PRIN 2020

An analysis of the Italian financial legal framework vis-a-vis the Capital Markets Union action plan: the perspective of regulatory fragmentation and sustainability

Head: Mirella Pellegrini

This research aims to advance the scholarly and public policy debate surrounding the Capital Markets Union and its implementation in Italy in two ways. First, it strives to elaborate and reconcile upon different theoretical approaches that can be informative in examining the structural changes the CMU is bringing about. The project therefore adopts the so-called “law in context approach”, which involves “treating legal subjects broadly, using materials from other social sciences and from any other discipline that helps to explain the operation in practice of the subject under discussion. Second, the project detects the current shortcomings in the Italian financial legislative framework and demonstrates how these may obstruct the achievement of the single market for capital in Europe. The ground-breaking nature of the proposed research project resides in three points: 1) This project will contribute to the debate on the CMU by adopting an innovative standpoint of analysis, in that it focuses on regulatory fragmentation; 2) It expands on the current scholarship by integrating different disciplines, methodologies and approaches and it thus integrates insights from economics, and finance and informatics/engineering into the legal discourse; 3) The proposed project will fill the gap in the literature concerning the interaction between the CMU and the domestic legislative framework, and concerning the main legal hurdles to the attainment of an integrated market.

GESI - Geography and Social Inequality in Italy. School, Work, Family and Mobility across Marginal and Central Areas

Head: Maria Rita Testa

Although classical research on social stratification has widely considered the geographical dimensions of social inequalities, surprisingly fewer studies have focused on how spatial arrangements affect the intergenerational reproduction of social inequalities in the last decades. The GESI (Geography and Social Inequality in Italy) is the first comprehensive study that investigates how the geographical area of origin affects different aspects of individual life courses and reverberates on social inequalities in life outcomes in Italy. The project considers the multidimensional and cumulative nature of social stratification, focusing on different aspects of individuals’ life chances: educational and occupational opportunities, social mobility pathways, family dynamics and internal geographical mobility. Four aims are addressed: to investigate the effects of geographical origin on individuals’ life outcomes; to study how geographical origin intersects with other dimensions of social inequality (e.g. education, social background of origin, etc.); to examine how internal geographical mobility reinforces existing social inequalities; to collect new and original data on different aspects of social and geographical inequalities.

JUMPS - Jumpstarting Europe - New Macroeconomic Policies after the Great Crises

Head: Pierpaolo Benigno

JUMPS objective is to study the effectiveness of the current monetary and fiscal policy mix, its potential trade-offs and risks, focusing on distributional issues and political economy considerations that can affect its implementation. The proposal can be divided into six themes that will be pursed in an organic and coordinated way: 1) Monetary policy stimulus: study the effectiveness of PEPP compared with alternative strategies, like helicopter money and enhanced forward guidance; analyze sovereign-debt risk due to the unwinding of PEPP. 2) Fiscal policy stimulus: provide a quantitative assessment of structural investments both from a micro and a macro perspective, by developing a new generation of models that integrate the macro dynamic approach with the fiscal microsimulation. 3) Reallocation effects of public investment across sectors: investigate reallocation effects and cross-sectional spillovers of new technologies adoption, skill-biased technological change and capital-skill complementarities. 4) Regional effects of public investment: explain the heterogeneity in the policy multipliers, measure capital misallocation across European regions and investigating how public investments can affect it. 5) Political feasibility: study the European population after-COVID sentiment about public interventions, redistribution entitlements, intergenerational policies. In order to identify a social welfare function necessary to benchmark efficiency-enhancing policy proposals that are also politically viable. 6) Policy recommendation: identify a set of policy recommendations that should drive the post-COVID recovery. JUMPS results will be condensed in a set of policy proposals bolstering the societal impact of the project.

Open Social Innovation for a Next Generation of Public Governance

Head: Maria Isabella Leone

This research project studies the conditions that can help develop a next generation of public governance able to effectively engage in multi-stakeholder collaboration processes aimed at promoting and generating social impact. We refer to public governance of open social innovation because the public sector may be the promoter of these processes and a leading actor among a variety of stakeholders confronting the most pressing social needs. The project addresses the following questions: 1) What are the main components and features of open social innovation processes that can be translated into the design of a novel model of place based public governance? (co-defining); 2) What are the governance enabling factors that allow the ecosystem of open social innovation to be sustained? (experimenting); 3) How can we institutionalize open social innovation as a new governance arrangement for the next generation of place based public governance? (developing and institutionalizing).

POSTGEN - Generational gap and post-ideological politics in Italy. A generation-aware analysis of ideological destructuring and political change in the Italian case

Head: Lorenzo de Sio

Recent, disruptive political change in the Western world (Brexit; Trump; challenger parties across Europe; the birth in 2018 Italy of the first "populist" government in Western Europe) has deeply challenged theories of voting behavior and party competition, leading most scholars to broad explanations based on populism and irrational publics. Still, current research only scratches the surface of a possible de-ideologization process, lacking processual focus (and missed the impact of the Covid crisis, potentially leading to further change). POSTGEN fills this gap by offering – on the Italian case, lying at the forefront of disruptive political change – an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms and dynamics of possible de-ideologization. It adopts a generation-aware perspective (needed for understanding change) with emphasis on younger generations, and with innovative focus on: time: tracing the (memory and) dynamics of the formation of political attitudes (at the individual, generational, and collective level) and their impact on political behavior;meanings associated to different political issues, and the (lack of) overarching ideological organization thereof; non-political actors and influencers, and their increasing influence in an age of crisis of epistemic authorities.

RE.S.TO.R.E. - Recovering the State Towards a Reformed Economy

Head: Aldo Sandulli

The RE.S.TO.R.E - Recovering the State Towards a Reformed Economy project proposes to achieve five interwoven objectives: to verify the modalities and the specific weight of the action of the European institutions in the general redefinition of public intervention in the economy, with particular reference to the Next Generation EU and its interpretation in the various nations; analysis of the junctures and timing of the institutional management of Italy’s recovery and resilience plan, on which the relaunch of the national economic system over the next five years should be based; investigation of the specific contribution of the State in the promotion and realisation of infrastructures as indispensable vectors of any other major long-term investment; mapping and critically investigating the repeated and different occasions on which the public authorities take action to guarantee the security of economic systems from predatory acquisitions, with particular attention to the various national and supranational disciplines of 'golden power'; identifying in detail the system of Italian public shareholdings and its overall redefinition, also in the light of the new role that important national institutions can play in the recovery period, such as the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, and local authorities.