intrinsic fractality of wealth and income. To that end we introduce and characterize three forms of socioeconomic scale-invariance–poor fractality, rich fractality, and middle-class fractality–and construct hierarchical fractal approximations of general wealth and income distributions, based on the stitching of these three forms of fractality. Intertwining the theoretical results with real-world empirical data we then establish that the three forms of socioeconomic fractality–amalgamated into a composite hierarchical structure–underlie the distributions of wealth and income in human societies. We further establish that the hierarchical socioeconomic fractality of wealth and income is also displayed by empirical rank distributions observed across the sciences.

L’economista. Tra liberismo e socialismo. (The economist. Between socialism and liberalism)

In his obituary of Ernesto Rossi, the author describes the political and cultural legacy of the Italian economist. The author summarises the main contributions by Rossi in the fields of labour market, public finance, European federation, and Fascism.

Are Mainstream and Heterodox Economists Different? An Empirical Analysis

AbstractWe explore the differences between mainstream and heterodox economists based on the responses to a questionnaire from a representative sample of Italian economists. Using different definitions for mainstream and heterodox economics, we compare the individual and academic characteristics of the economists belonging to these groups. We measure the within and between disagreement for each group and we test whether belonging to one or the other group predicts differences in economists' opinions on economic policy. Results show that: 1) mainstream and heterodox economists differ as to individual and academic characteristics and political views; 2) the disagreement within heterodox economics is lower than within mainstream economics; 3) some of commonly used ways of grouping heterodox and mainstream schools of thought have little explicative power in relation to individual opinions; 4) on critical economic policies, the opinions of heterodox and mainstream economists are significantly different even after controlling for a number of individual characteristics, including political opinions.