Carlo Milana

Birkbeck, University of London · Department of Management

Paul A. Samuelson’s (1966) capitulation with his Austrian model during the so-called Cambridge controversy on the phenomenon of re-switching of techniques in capital theory had implications not only in pointing at the supposed internal contradiction of the marginal theory of production and distribution but also in the pursuit of vested interests in...

Both academic and nonacademic literature is evolving following the oscillating development of artificial intelligence (AI) and computing power's evolution in their application to finance and financial markets. The limits to economic growth encountered after the financial crisis and, successively, the recent pandemic bursts have posed new challenges...

Lifting the poor from poverty through financial and social inclusion is the ultimate target and raison d'etre of microfinance. As the most recent literature has recognized, microfinance institutions have economically worked well in operating microcredit, but the aim of raising the living standard of their indigent clients has not been generally met...

Paul A. Samuelson's (1966) capitulation during the so-called Cambridge controversy on the re-switching of techniques in capital theory had implications not only in pointing at supposed internal contradiction of the marginal theory of production and distribution, but also in the pursue of vested interests of vested interests in the academic and poli...

The possibility of the reswitching of techniques in Piero Sraffa’s intersectoral model, namely the recurring capital-intensive techniques with monotonic changes in the interest rate, is traditionally considered as a paradoxical violation of the assumed convexity of technology putting at stake the viability of the neoclassical theory of production....

The possibility of re-switching of techniques in Piero Sraffa's intersectoral model, namely the returning capital-intensive techniques with monotonic changes in the profit rate, is traditionally considered as a paradox putting at stake the viability of the neoclassical theory of production. It is argued here that this phenomenon can be rationalized...

The economic literature can help us find how to foster entrepreneurship in China in order to ensure a sustainable economic growth. Someone asked Confucius ‘Why do you not take part in government?’ The Master replied: ‘The Book of History says, Oh! Simply by being a good son and friendly to his brothers, a man can exert an influence upon government....

This paper presents a firm-level analysis of multifactor productivity (MFP) in Italy between 1998 and 2004. Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique, MFP change are measured for 31 industries and decomposed into efficiency change and technical change (which in turn is interpreted as the combined effect of technical progress and scale economi...

Most contributions in the fast-growing literature on microfinance seem to agree that all the stakeholders (borrowers, lenders, communities, government and regulators, interested third parties) should become fully aware of the potentiality of the joint value creation achieved through cooperation.

Vikram Akula, A Fistful of Rice: My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4221-3117-6, Hardcover US$26.95, 191 pages. Muhamad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty, PublicAffairs, New York, 2007, ISBN-13 978-1-58648/ISBN-10 1-58...

Recent studies confirm that financial support for innovative entrepreneurial firms is important for sustainable productivity growth in China and for a rebalanced global economy.

In a debt-ridden society that badly needs to grow economically, policies controlling the flows of economic accounts (revenues and expenditures) should be consistent with an efficient "asset and liability management". The extra money obtained from immediate sales of idle or low-productive government properties can boost economic growth if lent to in...

The paper presents a first set of results for Spain and Italy using the EUKLEMS database. It emphasizes the different paths followed by the two countries over the last thirty five years, even though they still have many features in common. The motivation behind this paper is the poor productivity performance that the two countries have shown recent...

The contributions in this issue show that the role played by venture capital can be active and positive in determining and sustaining a high growth profile of the backed firms provided that agency problems are minimized and appropriate financial instruments are devised to contain the increase in the risk premium of the operations.

Firms born to grow could find their way successfully no matter how harsh the external financial conditions seem to be.

Despite the fact that the firm's economic value has a subjective nature, various procedures have been devised to measure it for objective reasons, primarily for establishing the best credentials on financial markets.

The index-number problem is typically a problem of aggregation of changes in heterogeneous elements. Mathematically, it consists in reducing the relative change of the elements of a vector into changes in one single numerical value, a scalar. The purpose of this paper is to present a solution of the index number problem in the perspective of the th...

The price index, a pervasive long established institution for economics, is a number issued by the Statistical Office that should tell anyone the ratio of costs of maintaining a given standard of living in two periods where prices differ. For a chain of three periods, the product of the ratios for successive pairs must coincide with the ratio for t...

This paper presents a firm-level analysis of the multifactor productivity that has been recently observed in Italy. DEA techniques are applied to the firm-level data collected within the annual surveys on the economic accounts of enterprises carried out by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT). MFP changes occurred during the period 19...

It has been submitted that, for the very large number of different traditional type formulae to determine price indices associated with a pair of periods, which are joined with the longstanding question of which one to choose, they should all be abandoned. For the method proposed instead, price levels associated with periods are first all computed...

In the index number approach to productivity measurement, inputs are usually assumed to be strongly separable from outputs and from the technology of production. In the general case of non-homothetic changes, this assumption might lead to misleading results. Its inconsistency with the data is also reflected in the violation of the canonical inequal...

It is submitted that, for the very large number of different traditional type formulae to determine price indices associated with a pair of periods, which are joined with the longstanding question of which one to choose, they should all be abandoned. A method is proposed whereby price levels associated periods are first all computed together, subje...

It has been submitted that, for the very large number of different traditional type formulae to determine price indices associated with a pair of periods, which are joined with the longstanding question of which one to choose, they should all be abandoned. For the method proposed instead, price levels associated with periods are first all computed...

We develop an approach to productivity measurement based on profit functions. We do this within a framework where non-separable outputs and inputs can be aggregated together, rather than separately as with conventional productivity indexes defined as ratios of output to input indexes. Our approach permits us to construct net aggregates that are alw...

