Course 2024-2025 a.y.

The seminar focuses on the “varieties of capitalism” approach to the study of modern societies, examining the role of history and culture in shaping the institutions which superintend to the business sector, among which those determining the ownership and governance structures of the companies themselves, and the relationship between the business world and the istitutions.

• The “Varieties of Capitalism” Approach: a Taxonomy and the Internal Institutional Mechanims
• The Liberal Market Economies and the Anglo-Saxon Model
• The Coordinated Market Economies in Continental Europe
• Varieties of Capitalism in Corporate Asia
• The Hierarchical Market Economies in Latin America.
• The Authoritarian capitalism in Russia and China.
• Is there an islamic capitalism?
• The Second Digital Revolution, the artificial intelligence, and capitalism

• Be familiar with the diversity of modern capitalist institutions.
• Be familiar with current debates about different varieties of capitalism.
• Understand different national models of capitalism and their consequences for economic welfare and political representation.
• Understand how globalization, the ICT, and the Second Digital Revolution undermined differences between models of capitalism.

• Demonstrate knowledge of the "varieties of capitalism" literature.
• Critically assess the debates about institutions and economic performance.
• Explain how strategies and structures of firm are shaped by economic and non-economic institutions.
• Apply appropriate essay/report writing skills.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Individual assignments

The learning experience in this course includes, in addition to lectures and class discussions, an individual assignment in which students are requested to write an essay of minimum 1500 words. Students are required to answer some critical questions starting from recent newspaper or economic magazine articles, and to develop an argument using relevant literature sources, including scientific journals and internet databases.

Students' assessment is based on an individual essay (100% of the final grade) of a maximum of 1500 words that must be submitted n the second half of the term. The assignment is supposed to test the knowledge of modern capitalist institutions and the main historical features of different national models of capitalism. Its aim is also to test the ability of the students to synthesize narrative interpretations discussed in economic newspapers and scientific journal articles, to recognize the links between them and topics of the class discussions, and to construct an argument based on the evidence collected.

Students' assessment is based on a written exam (100% of the final grade). The exam consists of: 

1. Multiple-choice questions, aimed to test the basic knowledge of the "varieties of capitalism" literature and of the debates about the relationship between institutions and economic performance.
2. Open-ended questions, aimed to assess students' ability to evalute how strategies and structures of firms are shaped by a given institutional framework.

Articles from newspapers and economic magazines and papers will be put at disposal before the lectures to permit the development of discussions and debates

- Varieties of capitalism. The institutional foundations of comparative advantages, edited by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Oxford, 2001

- Beyond varieties of capitalism, edited by Bob Hancké, Martin Rhodes and Mark Thatcher, Oxford 2008;

- Debating varietes of capitalism, eduted by Bob Hancké, Oxford, 2009