Italian Economists Research Articles

Federico Caffè on the economic science in Italy

This paper proposes a reconstruction of Federico Caffè's stance on the state of economic science in Italy. As has been observed, this subject was developed by Caffè for a project by Gustavo Del Vecchio, who called "for the study of Italian economic thought "on repeated occasions" (Caffè 1975: vii). We will conclude that, in Caffè's view, the Italian economists who took an active part in the debate on Sraffa's thought should more appropriately have relaunched the neglected ideas of the General Theory in order to overcome the «second crisis» of economic theory by means of a system of thought suitable for policy applications.

Diversity of backgrounds and ideas: The case of research evaluation in economics

This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of research evaluation in terms of preserving and reproducing diversity. Through a large-scale natural experiment encompassing two entire cohorts of Italian economists, we document how candidates for academic positions, especially top-tier positions, in economics are pushed to increasingly conform to a standardised research profile. We find evidence of gender bias in research evaluation and observe substantial variability in the chances of qualifying for an academic position, depending on candidates’ main fields, topics and methods of research. Our results also indicate that economists working on less popular research fields and/or with heterodox methods are less likely to qualify for top-tier academic positions, independently of their bibliometric indicators.

Tax Reforms, Fiscal Illusion and Moral Hazard: Some Econometric Evidence from Indian Economy

Theory of Fiscal illusion as a theory of government expenditure was first conceived by an Italian economist Puviani suggesting that the benefits from tax revenue through government expenditure are not fully understood by the taxpayers if the government revenues are unobserved. This is due to information asymmetry. Since some or all taxpayers benefit from government expenditures from these unobserved or hidden revenues the public's demand for government expenditures increases, thus providing politicians incentive to expand the size of government. Fiscal Illusion is invoked as an explanation of the flypaper effect when a higher level of government provides a grant to a lower level of government because the local taxpayers are under the mistaken perception that the grant is to local government and not, in fact, to them. One of the sources of fiscal illusion is the complexity of the tax system. According to the fiscal illusion hypothesis, governments spending can be influenced by the size of the public sector and complexity in the tax system. An attempt is made in the present study to examine the fiscal illusion and explore its relationship with the fiscal dimension including revenue receipts and spending of the government. Considering the Indian federal system, the paper examines revenue diversification that has occurred during 1970 and 2016, and it estimates a model that examines the degree of moral hazard which arises mainly due to fiscal illusion within the framework of the principal agent.

Civil Economy: An Alternative to the Social Market Economy? Analysis in the Framework of Individual versus Institutional Ethics

The Civil Economy (CE) approach, as developed by Italian economists Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni, aims at introducing reciprocity into the economy as a humanizing factor. Despite being presented as an innovative perspective, the CE approach shares many characteristics with the German model of Social Market Economy (SME). The present paper compares both approaches, showing that they in fact share a normative basis and similar aims but address them from diverse points of view; namely, CE addresses them from a virtue ethics perspective and SME from an institutional ethics one. This leads them to stress different aspects and to focus on diverse problems. Therefore, CE would not constitute an alternative to SME but a complement. Thus, a combination of both approaches should allow each to take advantage of their respective strengths and lead to a better result in terms of the common good.

33 Economic Bestsellers published before 1750

This article looks at 33 economics books that were published before 1750 and appeared in ten editions or more before 1850. This is a period – before Physiocracy and before the works of Adam Smith – which has been largely neglected in the history of economic thought. The article sheds new light on the early bestselling contributions of German and Italian economists, and on an internationally famous Spanish economist at the time. Also of interest is that three of the bestselling English economists of the period are so forgotten that they do not even have an entry in Wikipedia.

Antonio Genovesi and Italian economic thought: when ethics matters in economics

The renewed interest in studies of Italian Enlightenment after the Second World War has enabled a complex new understanding of the Italian contribution to political economy. In particular, a new line of research that brings together the analysis of commercial society developed by Italian economists, and the canon of « civil life » elaborated within classical civic humanism and the natural legal tradition, has explained the deep ethical and social concerns inherent in the Italian approach to economic studies. This collection of articles takes stock of some of these achievements in scholarship and, at the same time, offers some new elements about the hermeneutical role played by these fundamental relationships between economics and ethics in identifying a more complex and multidimensional structure of scientific discourse. The articles are a selection of those presented at three conferences held in 2013, thanks to the support of the Luigi Sturzo Institute and Milan-Bicocca University, in Naples (Banco di Roma Foundation), Rome (Lumsa University) and Milan (Istituto Lombardo - Accademia di Scienze e Lettere), and they explore the thought of Antonio Genovesi as well as Eighteenth-Century Italian economic thought.

