Minori rumeni tra percorsi migratori e rappresentazioni. Nè soli, nè accompagnati a Bologna

The thesis deals with the heterogenous category of the “unaccompanied minors”, concentrating the scientific work on those who migrate from Romania to the Italian city of Bologna. Between different migratory routes that include Romanian minors, I chose to explore the ones linked with the underground and illegal contexts. In order to analyse the reasons and the morphology of their migratory career, I used the multisituated field research which allowed me to consider the social policies in both the Romanian and the Italian environment. The main debate on the situation of the “unaccompanied children” refers to the extent to which these minors leave their country of origin “accompanied” by different adult figures and it also involves the role played by these adults. The first chapter is dedicated to a brief theoretical and methodological introduction to the main arguments of the thesis such as Romanian migration to Italy, trafficking in human beings, transnationality of migrant’s migration and decentered cooperation as a means of contrasting illegal migration and trafficking. Each field of research is characterized by a specific methodological approach, but they are all linked by the anthropological perspective I adopted throughout the entire work. The Romanian context, analized from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective represents the object of the second chapter. Some aspects of the Regime policies and other characteristics of the Romanian poscomunist period of “transition” are useful frameworks that become a background of the migration flows outside the country. The third chapter focuses on the Romanian patterns of migration. The reconstruction of some past attitudes that Romanians adopted towards migration are relevant in order to reveal the continuity with the present migratory practices. A consistent part is dedicated to a concrete example based on a field research in Bologna on a group of Romanian roma migrating from the south of Romania. The contact with these persons opened a debate on the limits between legal and illegal migration practices among the Romanians. The conclusion is that minors’ migration to Italy follows the adult patterns and flows. The nucleus of the field researches is included in the fourth and the fifth chapter. Before presenting the settings and the itineraries of the field researches, some deconstructive reflections are made on the representations that common sense and social sciences create on concepts as “child”, “minor” and “childhood”. A first perspective on the Romanian migrant minors emerges from a research concentrated on a group of roma teenagers engaged in Bologna in activities like windscreen washing, pocket-picking, begging and street prostitution. The aim of the research was to gain access to their daily life, to observe their relationship with the adults who “accompany” them and the strategies they activate in order to take some material profit out of their migratory experience. A parallel field research focuses on the Romanian minors who are part of the roma group coming from the south of Romania. Most of them are reunited with their family in Bologna, but according to the Italian law, they are all living as illegal migrants. Others are only temporary sheltered by these families and they meanwhile dedicate to illegal survviving practices. An interesting point of my participant observation was to reveal the motivations that these minors give when asked about the refusal to start a legal career inside the local Centres dedicated to the “non accompanied minors”. Their autoreflexivity brings some light on the controversy regarding the adequacy of the local and national care system and the migratory projects the minors have. In this respect, a small part of the research is dedicated to the phenomena of minors’ street prostitution in Bologna, as a useful contribution to the fragmented vision researchers have on the “unaccompanied” or “separated” children. The last chapter focuses on a decentered cooperation project that emerged as an alternative response the local administration from Bologna had chosen for facing the presence of numerous migrants coming from the south of Romania. The group of Romanian roma who was also the object of my field research became the starting point for the cooperation proposals between the city of Bologna and the city of Craiova. Although there are three projects involving the two administrations, throughout a period of stage in the Romanian city of Craiova I chose to analyse, only the one dedicated to the “urgent measures” requested in order to contrast the illegal migration and the trafficking in minors. This final part of the thesis highlightens the possible contribution that such a project might bring to the study of a complex and in some parts contradictory phenomena as that of the “unaccompanied” migrant minors.

Reconceptualising professional development in early childhood education. A study on teachers' professionalism carried out in Bologna province.

The research undertaken for this doctoral thesis explores the issue of teachers professionalism within pre-school institutions. The issue of early childhood professionalism has become increasingly important in the academic debate over the last decade as it is documented by a growing body of research published on the topic both nationally (Contini & Manini, 2007; Bondioli & Ferrari, 2004) and internationally (Peeters, 2008; Urban & Dalli, 2008; Urban, 2010). The study presented in this thesis aims at investigating teachers’ conceptualisations of professionalism by focusing on their understandings of educational work. The idea standing at the core of this research is that exploring the concept of professionalism from a ground-up perspective could lead to important reflections for a re-conceptualisation of professional development as a space for change directed from within institutions. The study is framed within a broadly sociological concern that inform the data analysis by contextualising the issue of early childhood professionalism in the contemporary socio-political arena. The research involves sixty teachers operating in state, municipal and private pre-school institutions located in Bologna province that took part to focus groups and interviews. The empirical materials, consisting of oral and written statements, are interpreted through phenomenographical analysis that gives account of how features of professionalism vary across the different institutional settings in which they are played out. This thesis, written in English and informed by an European research background, offers a contribution to the furthering of systemic approaches to the investigation of early childhood education professionalism in the context of the national and international academic debate.

