Investment in general human capital paid for by workers might be prevented by the risk of a firm's opportunistic behaviour: because of the non verifiability of training activities, the firm might employ workers who accept a wage cut for normal production activities and, then, provide these workers with a low level of training. In this paper, it is shown that in labour markets with search and matching frictions, the solution to the firm's moral hazard problem depends on labour market conditions. On the basis of an "up-or-out" contract, a "no-cheating constraint" is derived which shows that the firm's opportunism might be prevented in tight labour markets. On the other hand, in high unemployment markets this type of contract is unable to guarantee the realization of workers' desired investment. Secondly, we show that when the "endogenous" market solution is not feasible, firing costs may play a positive role in encouraging human capital investment. The analysis allows us to provide an explanation for some norms, which regulate the Italian fixed-term Training Contracts (Contratti di Formazione e Lavoro), imposing on the firm the transformation of a given percentage of these contracts into regular employment of an undetermined duration.

A large empirical evidence shows that on-the-job training is mainly directed towards high educated workers. By adopting the assumption that education has a positive influence on the efficiency with which individuals acquire new skills on-the-job, we propose two simple models to explain the complementarity between education and training, The first one considers an adverse selection mechanism which affects in a stronger way high-educated workers. This results in a more compressed wage structure for these workers incentivating firms to train them. The second model starts from the assumption that high-educated workers are more involved in team production, which generates team specific human capital. This makes costly for workers the separation from the current firm leading it to pay for their training.

Some empirical evidence shows that many firms take explicit account of the family ties connecting workers, often hiring individuals belonging to the same family. This kind of behaviour seems especially diffuse in small firms. This paper tries to explain this evidence considering that often experienced workers are in charge of the training of new hires: since this transmission process is problematic, because training activities are not easily observable and verifiable, firms could enhance training by adopting hiring policies based on family relationships. We proceed by introducing the assumption of altruism within the family and supposing that agents maximise a family utility function rather than an individual one. The implications of this assumption in an insider-outsider framework are explored: the family ties between insiders and outsiders can modify the insiders’ convenience in following a non-cooperation strategy aimed at obtaining a higher wage rate. The insiders could try to influence the firm’s hiring decision by offering to cooperate in the training process of the outsider members of their families and by accepting a wage reduction.

Some recent theories on human capital investments show that firms could be interested in paying for the general training of their workers. However, when search costs are low because there is a large availability of skilled workers on the market (that is, when the skilled unemployment/vacancy ratio is high), firms might find it optimal to hire skilled workers on the market rather than provide training to unexperienced workers. We study these aspects in a model with search and matching frictions. In order to verify empirically the relationship between training and labour market tightness across Italian regions, we use, as exogenous determinants of unemployment, the regional differences in separation rates and in labour productivity (in face of a centralised wage bargaining system). Consistent with theoretical predictions, the evidence shows that training is negatively influenced by unemployment and turnover and positively by labour productivity.

By casual empiricism, it seems that many firms take explicit account of the family ties connecting workers, often hiring individuals belonging to the same family or passing jobs on from parents to their children. This paper makes an attempt to explain this behaviour by introducing the assumption of altruism within the family and supposing that agents maximise a family utility function rather than an individual one. This hypothesis, already considered in the theory of consumption, has been almost ignored in the analysis of the relationship between employers and employees. The implications of this assumption in the efficiency wage models are explored: by employing members of the same family, firms can use a (credible) harsher threat – firing the whole family in case of one member’s shirking - that allows them to pay a lower efficiency wage. On the other hand, workers who accept this agreement exchange a reduction in wage with an increase in their probability of being employed: this can be optimal in situation of high unemployment. Moreover, the link between parents and children allows the firm to follow a strategy that solves the problem of an individual’s finite time horizon through family’s reputation.

It has been emphasised that tournaments can determine non-cooperative behaviour among workers employed at the same hierarchical level. Instead, less attention it has been attributed to the analysis of cooperation between superiors and subordinates. The traditional view says that cooperation of subordinates with their superior should not be a problem as the latter decides on promotions. The problem emphasised in the paper regards the fact that supervisors may not want to promote the best workers from under them because their smart subordinate then becomes their competition. In this paper we propose a tournament which, thanks to a system of linked promotions, manages to obtain the cooperation of employees at different levels in the hierarchy. The success of the system (effort and cooperation by subordinates) depends on the superior’s abilities and thus on his chances of promotion. If the probability is high (low), it will be in the interests of subordinates to offer cooperation to their superior even (only) if the spread is not (is) very high. In an extreme case where the probability of promotion is equal to zero subordinates will not be motivated to offer co-operation. Once a basic model has been supplied and the main results identified, an extension is attempted by considering the possibility of the removal of the superior by workers from within or outside the company. Finally a preliminary analysis is introduced of the firm’s moral hazard problem that emerges in tournaments involving insides and outsiders workers. A reputational mechanism defines the maximum level that spread must respect.