The reception of Austrian economics in Italy

Nowadays the Austrian School enjoys high reputation in Italy: books by Mises, Hayek and other Austrian economists are constantly republished and reviewed with great interest, both inside and outside academic circles. The situation was very different decades ago, when just a few Italian economists devoted attention to the Austrian School. This work studies the reception of Austrian Economics in Italy, from the beginning to our days, so as to bring out, by way of comparison, relevant features of Italian economic culture. We will try to offer just an overview of the entire story, in an attempt to provide useful elements for a deeper analysis of further topics and periods.

DE VITI DE MARCO, THE “EUROPEAN WAR,” AND PRESIDENT WILSON

Italy entered the war in May 1915; the USA, in April 1917. One hundred years on, this paper examines the viewpoint of Antonio de Viti de Marco, the renowned Italian economist who was one of the founders of the pure theory of public finance. It first focuses on De Viti’s interpretation of the economic and political aspects of the Great War, and reconstructs his vision of the world conflict as a struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Second, the paper highlights the convergence of De Viti’s ideals with those of President Wilson, seen as the powerful international leader of the Italian democratic interventionists. It also clarifies that the “Wilsonianism” of this movement originated in the Italian Risorgimento, and suggests that this convergence was not coincidental. Finally, it shows how, after the war, the unconditional admiration De Viti felt for the American positions gave way to bitter disappointment.

Statisticians, economists and the ‘new economic order’ in wartime Italy (1940–1943)

From 1940 to 1943, Italian economists and statisticians were actively engaged in discussions that ranged from immediate concerns about war economy to more speculative issues that can be summarized under the then-fashionable label of the ‘new economic order’. The purpose of this article is to offer an overview of these debates by focusing, on the one hand, on the related themes of autarky, the new ‘Mediterranean order’ and postwar supranational economic complexes, and, on the other hand, on those of corporatism and economic planning. Both the idea of an economic plan and that of an organized division of labor among countries within a politically defined large economic space clashed directly with views associated with the tenets of economic liberalism, also dear to many Italian economists. On each theme, positions taken may be connected to expectations regarding the postwar world. Special attention will be given to various statistical devices and arguments put forward by protagonists to sustain their views or implement their projects.

Vicarelli, Keynes, and the unstable nexus between investment, liquidity, and finance

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to reconstruct Keynes’s vision of the unstable nexus between investment, liquidity and finance, as set out by the Italian economist Fausto Vicarelli (1936–1986). As argued in the article, one of Vicarelli’s main contributions consists of explaining the inherent instability of financially sophisticated capitalist economies in terms of the interaction (and double dissociation) between investment, saving, and stock-holding decisions, within a Keynesian framework characterized by the presence of fundamental uncertainty. While Vicarelli’s interpretation of Keynes is best understood in the context of the post-Keynesian literature, its relevance goes beyond that, as its sheds light on current issues related to the post-2008 financial crisis and its policy implications.

Marshallian Industrial Districts in Italy: the end of a model or adaptation to the global economy?

This paper discusses the Marshallian Industrial District as it was rediscovered and further developed by Italian economists before tracing the main changes in the market and institutional context in the wake of globalization. It then focuses on some of the main transformations that have taken place in the Italian districts since the 1990s. After highlighting the important role still played by the districts in the Italian economy, the paper develops a framework for the evolutionary processes of the Marshallian Industrial District that would allow reproduction of the district in a manner suited to the era of globalisation.

The case of ISEL within the strategy of CISL

The history of ISEL, the research center affiliated to the Italian Confederation of Labor Trade Unions (CISL), is to be considered closely related to the intellectual and personal vicissitudes of EzioTarantelli, the Italian economist who first prompted the creation of a trade union study center. Since its foundation (1981), ISEL activities have led to various publishing initiatives and formulation of the econometric model of the labor market (MOMEL). We will discuss how ISEL was originally founded in order to provide a suitable basis to support the key choices of the trade unions. Nevertheless, behind the rapid decrease in ISEL activity and its subsequent dissolution, which occurred in the immediate aftermath of Tarantelli’s death, lay the aim of giving back the trade unionists a degree of freedom in political terms.

Re-founding a think tank: the Research Department of the Italian Industrial Association and its findings (1976-1980)

This work focuses on the Research Department established by the Italian Confederazione Generale dell’Industria (CSC), under the leadership of Guido Carli, between 1976 and 1980. This topic has been considered worthy of investigation because it represents an attempt to place Italy within a long-run stable macroeconomic path through supply-side policies and to foster a structural turning point able to overcome stagflation. Our specific goal is to stress the features of CSC as a modern think tank that worked through theoretical analysis supported by econometric research by both Italian and internationall economists.

