Showing papers by "Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli published in 2020"

A Simple Planning Problem for COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract: We study the optimal lockdown policy for a planner who wants to control the fatalities of a pandemic while minimizing the output costs of the lockdown. We use the SIR epidemiology model and a linear economy to formalize the planner's dynamic control problem. The optimal policy depends on the fraction of infected and susceptible in the population. We parametrize the model using data on the COVID19 pandemic and the economic breadth of the lockdown. The quantitative analysis identifies the features that shape the intensity and duration of the optimal lockdown policy. Our baseline parametrization is conditional on a 1% of infected agents at the outbreak, no cure for the disease, and the possibility of testing. The optimal policy prescribes a severe lockdown beginning two weeks after the outbreak, covers 60% of the population after a month, and is gradually withdrawn covering 20% of the population after 3 months. The intensity of the lockdown depends on the gradient of the fatality rate as a function of the infected, and on the assumed value of a statistical life. The absence of testing increases the economic costs of the lockdown, and shortens the duration of the optimal lockdown which ends more abruptly. Welfare under the optimal policy with testing is higher, equivalent to a one-time payment of 2% of GDP.

Evaluating COVID-19 Public Health Messaging in Italy: Self-Reported Compliance and Growing Mental Health Concerns

Abstract: Purpose The COVID-19 death-rate in Italy continues to climb, surpassing that in every other country. We implement one of the first nationally representative surveys about this unprecedented public health crisis and use it to evaluate the Italian government’ public health efforts and citizen responses. Findings (1) Public health messaging is being heard. Except for slightly lower compliance among young adults, all subgroups we studied understand how to keep themselves and others safe from the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Remarkably, even those who do not trust the government, or think the government has been untruthful about the crisis believe the messaging and claim to be acting in accordance. (2) The quarantine is beginning to have serious negative effects on the population’s mental health. Policy Recommendations Communications should move from explaining to citizens that they should stay at home to what they can do there. We need interventions that make staying following public health protocols more desirable, such as virtual social interactions, online social reading activities, classes, exercise routines, etc. — all designed to reduce the boredom of long term social isolation and to increase the attractiveness of following public health recommendations. Interventions like these will grow in importance as the crisis wears on around the world, and staying inside wears on people.

At the Epicenter of COVID-19-the Tragic Failure of the Global Supply Chain for Medical Supplies.

Abstract: The tragic failure of the global supply chain in the face of the current coronavirus outbreak has caused acute shortages of essential frontline medical devices and personal protective equipment, crushing fear among frontline health workers and causing fundamental concerns about the sustainability of the health system. Much more coordination, integration, and management of global supply chains will be needed to mitigate the impact of the pandemics. This article describes the pressing need to revisit the governance and resilience of the supply chains that amplified the crisis at pandemic scale. We propose a model that profiles critical stockpiles and improves production efficiency through new technologies such as advanced analytics and blockchain. A new governance system that supports intervention by public-health authorities during critical emergencies is central to our recommendation, both in the face of the current crisis and to be better prepared for potential future crises. These reinforcements offer the potential to minimize the compromise of our healthcare workers and health systems due to infection exposure and build capacity toward preparedness and action for a future outbreak.

Parliamentary oversight under the Covid-19 emergency: striving against executive dominance

Abstract: The Covid-19 emergency has profoundly challenged the interactions between the legislative and the executive branches of government: while executives have assumed a predominant role in law-making, p...

Systemic Risk and the COVID Challenge in the European Banking Sector

Abstract: This paper studies the systemic risk contribution of a set of large publicly traded European banks. Over a sample covering the last twenty years and three different crises, we find that all banks in our sample significantly contribute to systemic risk. Moreover, larger banks and banks with a business model more exposed to trading and financial market volatility, contribute more. In the shorter sample characterized by the Covid-19 shock, sovereign default risks significantly affected the systemic risk contribution of all banks. However, the ECB announcement of the Pandemic Emergency Purchasing Programme restored calm in the European banking sector.

