On the Real Limits of Self‐consciousness: Gazing Back at the Subversive Subject with Marco Bellocchio

Abstract

This article looks at Marco Bellocchio’s 2002 film My Mother’s Smile to re‐assess the central feature of Bellocchio’s cinema, i.e. its attempt to delineate a subjective strategy of subversion against a social order perceived as fundamentally repressive. In line with the director’s previous output, the film takes the Catholic Church and the family as its explicit polemical targets, endeavouring to unmask the nefarious ideological pressure they exercise on the ordinary individual in today’s Italian society. However, my reading draws on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to try and locate the disavowed (unconscious) kernel of Bellocchio’s narrative. Deploying Lacan’s controversial musings on ‘the gaze’, ‘desire’ and ‘femininity’, I suggest that the true stance of rebellion voiced by the film’s protagonist hinges on his recognition that the inconsistency of the ideological predicament he consciously struggles against paradoxically coincides with the traumatic inconsistency at the heart of his own attitude of defiance.     

Journal influence factors

We performed a thorough comparison of four main indicators of journal influence, namely 2-year impact factor, 5-year impact factor, eigenfactor and article influence. These indicators have been recently added by Thomson Reuters to the Journal Citation Reports, in both science and social science editions, and are thus available for study and comparison over a sample of significative size. We find that the distribution associated with the eigenfactor largely differs from the distribution of the other surveyed measures in terms of deviation from the mean, concentration, entropy, and skewness. Moreover, it is the one that best fits to the lognormal theoretical model. Surprisingly, the eigenfactor is also the most variable indicator when computed across different fields of science and social science, while article influence is the most stable in this respect, and hence the most suitable metric to be used interdisciplinarily. Finally, the journal rankings provided by impact factors and article influence are relatively similar and diverge from the one produced by eigenfactor, which is closer to that given by the total number of received citations.     

Skilled migration and innovation in European industries

This paper studies the effects of skilled migration on innovation –proxied by patent citations- in European industries between 1994 and 2005, using the French and the UK Labour Force Surveys and the German Microcensus. Highly-educated migrants have a positive effect on innovation, but the effect differs across industries. It is stronger in industries with low levels of overeducation, high levels of FDIs and openness to trade and, finally, in industries with higher ethnic diversity. The aggregate effect of the skilled immigrant is about one third the one of the skilled natives. We tackle the endogeneity of migrants with a set of external and internal instruments.     

Modelling the joint impact of R&D and ICT on productivity: A frontier analysis approach

This study explores the channels through which technological investments affect productivity performance of industrialized economies. Using a Stochastic Frontier Model (SFM) we estimate the productivity effects of R&D and ICT for a large sample of OECD industries between 1973 and 2007, identifying four channels of transmission: input accumulation, technological change, technical efficiency and spillovers. Our results show that ICT has been particularly effective in reducing production inefficiency and in generating inter-industry spillovers, while R&D has raised the rate of technical change and favoured knowledge spillovers within sectors. We also quantify the contribution of technological investments to output and total factor productivity growth documenting that R&D and ICT accounted for almost 95% of productivity growth in the OECD area.     

The impact of M&A on the R&D process: An empirical analysis of the role of technological- and market-relatedness

Using information on 31 in-depth cases of individual M&A deals, we show that technological and market-relatedness between M&A partners distinctly affects the inputs, outputs, performance and organisational structure of the R&D process. While the findings in the literature on the effect of M&A on R&D are quite mixed, we can sharpen results by analysing data at the level of the R&D process. This comes at the price of a smaller sample and more qualitative data, for which caution in the interpretation is necessary. M&A between partners with ex-ante complementary technologies result in more active R&D performers after the M&A. In sharp contrast, when merged entities are technologically substitutive, they significantly decrease their R&D level after the M&A. Moreover, R&D efficiency increases more prominently when merged entities are technologically complementary than when they are substitutive. These two findings on the R&D level and the performance support the scope economy effect of M&A, on the one hand, and reject the scale economy effect of M&A, on the other. Next, for cases in which partners were active in the same technological fields before the M&A, the reduction of R&D is more prominent, while the R&D efficiency gain is smaller if merged entities were rivals in the product market prior to their merger than if they were non-rival. This suggests that rival firms reap little technology gains from mergers.     

Bullying in Italian schools: the role of perceived teacher unfairness

The principal aim of the study is to examine the role of perceived teacher unfairness in predicting bullying behaviour. Data were taken from the “Health Behaviour in School Aged Children” project, a cross-sectional survey investigating health behaviours among early adolescents in selected European countries. Bullying behaviour (bully, victim, and bully/victim), perceived teacher unfairness and others confounding factors were measured through a self-administered questionnaire filled out by a representative sample of 4,386 (48.4% males) Italian students (11, 13, and 15 years old). Covariates included demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, school performance and other psychological factors. After adjusting for age and gender, teacher unfairness showed a significant association with being a bully (OR = 1.59; CI = 1.40–1.80) and a bully or victim (OR = 1.47; CI = 1.21–1.78). This relationship remained significant after additional adjustment for several potential confounding factors. Results show that characteristics of the school setting such as teacher unfairness can be significant predictors of involvement in bullying behaviour among early adolescents.     

The association between financial aid availability and the college dropout rates in Colombia

The main objective of this study is to estimate the association between financial aid and college dropout rates of postsecondary students in Colombia. We use a unique dataset from the Colombian Ministry of Education that includes all enrolled college students in the country between 1998 and 2008. Logistic regression is used to identify the correlation between receiving different forms of financial aid on the dropout rates of the students. The main results of the study suggest that the probability of dropping out decrease between 25 and 29% according to the type of financial aid received. There is also evidence that the financial aid is more effective in reducing dropout rates at the beginning of the student’s college careers. This result holds after controlling by type of postsecondary institution attended. These findings suggest that financial aid is an effective tool to reduce dropout rates, and therefore increase persistence and expand access in Colombia.