The Economic Crisis and Flexible Pay Structures: The Current Italian Outlook

Author(s):  
Simone Caponetti

The author explores an issue of acute contemporary relevance which is fueling a heated doctrinal debate in Italy and regards flexible remuneration or the linking of pay to productivity, performance or quality. It is the authors belief that, as a result of the economic downturn and changing organizational models within companies, at this moment in time there is a growing need for workers to be made more directly involved in their companies overall productivity. This aim can be achieved by tying pay to performance, with remuneration based not on the amount of time spent at work, as has traditionally been the case in Italy, but with a pattern of remuneration based on the efficiency of workers performance, a practice which has until now been infrequently applied.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loris Vergolini ◽  
Eleonora Vlach

The recent economic downturn has had profound influences on contemporary European societies. This paper analyzes how the Great Recession affected the drop-out rate among university students in Italy, and whether their chosen field of study moderated its effect. To examine the potential long-term effects of this economic downturn on social inequality, we also explore whether students from less-advantaged families who enrolled in prestigious fields were those pushed out from university in disproportionally high numbers. We investigate the interacting influence of the economic crisis, social inequalities and field of study on drop-out rate using data from the Istat “Survey on the educational and occupational paths of high school graduates” in two cohorts of university students (one who attended university prior to and one during the Great Recession). Results obtained from propensity score matching show that the economic crisis had a negative effect on university participation, which was however less strong for Medicine students. Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the most remunerative fields of study (those leading to liberal professions), tended to leave university more often than their well-off peers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-437
Author(s):  
Mohammad Monirul Hasan ◽  
József Tóth

This paper examines the association between controls of corruption and the agricultural production efficiency of 23 European Union Member States during the recent economic crisis. Production efficiency, measured in terms of technical efficiency, is the effectiveness of a given set of inputs that is used to produce an output. Owing to climate and geographical location agriculture in European countries is diverse. The economic downturn led by the financial crisis which started in mid-2007, is still prevailing across European countries. Control of corruption along with the existing economic crisis of the member states are affecting agriculture production efficiency. This study used the national level production data for the period of 2003-2009. It shows that the technical efficiency of most Member States have declined over the years and that it was significantly lower in austere economic crisis time 2007-09 than 2003-06 for all countries. It is also found that the declining trend of technical efficiency is significantly lower for central and eastern European countries than for the western European countries. Study finds that the control of corruption in the presence of high government effectiveness, decreases the technical efficiency of agricultural production in the Member States.Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.2(3): 427-437, December 2015


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peterson K. Ozili

PurposeThis paper analyses the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria, its effect on the economy and the structural causes that worsened the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses simple descriptive analysis to examine the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria.FindingsThe findings reveal that the economic downturn in Nigeria was triggered by a combination of declining oil price and spillovers from the COVID-19 outbreak, which not only led to a fall in the demand for oil products but also stopped economic activities from taking place when social distancing policies were enforced. The government responded to the crisis by providing financial assistance to businesses and a small number of households that were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The monetary authority adopted accommodative monetary policies and offered a targeted 3.5 trillion loan support to some sectors. These efforts should have prevented the economic crisis from occurring but it did not. Economic agents could not freely engage in economic activities for fear of contracting the COVID-19 disease that was spreading very fast at the time.Practical implicationsThe implication of the study is that policymakers should pay attention to three areas of the economy for economic and structural reform. One, policymakers should introduce economic reforms to diversify the economy and reduce Nigeria's dependence on revenue from crude oil export. Two, policymakers in Nigeria should invest in healthcare infrastructure to improve the ability of the national health system to withstand the outbreak of contagious diseases. Three, there is also a need to build appropriate digital infrastructure to facilitate the transition from “face-to-face” business activities to a “digital or online” business activities, which can help to grow the digital economy. Also, policymakers should use legislation to create a robust social welfare safety net for all citizens particularly for unemployed citizens and poor households.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that looks at the economic implication of COVID-19 in a West African country.


2009 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Jordan

Due to the current economic downturn, Singapore has experienced one of its most severe recessions since independence. The financial crisis, which caused a fall in prices at most of the world's leading stock exchanges and a sharp decline in industrial production, has also had a negative impact on the city-state's export-dependent economy. The analysis outlines the economic downturn and the decline of Singapore's export economy since the beginning of the crisis in late 2008. Central to the analysis are questions regarding the social consequences of the current economic crisis and the amount of losses Singapore's state-owned holding companies, Temasek and GIC, experienced when some of the world's biggest investment banks, such as Merrill Lynch, went into bankruptcy.