Essays On CEO Compensation: New Evidence On The Managerial-Power Vs. Optimal Contracting Debate

This dissertation analyzes the effect of market analysts’ expectations of share prices (price targets) on executive compensation. It examines how well the estimated effects of price targets on compensation fit with two competing views on determining executive compensation: the arm’s length bargaining model, which assumes that a board seeks to maximize shareholders’ interests, and the managerial power model, which assumes that a board seeks to maximize managers’ compensation (Bebchuk et al. 2005). The first chapter documents the pattern of CEO pay from fiscal year 1996 to 2010. The second chapter analyzes the Institutional Broker Estimate System Detail History Price Target data file, which that reports analysts’ price targets for firms. I show that the number of price target announcements is positively associated with company share price’s volatility, that price targets are predictive of changes in the value of stocks, and that when analysts announce positive (negative) expectations of future stock price, share prices change in the same direction in the short run. The third chapter analyzes the effect of price targets on executive compensation. I find that analysts' price targets alter the composition of executive pay between cash-based compensation and stock-based compensation. When analysts forecast a rise (fall) in the share price for a firm, the compensation package tilts toward stock-based (cash-based) compensation. The substitution effect is stronger in companies that have weaker corporate governance. The fourth chapter explores the effect of the introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002 and its reinforcement in 2006 on the options granting process. I show that the introduction of SOX and its reinforcement eliminated the practice of backdating options but increased “spring-loading” of option grants around price targets announcements. Overall, the dissertation shows that price targets provide insights into the determinants of executive pay in favor of the managerial power model.

La convivialità urbana nei quartieri di Milano, Bologna e Roma. Un'analisi mixed-methods sulle Social Streets

Le Social Street sono gruppi di vicini di casa che vogliono ricreare legami di convivialità avendo notato un indebolimento delle relazioni sociali nei loro quartieri. Nascono come gruppi online, tramite la piattaforma Facebook, per materializzarsi in incontri offline andando a costruire legami conviviali grazie pratiche di socialità, inclusività e gratuità. Questa Tesi ha come obiettivo l’analisi dei profili socio-demografici degli Streeter e dei quartieri coinvolti per comprendere come sia possibile creare convivialità e come la variabile urbana intervenga in questi processi. Inoltre, si vuole comprendere le dinamiche di attaccamento al quartiere, gli interessi portati avanti dagli Streeter, il loro profilo civico e il posizionamento di quest’esperienza rispetto all’associazionismo tradizionale. Per perseguire l’obiettivo della ricerca, sono state studiate le tre città che vedono la maggiore presenza di Social Street: Milano, Bologna, Roma. La ricerca ha previsto sia un’analisi degli Streeter grazie a un questionario online replicato in tutti i contesti. Inoltre, sono state realizzate 131 interviste ad amministratori e fondatori di Social Street e condotte osservazioni etnografiche e netnografiche. I risultati mostrano come gli Streeter siano appartenenti alle classi medio-alte, tra trenta e cinquanta anni, che hanno sperimentato la mobilità tra un quartiere e l’altro o tra diversi contesi nazionali ed internazionali e trovano nelle Social Street un modo per creare legami di vicinato che hanno perso nei loro trasferimenti. Gli stessi quartieri dove si diffondono le Social Street sono agiati e vi è una buona corrispondenza tra Streeter e modello della centralità sociale elaborato da Milbrath (1965) per cui anche la partecipazione civica è molto sentita tra gli aderenti alle Social Street. Il contributo di questa Tesi al dibattito sociologico risiede nell’aver offerto un’analisi empirica di un’azione collettiva a livello urbano, quella delle Social Street, mostrando come vi sia circolarità tra azione e contesto grazie all’azione mutualistica conviviale.

Sopravvivenze d'inchiostro. Catalogo dei frammenti manoscritti di riuso dell'Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna. Parrocchie Soppresse della Città.