Identifying the Real Effects of Zombie Lending

Abstract: The policy response to COVID-19 includes the provision of credit guarantees to firms, a provision that may generate zombie lending According to the recent literature, the relative performance of healthy firms deteriorates as the fraction of zombies increases We argue that this literature faces a serious identification problem, because firm performance is often used to define zombies (sometimes implicitly) We show that, under general conditions for the distribution of firm performance, the correlation between healthy firm performance and zombies is a mechanical consequence of an increase in the fraction of zombies with no causal meaning

An effective approach to mobile device management: Security and privacy issues associated with mobile applications

Abstract: Consumers and organizations often rely on permissions requested during the installation of mobile applications (apps) and on official privacy policies to determine how safe an app is and decide whether the app producer is acting ethically or not. This research raises several concerns about the collection and sharing of personal data conducted by mobile apps without the knowledge or consent of the user. The findings of this case study research clearly demonstrate that permissions and privacy policies are not enough to determine how invasive an app is. By analysing six popular mobile apps we demonstrate how extensive amounts of data, which go well beyond the permissions requested of the user, are commonly collected. This study illustrates the effectiveness of our proposed approach, which is based upon a static and dynamic analysis, in addition to a review of privacy policy statements. From a corporate perspective, the outcomes of this study are important to understand how many mobile apps put employees, and intellectual property, at risk. Furthermore, we have highlighted how sensitive information being collected may eventually be used in public or private investigations. Moreover, we have also evidenced how the data being collected is contrary to the developers' privacy policies. The results of this study will assist policymakers who may be concerned with consumer privacy and data collection practices.

How to apply responsible leadership theory in practice: A competency tool to collaborate on the sustainable development goals

Abstract: In the era of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and calls for climate action, business is challenged to respond more effectively to societal and environmental challenges. Collaboration with stakeholders requires an ability for broader collaboration competencies. These form a part of an established literature on responsible leadership (RL) competencies. Human resources managers, consultants and educators in charge of developing such competencies demand clarity on the definition and a practical measurement tool for RL. This paper addresses both by proposing a RL definition and a RL competency model, that has been operationalized into a free online tool for individuals and groups. This free Competency Assessment for Responsible Leadership (CARL) tool is used to assess stakeholder engagement, individual and group leadership development, and internal sustainable development transformation work. The CARL online tool serves to systematically analyze and develop RL competencies, both in business and educational practices, and helps advance the RL theory based on insights from practice.

Does the Iron Curtain Still Exist? The Convergence in Electoral Volatility between Eastern and Western Europe

Abstract: The literature on party system change and electoral volatility in post-communist Europe tends to make a clear-cut distinction between Central and Eastern European (CEE) party systems and Western European (WE) ones. The former are unstable and unpredictable and electoral volatility is driven by the continuous emergence of new political parties. Conversely, electoral stability is the rule in the latter, and volatility is associated with electoral shifts among established parties. This conventional wisdom suffers from three potential sources of bias: case selection, time coverage and method. By correcting these biases, this article investigates whether the traditional division between CEE and WE party systems has been levelled as regards volatility. To do so, it presents evidence based on an original data set of electoral volatility and its internal components covering 31 WE and CEE party systems since 1990. It finds that a process of asymmetric convergence in the levels of electoral volatility is taking place between the two regions, with Western Europe approaching Central and Eastern Europe with increasing electoral instability.

Institutions and economic change: some notes on self-organization, power and learning in human organizations

Abstract: This paper provides a compact overview of the interpretations of the “primitive entities” constituting the social fabric of economic systems according to different social science traditions. In our view, it is possible to reconstruct two meta-narratives on the origins of the theoretical primitives which are at the roots of different social sciences approaches. The first narrative argues that ‘once upon a time’ there were individuals with well-structured and coherent preferences and with adequate cognitive algorithms which allowed them to take systematically rationally consistent decisions. At the beginning of history, they met and, conditional on the technologies available, undertook mutually beneficial exchanges or, when this was not possible due to technological non-convexities, trading difficulties or problems of contract enforcement, built organizations. In the alternative tale, at the beginning of history, there were immediately factors of socialization like families and social norms, which shaped desires, representations and, possibly, cognitive abilities of the agents. In this perspective, non-exchange mechanisms of interactions (authority, violence and persuasion) which establish the adaptation of agents to specific social roles appear in the explanation from the start. Here ‘institutions’ are the primitives, while ‘preferences’ and the very idea of ‘rationality’ are derived entities. Which of the two meta-narrative is chosen bears far-reaching implications for the interpretation of institutions and organizations and their transformations.