This paper proposes to clarify some important questions that are still open in the field of index number theory. The main results are the following: (i) the so-called Quadratic Identity on which the superlative index numbers are based can be applied in more general cases than those traditionally considered; (ii) it is not only the Toernqvist index...

This paper presents a firm-level analysis of the recent productivity slowdown in Italy. It applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques to firm-level data collected through the annual surveys on the economic accounts of enterprises carried out by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT). The paper also measures TFP changes that occu...

This paper examines the impact of the information and communication technologies (ICT) on production technical efficiency in a wide range of industries in Italy. Technical efficiency, defined as the firm's distance from the production efficient frontier, often makes up an important component of productivity. Assessing the role of ICT in the organiz...

This paper presents a firm-level analysis of the recent productivity slowdown in Italy. It applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques to firm-level data collected by means of annual surveys on the economic accounts of enterprises carried out by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT). The paper also measures changes in total fact...

This paper presents a firm-level analysis of the productivity slowdown that has been recently observed in Italy. DEA techniques are applied to the firm-level data collected within the annual surveys on the economic accounts of enterprises carried out by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT). TFP changes over the years 1996-1999 have be...

This paper examines the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) on technical production efficiency in a wide range of Italian industries. Technical efficiency, defined as the firm’s distance from the production efficiency frontier, is one important component of productivity. Assessing the role of ICTs in the organisation and co...

Sectoral price gaps that were observed in 1990 between Japan and China are studied in this paper by using a decomposition procedure within the input-output framework. The empirical results show that Japan exhibited producer prices that were higher than those observed in China mainly because it registered higher wages that were only partially offset...

This paper examines the world trade competition in high-technology products. The special contribution to a nation's long term economic performance in high-technology industries is related to the fact that these generate spillovers and externalities effects. By using an original data base and taxonomy for trade flows it is shown that from 1970 to 19...

This paper reviews the literature on the consumer price index (CPI) and the main causes of the upward biases that are usually present in traditional measurements. The debate on this subject is old, but it has recently been renewed by a report to the US Senate by an Advisory Commission made by economic experts. An upward bias of one percentage point...

This paper is focused on three problematic areas of the index number approach to productivity comparisons: (i) sensitivity of the results that are obtained by applying alternative fixed- and flexible-weight index numbers; (ii) extension of bilateral comparisons to multilateral intertemporal and interspatial comparisons of productivity; (iii) measur...

This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection a...

This paper presents a multilateral comparison of relative levels and structures of costs of production in Japan, the U.S. and West Germany. The analysis is carried out by using harmonized input-output tables, which are converted at U.S. prices by using adjusted sectoral purchasing power parities. A new accounting methodology is derived from recent...

New indicators of price competitiveness and effective exchange rates are proposed in order to provide more accurate information about the overall competitive position of a given country with respect to the traditional indices. The new methodology uses one of the so-called "superlative" index numbers that are characterized by very small approximatio...

In this chapter we present an intertemporal general-equilibrium model of the Italian economy, with a special emphasis on taxation. The purpose of this model is to evaluate the effects, on national wealth and welfare, arising from the existence of a distortionary tax structure.

In this paper we examine the process of cost formation and the evolution of profits in some leading sectors of the Italian industry. The analytic scheme is based on a model of short run behavior in which the quantity of fixed capital cannot be adjusted and equilibrium between total unit costs and prices is not always achieved. In the proposed inter...

This paper presents some extensions of theoretical neoclassical approaches to study and measure productivity growth and economic welfare. Qualitative changes that are introduced by investments in new capital goods are defined not only as an increase in the services obtained from capital stock but also as the "externalities" that the new goods produ...

This paper aims at measuring the welfare change in Italy due to the proposed harmonization of indirect taxes in the EEC. The analysis is carried out by means of an Applied General Equilibrium model which is implemented following the so-called econometric approach and is solved by one of the traditional Newton-type procedures. The results show that...

: This paper attempts to estimate the relative importance of various factors that, under an increasing external constraint, have contributed to the competitiveness and output growth in the Italian industry during the last eighteen years. In particular, it tries to evaluate the effectiveness of the few relevant supply-side policies adopted in Italy,...

This paper examines the constant market-shares (CMS) analysis of a country's export growth within the context of index number theory and is aimed at finding a satisfactory solution to the problems encountered by the traditional CMS decomposition procedures. The last ones perform the task of disentangling the variations of each accounting factor onl...

The theoretical reference of this paper is general economic equilibrium in an input-output framework. The model concentrates on factor demands in the Italian manufacturing industries allowing Leontief coefficients to vary as a function of relative input prices, technical progress and external economies of scale. The variability of input-output coef...

During the period from the fifties to the early eighties, the Italian industry has faced dramatic changes both in the international and domestic markets. The need to reduce the inflationary effects on the costs of production and to recover profit margins has led to continuous restructuring of the production processes and considerable efficiency gai...

The theoretical reference of this paper is general economic equilibrium in an input-output framework. The model concentrates on factor demands in the Italian manufacturing industries allowing Leontief coefficients to vary as a function of relative input prices, technical progress and external economies of scale. The variability of input-output coef...

It has been seldom recognized, after an early clarification made by Samuelson (1947, p. 151) and successive systematic developments of Afriat, that chain-consistent relative price levels can be reconstructed (up to a constant) using several observation points directly and simultaneously. The derived ratios of price levels are mutually consistent by...

The fundamental and well-known theorem for the existence of a price index that is invariant under change in level of living is that each dollar of income be spent in the same way by rich or poor, with all income elasticities exactly unity (the homothetic case). Otherwise, a price change in luxuries could affect only the price index of the rich whil...