Balance of Payment, Wage Indexation and Growth: the Role of CESPE in Italian Policy-Making in the 1970s

Italian policy-making changed dramatically during the Seventies. Exogenous events (like the end of the Bretton Woods system and the oil shocks) and endogenous transformations of the major economic (wage indexation, planning system, instrument of governmental intervention in industries, tax system, relationship between monetary authority and Treasury) and political institutions (workers statute, public health insurance, role of regions, school system) deeply changed the Italian society. Such changes were accompanied and often guided by experts, who exerted a major influence on policymaking. This influence mainly operated through some influential think tanks, which set the table for fundamental public policies. Among them, one of the most relevant was CESPE, the research centre of the Italian Communist Party, to which most leading Italian economists of the time gave their contribution, and that organized several workshops and published research and policy papers. The aim of the paper is to highlight the contribution CESPE gave to the transformation of Italian policy-making in the Seventies.

Many-Citednesss: Citations Measure More than Just Scientific Impact

Citation indexes are increasingly used to measure the scientific impact of researchers and institutions, though their application is often criticized. We study the network of citations of all publications indexed in Web of Science authored or coauthored by Italian tenured academic economists. We show that citations capture many factors other than mere scientific quality. By estimating the determinants of the probability that any author is cited by any other author, we find those factors to involve not only similarity in methods and topics but also, significantly, various measures of social community as well as of political proximity. Our analysis leads us to conclude that, at least in the case of economics, citations cannot be interpreted as mere proxies of scientific impact, and their use to produce indexes and rankings may require careful rethinking.

Austerity and repressive politics: Italian economists in the early years of the fascist government

The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely unexplored. This essay considers the “liberal phase” of Fascist Italy (1922–1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and practice, encompassing the moral, the economic and the political. My explanation moves beyond the interpretation of austerity as the post-1980, neoliberal recipe of price deflation and budget cuts. The Italian case draws attention to a neglected connection: that between austerity and repression. Austerity was the guiding principle of the Fascist economic agenda during the 1920s. It served to extinguish the effects of the democratisation process of the post-WWI years. The paper examines the work of four distinguished economists, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi, Alberto De Stefani and Umberto Ricci, who – in different roles as professors, journalists, advisors, and policy-makers – can be considered the source, the guardians and the enforcers of Fascist austerity.

Methodology, theory and inquiry in Italian economic and social thought: The making of Francesco Coletti

During the first decades of the twentieth century, Italian economist Francesco Coletti (1866–1940) was recognised as an authority on emigration and agricultural economics. We intend to focus here on Coletti's early career to understand how he rapidly managed to secure an enviable reputation. We examine Coletti's interventions on economic semiology and measurement of national wealth. We then move on to a series of theoretical debates (notably on Marx's theory of value) to which Coletti made significant contributions. Finally, we survey Coletti's fieldwork in agriculture and emigration, topics that allowed for connecting theoretical issues, methodological constraints, and empirical data.

Giacomo Becattini, 1927-2017

This year the Italian economist Giacomo Becattini passed away. He reached international fame by starting the literature on so-called Marshallian industrial districts. Becattini developed the concept while empirically studying the economy of the province of Prato, in Tuscany, and discussed the main implications in terms of analysis of the Italian economy and economic policy. However, before this stage of his career, which started around the ‘70s, Becattini authored several interesting works in the fields of economic theory and methodology, as well as in the history of economic thought. In all phases of his long career, he always cared about the implications of his analyses for the public debate and the political culture of the country.

The Principle of Subsidiarity and the Ethical Factor in Giuseppe Toniolo’s Thought

In this work, we present some traits of the socio-political and economic thought of Giuseppe Toniolo, who lived in Italy at the turn of the XIX and XX century, with special reference to the contribution that the Italian economist and sociologist gave to the definition and implementation of the principle of subsidiarity and to the ethical foundation of economic science. After outlining the definition of the subsidiarity principle in the first paragraph, we sketch the historical background in which Toniolo lived and operated. We then focus on the ethical factor and on the concept of subsidiary State emerging from Toniolo’s writings. Finally, we present some of the main elements of Toniolo’s legacy with reference to the current economic and socio-political debate.

Introduction: the theoretical legacy of Augusto Graziani

Augusto Graziani (1933–2014) was one of the most eminent Italian economists of the twentieth century. He is internationally known as the founding father of the theory of monetary circuit. His contributions to economic theory went beyond the circuit, especially in the early part of his career. They included both other theoretical areas (for example, a critical review of Walras's general equilibrium model) and the analysis of the ‘uneven development’ of the Italian economy. Even his approach to ‘circuitism’ was quite original and cannot be reduced to a special branch of post-Keynesianism. This introduction to the symposium on ‘The Economics of Augusto Graziani’ highlights some key points of his heretical thinking, and gives a quick summary of the papers that follow.