La presente tesi di dottorato ha come oggetto principale la catalogazione dei 120 frammenti latini manoscritti rinvenuti all’interno del fondo Parrocchie Soppresse della Città dell’Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna. Sono di lacerti di pergamena provenienti da antichi codici e documenti dismessi per varie ragioni, riutilizzati come materiale povero di legatoria per il confezionamento di registri parrocchiali di epoca moderna. I frammenti, che ad oggi si trovano tutti in situ, ossia svolgono ancora la loro funzione di riuso, rappresentano un variegato patrimonio manoscritto mutilo totalmente sconosciuto, reso per la prima volta accessibile proprio dal presente strumento descrittivo. In apertura al catalogo si colloca un’ampia sezione dedicata a delineare lo stato degli studi e degli orientamenti di ricerca intrapresi per proporre delle soluzioni alle criticità peculiari connesse alla catalogazione di manoscritti mutili: un dibattito che però ha preso in considerazione, quasi in maniera esclusiva, i frammenti di natura libraria. Pertanto, si è ritenuto necessario dare rilievo alle questioni poste dalla descrizione dei lacerti di documenti, estremamente frequenti tra le tipologie testuali reimpiegate. Tale considerazione appare necessaria, specialmente in un panorama di ricerca che si propone di guardare a grandi corpora frammentari con un approccio interdisciplinare, che si serve, inoltre, dei nuovi strumenti offerti dalle digital humanities. A dimostrazione dell’eterogeneità delle fonti rinvenute, le quali ricoprono un arco temporale che va dalla fine dell’XI secolo agli inizi del XVIII, si propongono due casi di studio rivolti all’analisi paleografica e testuale di un lacerto del De mulieribus claris di Boccaccio e di un testimone di XII sec. della Passio di S. Giuliana. Infine, la realizzazione del presente progetto è stata accompagnata da un parallelo censimento dei disiecta membra all’interno di altri fondi dell’Archivio Arcivescovile , un’operazione che, nonostante sia ancora in corso, ha già portato alla luce quasi 600 nuove maculature del tutto inedite.

Da Oriente al Nord Europa, dalla piazza alla tavola. Lo studio dei registri dei dazi come fonte per la storia dell'alimentazione. Il caso delle "vacchette" della città di Bologna (XIV-XV secolo)

Questo progetto di ricerca si pone l'obiettivo di gettare luce sul commercio delle spezie nel Medioevo, a partire dai preziosi dati contenuti nei registri del dazio di Bologna (1388-1448), nei quali venivano raccolti tutti i prodotti afferenti al cosiddetto "dazio della mercanzia" che transitavano in città per poi proseguire il viaggio verso altre destinazioni. Nel Medioevo, Bologna rappresentava un importante snodo per collegare i principali empori del mare Adriatico (prima fra tutti Venezia) con i mercati della Toscana, come Firenze, Pisa e il suo sbocco marittimo, Porto Pisano, da cui le spezie salpavano in direzione di altre regioni europee, come la Francia, l'Inghilterra, la penisola iberica e le Fiandre. I quantitativi di spezie giornalieri, mensili, annuali e totali costituiscono un dato inedito ed inaspettato: infatti, un prodotto tradizionalmente descritto dalla storiografia come raro, prezioso e difficile da reperire, affluiva in realtà con sorprendente costanza e raggiungendo volumi molto elevati. Considerando che Bologna, nonostante la sua importanza nel panorama italiano, rappresentava pur sempre uno snodo "minore" nella complessa rete di circuiti commerciali su cui erano solite viaggiare le spezie (come le grandi rotte marittime, per esempio), questi quantitativi tanto elevati di spezie ci obbligano a riflettere su quanto detto sino ad ora sul commercio di questi prodotti nel Medioevo e a mettere i dati bolognesi a confronto con quelli provenienti da altre fonti. Affiancando al tradizionale metodo storiografico un approccio "empirico", che tenga conto delle caratteristiche materiali ed organolettiche delle spezie, nonché delle informazioni provenienti da un ampio numero di fonti – non necessariamente legate al periodo preso in esame – è possibile riaprire il dibattito attorno a questo tema, che ha ancora molto da offrire alla ricerca storico alimentare.

