DELOS/DEV - Presentations
Skype: school.socialsciences
9 AM - Room 10, Department of Sociology and Social Research (UNITN) and D15/005 (UNIFI)
| 9.00 | Bibi Samuele: The State Again: Keynes, Kalecki and Metzler in a Dynamic Distribution Growth Model
Abstract This paper focuses on the dynamics analysis from the ultra-short to the short period inside a Post-Keynesian perspective. It is argued that the construction of both the short run and the long run models are based on the critical assumption of an equilibrium concept between aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Starting from the work by Metzler (1941), the issue of equilibrium and stability is investigated inside a Keynesian-Kaleckian framework. An algorithmic dynamic model that takes into account autonomous (though not independent) aggregate supply and aggregate demand, and the behaviour of different social classes is proposed to analyse the following two major aspects. The model proposed will analyse whether the standard Kaleckian conclusions are still valid considering a disequilibrium situation. Two scenarios are simulated: one with fixed expectations as in Metzler (1941) and another new one based on adaptive expectations and asymmetric behaviour of the wages-unemployment relation. The model questions the effective demand labour curve and suggests that an increase in real autonomous expenditures, mainly by the Government, might be even more essential than what is generally considered in the Kaleckian literature, to avoid increasing unemployment in an increasing wage world. |
| 9.30 | Cirillo Cristina: Social Protection and Risk Coping Strategies in Developing Countries Abstract Social protection programmes are becoming increasingly important for developing countries. The recent literature maintains that they are essential instruments to deal with poverty and vulnerability and result in protective measures. In developing countries, households are highly exposed to risk and often face liquidity or credit constraints. Given the lack of feasible instruments to deal with these issues, households may put in place ex-ante or ex-post risk coping strategies. Some of these strategies, as for instance livestock and assets sales or school drop-out and child labor, may be highly detrimental in the long run while others, as migration due to income sources differentiation, may imply huge social changes and determine the need of new policies at international level. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze how social protection may affect the implementation of these risk coping strategies. In particular, we propose three research projects on the relationship between social protection and different risk coping strategies, namely assets sales, child labor and migration. For each of them, we focus on specific programmes, data, and methodologies. Our objective is to contribute to the debate about the preventive and productive role of social protection in the long run and to provide concrete policies implications. |
| 10.00 | Bortolotti Luca: THE UNBALANCED DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA: THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WELLBEING IN CHINA Abstract Purpose - This thesis aims to investigate the unbalances that emerged in the Chinese economy along with the implementation of reforms, focusing on the most recent trends (i.e. post 2008 crisis). A number of critical issues (economic, social and environmental) arose along the with GDP growth, overshadowed by its spectacular rise. These unbalances are a major concern for the “harmonious society” project; beside this, inequality also undermines a sustainable economic growth. Structure - The thesis is structured into three chapters. Each chapter focuses on a different outcome of Chinese reforms. The first chapter, on multidimensional inequality (in income, health and education), investigates the causes of such inequalities within Chinese provinces. The second chapter, on economic diversification and specialization of Chinese provinces, describes the differences in the economic structure and performances of different provinces according to New Economic Geography criteria. The third chapter, on inequality between provinces, investigates whether economic growth and human development are converging between the provinces and if the “Flying Geese Within Borders” model fits with the recent development of China. Originality – Despite a growing number of studies is investigating the unbalances between Chinese provinces, most of them adopted a quantitative perspective limited to GDP growth analysis. Consistently with the Chinese “New Left” school of thought, the thesis wants to focus on income achievements as well as on other dimensions of wellbeing. Methodology - The investigation of these aspects relies on various data sources –on top of which there are the provincial annual data collected by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics- analyzed with different quantitative econometric methods. Keywords: China; inequality; division of labor; convergence; human development |
| 10.30 | Oskorouchi Hamid Reza: Conflict and Household Food Resilience Threshold in Afghanistan.
Abstract Our paper investigates the effect of conflict on the household food security status in Afghanistan. A body of the recent literature underlines a positive correlation between violent events and food security. Our suspicious is that in protracted crisis countries households show a resilience threshold above which this impact becomes negative. This possibility is not investigated in the literature and we tested it by an OLS approach in which we controlled for the non-linear effect of violent events on the household food consumption score using micro-data at the household level. We considered 20,000 observations representative of the 34 Afghan provinces over the period 2013-2014. Moreover, we distinguished between conventional and unconventional conflicts in light of the suspicious of their different impact on household food security. |
|
11.30 |
Yue Teng: Export Sophistication of the Developing South. The Profile of South-South Trade. Abstract Chapter 2 analyses South-South trade in terms of scale and growth, product structure, and trade potential, with a particular interest in the Developing South. Two major conclusions are reached. Firstly, conventional country grouping approach tends to overestimate Southern countries’ trade performance and production capability in medium- and high-end manufactures. This generates an illusion of not only the scale of South-South trade, but also technology and manufacturing capability of the global South. Secondly, the Developing South faces a structural problem that may obstacle its trade potential, due to low match degree between its supply and the demand from the rest of the world. Chapter 3 introduces the indicator of export sophsitication, EXPY, and presents the Developing South’s EXPY in a global comparison and by destination. From 1995 to 2014, the Developing South was always positioned at the bottom of the global export sophistication hierarchy without significant improvement. For the majority of countries in the Developing South, exports within themselves (core South-South exports) are more sophisticated than exports to the rest of the world. Interestingly, these countries are the poorer half in the Developing South, and their relatively high sophistication level of their core South-South exports is a result of the low sophistication level of their exports to the rest of the world. |
| 12.00 | Santi Filippo: The Good, the Bad, or the Ugly? A different view on Migrants’ Networks, Investments and the Environment
Abstract This thesis studies some relevant explanations of migration in the context of the globalization process that has characterized the last twenty years. More specifically, it investigates the so-called “pollution haven” hypothesis as well as migration due to environmental events (such as flooding or earthquakes etc.). It then connects these issues by examining the role of diasporas for enhancing FDIs. It is out of doubt that FDIs take advantage of favourable conditions in the receiving economies, even beyond simple market considerations. In this thesis, we focus on two major and novel explanations: the role of migrants networks as information conductor able to lift intangible barriers that limit profitability of investments and the role of environmental standards in driving the location of productive activities at world level. The relationship between migrants’ networks and international trade has recently been the object of several studies. Despite the fact that FDI and trade are different modes of internationalization, a much less explored channel is the one that ties together migration networks and FDIs. Even if, according to UNACTAD (2015), FDIs directed to developing countries has been substantially increasing since the 1970s, as well as the migratory flows did, their linkages have not yet been explicitly investigated in a rigorous way.The second driver considered here refers to the so-called “Pollution Haven Hypothesis”. By this,the existing literature describes the tendency of Western MNE to relocate their most polluting activities in developing countries, to take advantage of lax environmental regulations and a less influential public opinion. This suggestive idea has found little empirical confirmation so far given the difficulty to test data on pollutants; however, some recent relocations, especially in Sub Saharan Africa and in South East Asia, suggest that this issue is worth being further investigated. Indeed, while FDIs may represent a considerable source of growth for LDCs, their (negative) impact on the environment may also be substantial. Building on such premises, this thesis will also attempt to investigate the “FDI-environmentmigration” nexus by evaluating the impacts of pollution and climate change on human movements, as well as the role that these two connected fields of research have on foreign direct investments. |
| 12.30 | Parisi Diletta: Rural Non-farm activities in Ethiopia: effect on Household Food Consumption.
Abstract |