In this paper the desirability of a paternalistic intervention, given the hypothesis of not perfectly rational habit forming preferences, is analysed. When individuals are unable to forecast the intensity of their own future preferences, the traditional correspondence between preferences and welfare is not warranted and a paternalistic intervention might generate an increase in individuals’ well-being. However, this result does not hold if the paternalist, following his own interests, behaves opportunistically. In this case, his promise to pursue the collective well-being is not credible. The paper shows that individuals might accept a less demanding guarantee that requires the paternalist to choose in order to achieve a result that is no worse than the result individuals would attain if they choose autonomously. The credibility of this promise is obtained through the threat to dismiss the paternalist from his assignment if after a certain period his choice does not agree with individuals’ preferences. Besides, it is argued that, under certain conditions (individuals’ ex-post awareness of their mistakes and harmonised timing of the election date and the changes in individuals’ preferences) the appointment of the paternalist might prevent his opportunism and guarantee the pursuit of the maximisation of collective welfare.

Da una serie di evidenze empiriche è emerso che molte imprese tengono conto nelle politiche di gestione e selezione del personale dei legami familiari che coinvolgono i propri lavoratori, assumendo lavoratori appartenenti alla stessa famiglia o trasmettendo i posti di lavoro di padre in figlio. Questo lavoro cerca di spiegare tali comportamenti introducendo l’ipotesi di altruismo intra-familiare che spinge gli individui a massimizzare un’unica funzione di utilità familiare piuttosto che l’utilità individuale. L’ipotesi in questione, già considerata in alcune teorie, è stata ignorata nelle analisi relative alle relazioni tra imprese e lavoratori. Il nostro lavoro ne analizza le implicazioni per alcuni modelli di occupazione e determinazione dei salari. Nei modelli di salari di efficienza, occupando lavoratori appartenenti alla stessa famiglia, le imprese sono in grado di pagare un salario di efficienza più basso attraverso l’uso di una minaccia più dura, consistente nel licenziamento di tutti i membri della famiglia in caso qualcuno di essi sia sorpreso a lesinare lo sforzo sul lavoro. Aderendo a questo tipo di contratto, i lavoratori accettano una riduzione salariale allo scopo di ottenere una occupazione anche per il proprio familiare: questa scelta può essere ottimale in situazioni di elevata disoccupazione. In una impostazione alternativa dei salari di efficienza, si mostra come la strategia di trasmettere il posto di lavoro da padre in figlio permetta all’impresa di risolvere il problema dell’orizzonte temporale finito degli individui attraverso la reputazione familiare. Nella teoria del "gift-exchange", l’assunzione di un familiare degli attuali lavoratori da parte dell’impresa può essere interpretato come un "favore" da ricambiare con un maggiore impegno. Nella teoria degli insider e outsider, i legami familiari tra insider e outsider possono modificare la convenienza dei primi a seguire strategie di non cooperazione e di harassment allo scopo di mantenere elevato il salario. L’insider potrebbe infatti tentare di influenzare le decisioni dell’impresa rispetto agli entrant da assumere sia contribuendo al processo di training del proprio familiare qualora assunto, sia accettando una riduzione salariale.

In questo lavoro viene analizzato il processo di formazione delle aspettative salariali dei disoccupati. In particolare, si mettono in luce le differenze nell’utilizzazione delle informazioni disponibili in differenti contesti regionali e il contributo di variabili di tipo psicologico e sociologico in funzione della disponibilità di informazioni nel mercato del lavoro locale. A tale scopo vengono introdotti nel modello teorico elementi di dissonanza cognitiva e comportamenti imitativi. Alla luce dei risultati teorici ed empirici vengono tratte alcune considerazioni e implicazioni di politica del lavoro.

The aim of this paper is to present in a systematic and critical way the literature on habit forming preferences in order to understand the role played in these models by the hypothesis on individual rationality. Overall, the question raised is whether the possible causes of endogenous preference depend on the hypothesis concerning individual rationality and whether the idea of endogenous preferences is compatible with any of these hypotheses, or if, on the contrary, there is any extreme rationality hypothesis that undermine its content. In trying to answer these questions the most important myopic and rational habit forming models and the interpretation that the case base decision theory gives to the phenomena of changing preferences are analysed.

