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Abstract:
The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between drug price and drug quality and how it varies across two of the most common regulatory regimes in the pharmaceutical market: Minimum Efficacy Standards (MES) and Price Controls (PC). We develop a model of adverse selection where a pharmaceutical company can charge different prices to a heterogeneous group of buyers for its (innovative) drug, and we evaluate the properties of the equilibria under the two regimes. We model consumer heterogeneity stemming from differences in the willingness-to-pay for drug quality, measured through ex-post efficacy. The theoretical analysis provides two main results. First, the average drug quality delivered is higher under the MES regime than in the PC regime or a in combination of the two. Second, PC regulation reduces the difference in terms of high-low quality drug prices. The empirical analysis based on Italian and US data corroborates these results.

pharmaceutical market, regulation, innovation

Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to study the labor demand in the Italian manufacturing, using firm-level data on pharmaceutical industry. Actually, the Italian pharmaceutical industry is characterized by the existence of long-term labor contracts, and this fact suggests to consider labor as quasi-fixed input. In order to characterize firms' behavior we base our analysis on the restricted Generalized Leontief cost function. The choice of this flexible functional form is due to its ability to capture the input substitution patterns in presence of more than one quasi-fixed input. Therefore demand and substitution elasticities are estimated with respect to two different theoretical models: the first, QFI(1), with capital as quasi-fixed input and the second, QFI(2), with two quasi-fixed inputs, capital and labor. The choice among the two alternative specifications is based on an elasticity comparison criterion, since the two models are not nested. Our results confirm the a priori on the labor market rigidity and point out the high heterogeneity between the firms, even controlling for the size and for the nationality.

quasi-fixed inputs, restricted Generalized Leontief, pharmaceutical

Abstract:
Sustainable Development involves the integration of social, environmental and economic objectives. Indeed when we refer to the sustainability of economic development, it should be well known that this is strictly related to environmental consequences, social and cultural changes and financial sustainability of the policies implemented for promoting growth. Unfortunately, the evidence of these years suggests that the standard measures of development have little relation with human welfare and that this strong pressure on economic growth is destroying the natural environment. Therefore, expressions like "sustainable development" (and especially "sustainable economic growth") could seem just as an oxymoron. Moreover the vulnerability of the financial system can be interpreted as a crucial issue in a globalised market. The aim of this non - technical paper is investigating the determinants of Sustainable Development capturing the various dimensions of this phenomenon from the described standpoints.

Sustainable Development, Social Capital, Globalisation, Financial vulnerability, Economic Growth

Abstract:
The increasing waves of globalization, the first taking place between the second half of the last century and WWI, and the second which has occurred since WWII until today, implied an unprecedented flow of goods and factors across international borders. The first episode of mass migration dates back to the nineteenth century, when millions of individuals flew to the New World. This phenomenon, taking place along with the first wave of globalisation, was absolutely massive: approximately 50 millions of Europeans fled from their home country to the New World, between 1820 and 1913 (Hatton and Williamson, 2003). Ever since, aside from a halt in the period between the two World Wars, international migration has accompanied the reprise of the globalisation process, while areas of origin and destination of migration have varied and expanded.

In particular, strong flows of labour force migrants from the less developed to more industrialized countries have become a widespread phenomenon, despite the fact that the constraints due to migrant policies may have suppressed a vast amount of potential migration that otherwise would have taken place.

In the recent thirty years, indeed, international mobility has not kept the pace of the other two indices of globalisation, namely international trade and mobility of capital, although migration pressure does not seem to have declined. In fact, whereas, in the first wave of globalisation, mobility of labour did not suffer from particular restrictions from the receiving countries, the last thirty years have indeed witnessed a growing institutional and legislative firmness on restricting access and on selecting foreign workers, in particular in Europe. Yet, considering the queues of applicants for regular immigration permits in the developing world, the surge in illegal immigration and the increasing number of those that seek asylum in the developed world (Hatton and Williamson, 2003) as a proxy of migration pressure, all these indices point in the direction of increasing rather then declining pressure. This survey aims at highlighting the fundamental contributions offered by the economic literature to the theme of migration, and to the related issues of social exclusion and labour policy, offering both theoretical and empirical insights.

Migration, Labour Policies, European Union