Population

Sunna, Claudia

doi:10.4337/9781785365065.00037

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“…In the mercantilist approach, when a general orientation favorable to population growth was prevalent, the increase in the “production” of men was seen as bringing with it various advantages for the state in terms of an increase in the number of workers and in the aggregate production, an increase in exports and tax revenues, and, more generally, advantages in the welfare of the population and in the prestige and power of the state (see Perrotta 2004, pp. 168–170; Sunna 2016, pp. 452–454).…”

Section: The Measurement Of the “Value Of Men” And The Economic Effec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Before Brain Drain: Italian Economists on the Calculus of the Value of Men

Sunna

Ricciardo

2023

J Hist Econ Thought

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This study deals with the debate that took place among Italian economists and statisticians at the turn of the twentieth century on the economic effects of mass emigration. In particular, it is focused on a controversy between Vilfredo Pareto and Alberto Beneduce on the one side, and Francesco Coletti on the other. It analyzes the way these scholars struggled with: (i) the problem of properly elaborating a specific cost-benefit analysis regarding emigration; and (ii), as a consequence, the problem of recognizing a clear set of economic policies designed to manage the complex economic and social processes connected to emigration. The paper demonstrates the enduring character of the problems encountered in the early Italian debates by showing that these questions are similar to those debated in the vast literature developed from the 1950s on the subject of brain drain, and suggests an explanation for the lack of conclusive results in this literature. We think that it is possible to understand this impasse by highlighting that in the analyzed literature, a problem of “fallacy of composition” emerges between the microeconomics and macroeconomics of emigration.

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Section: The Measurement Of the “Value Of Men” And The Economic Effec...mentioning

confidence: 99%