L’obiettivo di questo lavoro è quello di analizzare le principali questioni che emergono per la teoria del benessere a seguito dell’introduzione dell’ipotesi di formazione abitudinaria delle preferenze. Quando le preferenze non sono più date esogenamente, ma cambiano in relazione al consumo passato e ad altre variabili economiche, è essenziale comprendere se esse rappresentano ancora un’adeguata espressione del benessere individuale. A tal fine riveste particolare importanza la distinzione tra individui capaci di pianificare l’ordinamento di preferenze futuro e individui che mancano di farlo. Nei modelli di myopic habit forming la corrispondenza tra preferenze-scelta-benessere non è più valida a meno che non si faccia ricorso ad informazioni addizionali rispetto a quelle che orientano le preferenze individuali correnti. Nel corso del lavoro sono esaminati due criteri di misurazione del benessere che fanno uso di queste informazioni, proposti rispettivamente da von Weizsäcker e da Pollak. Poiché si tratta di informazioni ‘superiori’, si rendono necessarie alcune riflessioni sulla legittimità di interventi paternalistici correttivi delle scelte abitudinarie miopi. Tutte queste problematiche perdono rilevanza sotto l’ipotesi di rational habit forming, secondo cui gli individui essendo a conoscenza degli effetti che le proprie scelte di consumo determinano sulle preferenze le orientano in modo da sviluppare alcuni ordinamenti di preferenze piuttosto che altri (Gintis 1974, Yaari 1977, Becker-Murphy 1988 ecc.). Grazie a tale capacità, i risultati raggiunti dalla teoria tradizionale conservano la propria validità, infatti, in ogni momento gli individui si troveranno ad avere l’ordinamento di preferenze che in passato hanno consapevolmente scelto di perseguire. Le funzioni di utilità cui si può fare riferimento devono però, rispettare alcune condizioni restrittive (Strotz 1956, Pollak 1968). Se tali condizioni non sono soddisfatte l’ipotesi di rational habit forming può dare luogo a scambi non reciprocamente vantaggiosi (Yaari 1977). Inoltre, se il sistema economico presenta delle inefficienze, queste risulteranno aggravate dal particolare processo di formazione delle preferenze ipotizzato (Hanhel-Albert 1990).

Regional and demographic unemployment differentials are often related to differences in actual and expected wages. In Italy, for example, it is often argued that people living in the South experience high rate of unemployment due to higher reservation wages. In this work, we analyse expected wages evaluating the contribution of individual factors to wage expectations formation of the unemployed across individuals. In particular, we analyse how individual perception of the potential wage distribution is influenced by personal and household characteristics depending on market structure. We consider a theoretical model of wage expectations formation in which sociological and psychological variables are included. In a framework of cognitive dissonance, we show that individuals can rationally choose an expected wage higher than that suggested by the conditions of the local labour market. Further, we argue that people could form their wage expectations referring to information deriving from their own experience and from that of people interacting with them. The latter is weighted by a similarity function between individuals’ personal, social and households characteristics. The aspiration level is not neutral with respect to information handling, which in turn depends on information availability and rumours. The statistical analysis, based on semiparametric additive models, shows that the mechanisms of wage expectations formation are rather different in two Italian areas. In the northern regions, the statistical model is able to explain a larger fraction of variance than in the south. Besides, some factors that are significant in the North, such as personal income in the previous years, are much less important in the South, where a key role is played instead by household per-capita consumption. We interpret this findings considering that in the southern part of Italy, due to the high rate of unemployment, there are few observations on the wage distribution which are often quite ambiguous due to the presence of a dual labour market that pays different wages for the same qualification. In these circumstances, individuals can refer to information that are less dissonant with their own beliefs. On the contrary, if information is unique and pervasive then individuals cannot follow this kind of strategy. As a consequence we expect that the importance of psychological and sociological factors is more pervasive in the South than in the North. The northern labour market displays such features as closer correspondence between wages and education that make aspiration levels closer to the wage observed in the local labour market and psychological factors are less important.

This paper (part of a more general research project on SMEs in Calabria, Italy, within the Regional Innovation Strategies Programme, financed by European Union and Calabria Region) analyses the behaviour of Calabrian firms toward innovation referring to the empirical evidence collected from a sample of 72 local companies in different industrial sectors. The first part of the paper describes the innovations realised by firms and the obstacles they met during the realisation process, while the second part examines the main common features shown by the most innovative firms and the effects of innovation on some economic indicators. It emerges that most of the firms considered realise very few innovations. Besides also the most innovative firms seem to find a great difficulty in transforming their innovative effort in market advantages. On the basis of the main results of this study we propose some general guidelines for local and national policies aimed to favour the growth of local firms.