2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 477-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIRSTY WALKER

ABSTRACTDuring periods of recession, both historians and policy-makers have tended to revisit the multi-faceted relationship between health and economic crisis. It seems likely that the current economic downturn will trigger a new revival of efforts to gauge its implications for people's health around the world. This review will reflect on aspects of the relationship between health and economic crisis, exploring some of the unanswered questions within the historiography of the Great Depression and health, and suggest new directions that this work might take. Within a broadly transnational framework, I will reassess the diverse historiographies of interwar public health, in order to highlight ways in which the methodologies used could inspire future studies for neglected areas within this field, such as Southeast Asia. In doing so, I will illustrate that the effects of the interwar economic fluctuations on health status remain imprecise and difficult to define, but marked a transitional moment in the history of public health.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-220
Author(s):  
Irina Truschenko

Due to the economic downturn and high competition in the market, business structures are constantly looking for ways to optimize financial resources, as well as ways to increase their profits. Thus, a number of business structures use outsourcing as one of the effective tools for managing their resources. The transfer of individual business processes can allow the entrepreneurial structure to focus on strategically important areas of activity, due to which the profit of the entrepreneurial structure can be increased. According to the author's observations, the functioning of any business structures in the conditions of the economic crisis and the situation that has developed in connection with the spread of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19, outsourcing is a very relevant tool to increase competitiveness in the market. The article discusses the developed algorithm for making management decisions on the use of outsourcing by entrepreneurial structures. The process of making management decisions regarding the use of outsourcing is associated with a number of risks. The algorithm proposed by the author can help to minimize the risks arising when making a managerial decision on the use of outsourcing by entrepreneurial structures.


Author(s):  
Tomasz Rachwał

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the global economic crisis on changes in industrial production in Poland compared to other European countries. The paper examines the changes in indicators such as industrial production growth, changes in production of major products, employment in industry, labor productivity and economic climate. This analysis shows that current negative effects f economic crisis on Polish industry are not as major as expected and are comparable with previous periods of economic downturn (eg. the late 90’s of the 20th century). It also implies, that very often the changes in industrial production are affected by number of other socio-economic factors, the economic crisis being only one of the external factors.


2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Godenau ◽  
Dita Vogel ◽  
Vesela Kovacheva ◽  
Yan Wu

Since the start of the global economic downturn,GermanyandSpainhave experienced highly-divergent impacts of the crisis on the labour market in general and on immigrant workers in particular. This can be mainly explained by looking at the economic growth patterns prior to the crisis. Spain’s higher, more labour-intensive growth was enabled by growth in the labour supply that was fuelled by immigration and fostered by a de facto permissive immigration policy, while restrictive migration policy prevented growth in labour supply in Germany and encouraged more capital-intensive growth in which both Germans with a low level of skills, and immigrants in particular, found it difficult to integrate. We therefore argue that institutional features of the labour market promoted these patterns. The high level of importance of the temporary and informal labour market segments inSpainwhich were hit hardest by the crisis placed immigrant workers and young workers in a vulnerable position.The economic crisis has made parts of the population more sceptical about immigration in both countries. However, there appear to be no links between the severity of the crisis and public debates on migration. Although Spain was definitely hit harder by the crisis than Germany, and immigrants were affected more severely, public debates on migration and integration issues seem to be at least as fierce in Germany as in Spain. The legacy of past migrations and migration policies exerts a more significant influence on the public perception of migration as a risk than economic factors do.


Author(s):  
Anna Matysek-Jędrych

The chapter focuses on the relation between the economic crisis and competitiveness on a national and regional dimension. The Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) have experienced one of the biggest GDP contractions during the Global Crisis so far. Hence, identifying and assessing changes in the relative competitiveness as a consequence of the economic downturn has sparked many interests. The international competitiveness and economic crisis intermingle with one another. The international cases selected for the purpose of this research (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were to demonstrate clear and unquestionable evidence that crisis affects the international competitiveness of countries. One may believe that such a deep and painful financial and economic crisis as the current one—in the case of the Baltics—has to leave some permanent and explicit traces on a country's competitiveness. Thus, the results of this research may surprise a little. It may be generally concluded that a short-term crisis, even if severe, does not have a negative long-term influence on the international competitiveness as long as a proper anti-crisis policy is implemented. Sharing a number of structural, institutional, and performance features caused the crisis to undermine the competitiveness of the Baltic States in a similar manner (through macroeconomic stability channel). This in turn caused the applying of an analogue crisis management policy with the fundamental tool of fiscal policy tightening by an increased downward flexibility of wages and prices.


Author(s):  
Vincent D. Carpentier

The current recession invites us to revisit the past and to reflect on the historical relationship between education and economic prosperity as well as economic downturn. My aim here is to discuss the potential contribution of history to a better understanding of the current economic crisis and its impact on education within the British and French contexts.


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