Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli

About: Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli is a education organization based out in Rome, Lazio, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Monetary policy. The organization has 692 authors who have published 2493 publications receiving 36411 citations. The organization is also known as: Libera Universita Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli & Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali "Guido Carli".

Spaces of Struggle: Socialism and Neoliberalism With a Human Face Among Digital Parties and Online Movements in Europe

Abstract: This article aims to illustrate the complexity of the relationships between digital participation spaces and organisations related to the Southern-European and US socialist traditions. Digital communication and, in particular, the various platforms of digital participation have been long living between the illusion of techno-libertarian thrusts and the technocratic tendencies framing the New Public Management approach. The suspicion of socialist-inspired parties but also of post-Marxist social movements towards the digital is connected on the one hand to the organisational structure of the parties and on the other hand to the capacity of neoliberalism to incorporate digital innovation in its cultural horizon. Participation platforms have often been functional to the emergence of a neoliberalism with a human face, capable of offering potential spaces of participation that depoliticise civic activism and transform it into a mere technical tool of minimal governance. In recent years, however, digital party experiences have developed in the context of left-wing organisations. In other cases, digital platforms have been used as tools of mobilisation and even as instruments for the creation of a new sentimental connections with the increasingly fragmented “popular classes”. Digital has thus become a “space of struggle”, in the same meaning it was used in the 1980s by Stuart Hall. This article presents the first findings of a research project on the use of digital platforms by: a) parties of socialist inspiration in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the USA; and b) bottom-up social movements. The analysis follows an empirical approach based on: a) the analysis of organisations; b) content analysis (Evaluation Assertion Analysis) of political and policy documents on the use of digital as a tool for political struggle; c) in-depth interviews to digital activists of social movements.

Opinion Dynamics via Search Engines (and other Algorithmic Gatekeepers)

Abstract: Ranking algorithms are the information gatekeepers of the Internet era. We develop a stylized model to study the effects of ranking algorithms on opinion dynamics. We consider a search engine that uses an algorithm based on popularity and on personalization. We find that popularity-based rankings generate an advantage of the fewer effect: fewer websites reporting a given signal attract relatively more traffic overall. This highlights a novel, ranking-driven channel that explains the diffusion of misinformation, as websites reporting incorrect information may attract an amplified amount of traffic precisely because they are few. Furthermore, when individuals provide sufficiently positive feedback to the ranking algorithm, popularity-based rankings tend to aggregate information while personalization acts in the opposite direction.

Learning Entrepreneurship from Other Entrepreneurs

Abstract: We document that individuals who grew up in areas with high density of firms are more likely, as adults, to become entrepreneurs, controlling for the density of firms in their current location. Conditional on becoming entrepreneurs, the same individuals are also more likely to be successful entrepreneurs, as measured by business income or firm productivity. Strikingly, firm density at entrepreneur’s young age is more important than current firm density for business performance. These results are not driven by better access to external finance or intergenerational occupation choices. They are instead consistent with entrepreneurial capabilities being at least partly learnable through social contacts. In keeping with this interpretation, we find that entrepreneurs who at the age of 18 lived in areas with a higher firm density tend to adopt better managerial practices (enhancing productivity) later in life.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Generically distributed investments on flexible projects and endogenous growth

Abstract: In this paper we study an endogenous growth model where investments are (generically) distributed over multi-period flexible projects leading to new capital once completed. Recently developed techniques in dynamic programming are adapted and used to unveil the global dynamics of this model. Based on this analytical ground, several numerical exercises are performed to show the quantitative relevance of the analytical findings with an emphasis on the relation between project features and economic growth and speed of convergence toward the balanced growth path.

The euro crisis through two paradigms: interpreting the transformation of the European economic governance

Abstract: The euro crisis has put to test the intergovernmental decision-making regime institutionalized by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty for dealing with the economic policy side of the Economic and Monetary Union. Under the pressure of the euro collapse, the heads of state and government have introduced new legal measures and intergovernmental treaties that have radically transformed the European economic governance. How to interpret this transformation? The article discusses two of the main paradigms (liberal intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism) used by scholars for interpreting the EU, showing their weakness in explaining that transformation. Looking at the euro crisis institutional implications through the two paradigms is a necessary exercise for elaborating a more comprehensive approach to the changes in the European economic governance.