Rebooting the constitutional debate: deliberative constitutionalism in the European Union

The aim of my thesis is to investigate the possibility and necessity to rethink a constitutional framework and debate in a transnational polity such as the European Union. My effort focuses on a promising theory called deliberative constitutionalism, which carries on new insights on how democracy and constitutions relate each other. The EU is a unique political entity which poses unanswered questions about its political legitimacy and constitutional foundation, if a Constitution will ever be possible. Going beyond the classical conception of the national and sovereign ‘people’, we keep wondering how citizens may deliberate and discuss about their rights and political communities across borders, in what could be defined as a transnational civic society. The development of the latter brings with it necessary constitutional changes, if not an evolution of constitutionalism itself. Chapter 1 deals with defining the theoretical framework, which develops the distinctiveness of the deliberative constitutional paradigm not only with respect to other more 'classical' models of democracy, but also with respect to other deliberative models that have marked the constructivist debate. Chapter 2 presents a conceptual history of constituent power, mainly studying the evolution of the constitution-sovereignty-constituent power dialectic, up to contemporary theories that explain the negation, separation, union or plurality of a transnational constituent with respect to its national counterparts. Chapter 3 develops the discourse of constitutional pluralism, through its main claims and strands that especially pertain to Neil Walker's (2002, 2016) institutional and epistemic claims. Chapter 4 applies a deliberative constitutionalist framework to the case of the European Union. Through the exposition of DC normative tenets, a form of self-learning process is proposed that can reconcile the heterarchical arrangement of constitutional claims and the new demand for legitimacy, as well as the relationship between European peoples and European citizens.

Oltre il ghetto. Dinamiche residenziali e traiettorie migranti a Bologna

La tesi intende contribuire a livello teorico ed empirico al dibattito in tema di segregazione residenziale su base etnica. Negli ultimi anni, infatti, si stanno sviluppando studi e ricerche che mirano a (ri)definire la categoria di segregazione residenziale e le forme che essa può assumere a livello urbano (micro-segregazione, interstizio, segregazione verticale) proprio a partire dall’analisi delle caratteristiche del contesto Mediterraneo o dell’Europa del Sud. In questo quadro, il disegno di ricerca si articola a partire dal caso studio di Bologna e analizza la distribuzione residenziale della popolazione residente straniera in prospettiva diacronica, utilizzando strumenti di analisi georeferenziata e considerando diverse variabili (nazionalità, genere, status-socioeconomico). L’analisi quantitativa viene integrata da una seconda parte, che si compone di 20 interviste biografiche di tipo recall, che ricostruisce le traiettorie abitative di migranti residenti nella Città Metropolitana di Bologna, al fine di comprendere le modalità in cui le dinamiche strutturali che investono l’housing system si concretizzino nelle storie di vita di persone migranti. Dall’analisi emerge che la popolazione residente straniera è investita da un processo di periferizzazione che si manifesta a livello spaziale-territoriale e nei percorsi di vita. Adottandone una definizione estensiva, la categoria di periferizzazione individua una specifica forma di segregazione residenziale che non denota solo un processo di mobilità territoriale ma anche un più ampio e articolato “modo di abitare” di chi sta ai margini.

A high energy perspective of the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies

