The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic certainly represents an unprecedented challenge not only for medical researchers fighting against its worldwide diffusion but also for statisticians involved in proposing models to estimate the crucial epidemic parameters and monitor and control its future evolution. The traditional epidemiological SIR model (Brauer, Castillo-Chavez and Feng, 2019) is usually specified in a deterministic way and fitted to empirical data by numerical optimization, neglecting the error component's role so that its performances cannot be statistically tested. This paper introduces uncertainty explicitly in the estimation process (Bailey, 1955;Kendall, 1956). We start providing a finite difference representation of the model. We then introduce stochastic components in the model in the form of a measurement error and a random error. We finally apply the model to the case of the Italian 2020-2021 Sars-Cov-2 pandemic diffusion showing its relative advantages with respect to the deterministic specification. © 2021 Vita e Pensiero. All rights reserved.
After a triennium (2015-2017) of relative growth, the economy of Campania (and the Mezzogiorno) has significantly slowed down, and the gap with Centre-North has increased again. Thus, as in the past, the economic, institutional, social, and political aspects of the structural fragility characterizing the region have again made the positive short-term conjuncture little effective in triggering a real and durable process of convergence towards the more developed Centre-Northern regions. This paper aims to single out the strengths and weaknesses in the industrial structure of the region by focusing specifically on firm demography; industrial specialization; firm productivity, competitiveness, and financial conditions; the propensity to innovation and international openness. Hingeing on the results of this analysis, features and targets for suitable policy measures are proposed, aimed at promoting a faster pace in the near-future development of Campania and the Mezzogiorno in order to overcome their long-lasting gap with Centre-Northern Italy and other European regions.
The present note has an informative purpose. It calls attention to Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a prominent 20th century intellectual, well known for his contributions as a theologian, but whose reflections and writings also covered economics. Two volumes of his more than twenty collected works present the main lines of his comprehensive economic vision, including a critical discussion on the prevailing economic ideologies at the eve and inception of WWII, and they show the need not only for a deep change of the objectives of economic policies but also for a deep rethinking of the purpose of economics as a social discipline.
In the last five years the Italian manufacturing sector has reduced the growth gap vis-a`-vis the euro area, in the face of a continuing growth differential in the service sector. The improvement of cost competitiveness is among the factors that led to this recovery in the manufacturing sector. However, as long as competitiveness gains mainly depend on the slowdown in wages rather than on increases in productivity extended to all sectors of the economy, the process cannot be considered virtuous. It entails not only beneficial effects on exports, but also unfavourable consequences on real wages and household incomes and, therefore, on domestic demand.
This article proposes a common good approach to development. In the first part, we formalize what we understand by such an approach and propose a matrix of common good dynamics. The second part develops a metric to capture at the level of municipalities the present dynamic of the nexus of common goods. The third part revises how we can appraise and understand the data we get from the metric. The last part is dedicated to the value that the added information from the given approach may provide to development practitionners.