From issues to goals: a novel conceptualisation, measurement and research design for comprehensive analysis of electoral competition

Abstract: The analysis of issue politics has long suffered from a fragmentation between valence and positional conceptualisations, preventing the effective development of a general model of issue-based party...

A Preliminary Analysis of SASB Reporting: Disclosure Topics, Financial Relevance, and the Financial Intensity of ESG Materiality

Abstract: At the end of 2018, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) released its corporate reporting standards for material environment, social, and governance (ESG) issues. These SASB standards are analogous to FASB's but deal with ESG activities that help the companies create value over the long term and have been endorsed by large asset management firms such as BlackRock. The authors analyze the quality of ESG reporting by the 91 companies that adopted SASB's framework. While the number of such companies is still small, their results are encouraging, an indication of better things to come. Using three measures of effectiveness, Disclosure Topic Compliance Index (DTCI), Financial Relevance Compliance Index (FRCI), and Financial Intensity Compliance Index (FICI), the authors found that most companies are doing a good to very good job of reporting and companies tend to focus on measures with the highest financial relevance. Scores on these three measures were similar across industry sectors except for a few cases where the DTCI score is low. They presented cases of three SASB standard companies: 1) Sunrun, a residential solar panel company that uses some hazardous materials, 2) Suncor, an integrated oil and gas company, and 3) Target, a retail company in a highly competitive industry needing to keep costs low while also managing an extensive supply chain responsibly. These 91 companies have demonstrated that reporting according to SASB standards can be done well. This success should encourage other companies to follow and the authors offer a seven‐step process to adopt SASB standards.

Cepstral-based clustering of financial time series

Abstract: In this paper, following the Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) approach and the fuzzy theory, we propose a clustering model for financial time series based on the estimated cepstrum which represents the spectrum of the logarithm of the spectral density function. Selecting the optimal set of financial securities to build a portfolio that aims to maximize the risk-return tradeoff is a largely investigated topic in finance. The proposed model inherits all the advantages connected to PAM approach and fuzzy theory and it is able to compute objectively the cepstral weight associated to each cepstral coefficient by means of a suitable weighting system incorporated in the clustering model. In this way, the clustering model is able to tune objectively the different influence of each cepstral coefficient in the clustering process. The proposed clustering model performs better with respect to other clustering models. The proposed clustering model applied to each security sharpe ratio provides an efficient tool of clustering of stocks.

Corporate governance and institutions—A review and research agenda

Abstract: Research Question/Issue Over the last decades, research on the relationship between national institutions, governance mechanisms, and firm outcomes has been increasing. This review aims at (i) analyzing extant research in this area, (ii) identifying influential current trends, and (iii) highlighting future avenues of research. Research Findings/Insights Using a content analysis of 165 articles published in top journals from accounting, finance, management, and organization disciplines, we explore research on institutions, corporate governance, and firm outcomes. Our results show that stronger national institutions aimed at protecting investors are mostly associated with better corporate governance and firm financial outcomes and that these relationships are moderated by some contingency factors. Theoretical/Academic Implications Our findings encourage scholars to further explore the relationship between national institutions, corporate governance, and firm outcomes by using theoretical frameworks and methods allowing them (i) to develop a "thicker" understanding of the national institutional context, (ii) to analyze powerful stakeholders' influence on the above relationships, and (iii) to better understand the role played by informal institutions. Practitioner/Policy Implications Our findings help policymakers and investors to (i) better understand how national institutions impact on both governance mechanisms and firm outcomes and (ii) develop policies or design governance mechanisms taking into consideration country-, industry-, and firm-level contingencies.

Public Service Motivation or Sector Rewards? Two Studies on the Determinants of Sector Attraction:

Abstract: Public sector organizations are competing with the private sector for highly qualified staff. But the public sector lost attraction as an employer of choice. Public service motivation (PSM) and dif...