Thanks to the Chandra and XMM–Newton surveys, the hard X-ray sky is now probed down to a flux limit where the bulk of the X-ray background is almost completely resolved into discrete sources, at least in the 2–8 keV band. Extensive programs of multiwavelength follow-up observations showed that the large majority of hard X–ray selected sources are identified with Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) spanning a broad range of redshifts, luminosities and optical properties. A sizable fraction of relatively luminous X-ray sources hosting an active, presumably obscured, nucleus would not have been easily recognized as such on the basis of optical observations because characterized by “peculiar” optical properties. In my PhD thesis, I will focus the attention on the nature of two classes of hard X-ray selected “elusive” sources: those characterized by high X-ray-to-optical flux ratios and red optical-to-near-infrared colors, a fraction of which associated with Type 2 quasars, and the X-ray bright optically normal galaxies, also known as XBONGs. In order to characterize the properties of these classes of elusive AGN, the datasets of several deep and large-area surveys have been fully exploited. The first class of “elusive” sources is characterized by X-ray-to-optical flux ratios (X/O) significantly higher than what is generally observed from unobscured quasars and Seyfert galaxies. The properties of well defined samples of high X/O sources detected at bright X–ray fluxes suggest that X/O selection is highly efficient in sampling high–redshift obscured quasars. At the limits of deep Chandra surveys (∼10−16 erg cm−2 s−1), high X/O sources are generally characterized by extremely faint optical magnitudes, hence their spectroscopic identification is hardly feasible even with the largest telescopes. In this framework, a detailed investigation of their X-ray properties may provide useful information on the nature of this important component of the X-ray source population. The X-ray data of the deepest X-ray observations ever performed, the Chandra deep fields, allows us to characterize the average X-ray properties of the high X/O population. The results of spectral analysis clearly indicate that the high X/O sources represent the most obscured component of the X–ray background. Their spectra are harder (G ∼ 1) than any other class of sources in the deep fields and also of the XRB spectrum (G ≈ 1.4). In order to better understand the AGN physics and evolution, a much better knowledge of the redshift, luminosity and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of elusive AGN is of paramount importance. The recent COSMOS survey provides the necessary multiwavelength database to characterize the SEDs of a statistically robust sample of obscured sources. The combination of high X/O and red-colors offers a powerful tool to select obscured luminous objects at high redshift. A large sample of X-ray emitting extremely red objects (R−K >5) has been collected and their optical-infrared properties have been studied. In particular, using an appropriate SED fitting procedure, the nuclear and the host galaxy components have been deconvolved over a large range of wavelengths and ptical nuclear extinctions, black hole masses and Eddington ratios have been estimated. It is important to remark that the combination of hard X-ray selection and extreme red colors is highly efficient in picking up highly obscured, luminous sources at high redshift. Although the XBONGs do not present a new source population, the interest on the nature of these sources has gained a renewed attention after the discovery of several examples from recent Chandra and XMM–Newton surveys. Even though several possibilities were proposed in recent literature to explain why a relatively luminous (LX = 1042 − 1043erg s−1) hard X-ray source does not leave any significant signature of its presence in terms of optical emission lines, the very nature of XBONGs is still subject of debate. Good-quality photometric near-infrared data (ISAAC/VLT) of 4 low-redshift XBONGs from the HELLAS2XMMsurvey have been used to search for the presence of the putative nucleus, applying the surface-brightness decomposition technique. In two out of the four sources, the presence of a nuclear weak component hosted by a bright galaxy has been revealed. The results indicate that moderate amounts of gas and dust, covering a large solid angle (possibly 4p) at the nuclear source, may explain the lack of optical emission lines. A weak nucleus not able to produce suffcient UV photons may provide an alternative or additional explanation. On the basis of an admittedly small sample, we conclude that XBONGs constitute a mixed bag rather than a new source population. When the presence of a nucleus is revealed, it turns out to be mildly absorbed and hosted by a bright galaxy.

Essays on the political economy of European integration

Recently, a rising interest in political and economic integration/disintegration issues has been developed in the political economy field. This growing strand of literature partly draws on traditional issues of fiscal federalism and optimum public good provision and focuses on a trade-off between the benefits of centralization, arising from economies of scale or externalities, and the costs of harmonizing policies as a consequence of the increased heterogeneity of individual preferences in an international union or in a country composed of at least two regions. This thesis stems from this strand of literature and aims to shed some light on two highly relevant aspects of the political economy of European integration. The first concerns the role of public opinion in the integration process; more precisely, how economic benefits and costs of integration shape citizens' support for European Union (EU) membership. The second is the allocation of policy competences among different levels of government: European, national and regional. Chapter 1 introduces the topics developed in this thesis by reviewing the main recent theoretical developments in the political economy analysis of integration processes. It is structured as follows. First, it briefly surveys a few relevant articles on economic theories of integration and disintegration processes (Alesina and Spolaore 1997, Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina et al. 2000, Casella and Feinstein 2002) and discusses their relevance for the study of the impact of economic benefits and costs on public opinion attitude towards the EU. Subsequently, it explores the links existing between such political economy literature and theories of fiscal federalism, especially with regard to normative considerations concerning the optimal allocation of competences in a union. Chapter 2 firstly proposes a model of citizens’ support for membership of international unions, with explicit reference to the EU; subsequently it tests the model on a panel of EU countries. What are the factors that influence public opinion support for the European Union (EU)? In international relations theory, the idea that citizens' support for the EU depends on material benefits deriving from integration, i.e. whether European integration makes individuals economically better off (utilitarian support), has been common since the 1970s, but has never been the subject of a formal treatment (Hix 2005). A small number of studies in the 1990s have investigated econometrically the link between national economic performance and mass support for European integration (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993; Anderson and Kalthenthaler 1996), but only making informal assumptions. The main aim of Chapter 2 is thus to propose and test our model with a view to providing a more complete and theoretically grounded picture of public support for the EU. Following theories of utilitarian support, we assume that citizens are in favour of membership if they receive economic benefits from it. To develop this idea, we propose a simple political economic model drawing on the recent economic literature on integration and disintegration processes. The basic element is the existence of a trade-off between the benefits of centralisation and the costs of harmonising policies in presence of heterogeneous preferences among countries. The approach we follow is that of the recent literature on the political economy of international unions and the unification or break-up of nations (Bolton and Roland 1997, Alesina and Wacziarg 1999, Alesina et al. 2001, 2005a, to mention only the relevant). The general perspective is that unification provides returns to scale in the provision of public goods, but reduces each member state’s ability to determine its most favoured bundle of public goods. In the simple model presented in Chapter 2, support for membership of the union is increasing in the union’s average income and in the loss of efficiency stemming from being outside the union, and decreasing in a country’s average income, while increasing heterogeneity of preferences among countries points to a reduced scope of the union. Afterwards we empirically test the model with data on the EU; more precisely, we perform an econometric analysis employing a panel of member countries over time. The second part of Chapter 2 thus tries to answer the following question: does public opinion support for the EU really depend on economic factors? The findings are broadly consistent with our theoretical expectations: the conditions of the national economy, differences in income among member states and heterogeneity of preferences shape citizens’ attitude towards their country’s membership of the EU. Consequently, this analysis offers some interesting policy implications for the present debate about ratification of the European Constitution and, more generally, about how the EU could act in order to gain more support from the European public. Citizens in many member states are called to express their opinion in national referenda, which may well end up in rejection of the Constitution, as recently happened in France and the Netherlands, triggering a European-wide political crisis. These events show that nowadays understanding public attitude towards the EU is not only of academic interest, but has a strong relevance for policy-making too. Chapter 3 empirically investigates the link between European integration and regional autonomy in Italy. Over the last few decades, the double tendency towards supranationalism and regional autonomy, which has characterised some European States, has taken a very interesting form in this country, because Italy, besides being one of the founding members of the EU, also implemented a process of decentralisation during the 1970s, further strengthened by a constitutional reform in 2001. Moreover, the issue of the allocation of competences among the EU, the Member States and the regions is now especially topical. The process leading to the drafting of European Constitution (even if then it has not come into force) has attracted much attention from a constitutional political economy perspective both on a normative and positive point of view (Breuss and Eller 2004, Mueller 2005). The Italian parliament has recently passed a new thorough constitutional reform, still to be approved by citizens in a referendum, which includes, among other things, the so called “devolution”, i.e. granting the regions exclusive competence in public health care, education and local police. Following and extending the methodology proposed in a recent influential article by Alesina et al. (2005b), which only concentrated on the EU activity (treaties, legislation, and European Court of Justice’s rulings), we develop a set of quantitative indicators measuring the intensity of the legislative activity of the Italian State, the EU and the Italian regions from 1973 to 2005 in a large number of policy categories. By doing so, we seek to answer the following broad questions. Are European and regional legislations substitutes for state laws? To what extent are the competences attributed by the European treaties or the Italian Constitution actually exerted in the various policy areas? Is their exertion consistent with the normative recommendations from the economic literature about their optimum allocation among different levels of government? The main results show that, first, there seems to be a certain substitutability between EU and national legislations (even if not a very strong one), but not between regional and national ones. Second, the EU concentrates its legislative activity mainly in international trade and agriculture, whilst social policy is where the regions and the State (which is also the main actor in foreign policy) are more active. Third, at least two levels of government (in some cases all of them) are significantly involved in the legislative activity in many sectors, even where the rationale for that is, at best, very questionable, indicating that they actually share a larger number of policy tasks than that suggested by the economic theory. It appears therefore that an excessive number of competences are actually shared among different levels of government. From an economic perspective, it may well be recommended that some competences be shared, but only when the balance between scale or spillover effects and heterogeneity of preferences suggests so. When, on the contrary, too many levels of government are involved in a certain policy area, the distinction between their different responsibilities easily becomes unnecessarily blurred. This may not only leads to a slower and inefficient policy-making process, but also risks to make it too complicate to understand for citizens, who, on the contrary, should be able to know who is really responsible for a certain policy when they vote in national,local or European elections or in referenda on national or European constitutional issues.