Barilla Pasta and the Italian Economy

April 21, 2014 / Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Bar none, one of the best podcasts around is NPR’s Planet Money podcast. If nothing else, it provides good small talk/networking fodder as it provides intersects interesting stories with economic concepts. This story (from 2012), which I mentioned to a friend this weekend, is a prime example. It discusses the story of two Barilla pasta factories and the productivity of the Italian workforce.

Here is a description from the NPR website:

A decade ago, the Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, Italy, had a big problem with people skipping work. The absentee rate was around 10 percent.

People called in sick all the time, typically on Mondays, or on days when there was a big soccer game.

Foggia is in southern Italy. Barilla’s big factory in northern Italy had a much lower absentee rate. This is not surprising; there’s a huge economic gap between southern and northern Italy. It’s like two different countries.

Barilla execs told Nicola Calandrea, the manager of the Foggia plant, that they would close the factory unless he brought the absenteeism rate down.

Calandrea decided that to save the factory, he had to change the culture. On today’s show, we visit the factory and hear how Calandrea made it work.

For More: How A Pasta Factory Got People To Show Up For Work.

Barilla Pasta and the Italian Economy

April 21, 2014 / Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Barilla Pasta and the Italian Economy

Here is a description from the NPR website:

A decade ago, the Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, Italy, had a big problem with people skipping work. The absentee rate was around 10 percent.

People called in sick all the time, typically on Mondays, or on days when there was a big soccer game.

Foggia is in southern Italy. Barilla’s big factory in northern Italy had a much lower absentee rate. This is not surprising; there’s a huge economic gap between southern and northern Italy. It’s like two different countries.

Barilla execs told Nicola Calandrea, the manager of the Foggia plant, that they would close the factory unless he brought the absenteeism rate down.

Calandrea decided that to save the factory, he had to change the culture. On today’s show, we visit the factory and hear how Calandrea made it work.

For More: How A Pasta Factory Got People To Show Up For Work.

The Economics & Psychology of Scarcity & Poverty

April 4, 2014 / Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

The Economics & Psychology of Scarcity & Poverty

Why do poor people make poor decisions? Are they poor because they are stupid, or are the stupid because they are poor? Apparently, there is research to suggest that latter. Recently, the BBC’s Analysis program interviewed Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir about the economics and psychology of scarcity and poverty.

Here is a description of the episode from the BBC’s website:

Jo Fidgen interviews Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, and co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much in front of an audience at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Jo will explore the book’s key idea: that not having enough money or time, shapes all of our reactions, and ultimately our lives and society.

The Economics & Psychology of Scarcity & Poverty

April 4, 2014 / Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

The Economics & Psychology of Scarcity & Poverty

Here is a description of the episode from the BBC’s website:

Jo Fidgen interviews Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, and co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much in front of an audience at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Jo will explore the book’s key idea: that not having enough money or time, shapes all of our reactions, and ultimately our lives and society.

Is Talking About Social Class Classless?

April 3, 2014 / Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Is Talking About Social Class Classless?

Recently, the BBC’s debate programme, Moral Maze ran an episode about social mobility and social class.

Here is a description of the episode from the BBC’s website:

What place should class have in Britain today? If you’ve been living in hope of creating a society where the moral character of a man is judged by his actions and not the colour of his old school tie, you may have been sorely disappointed over the last week or so. Too many toffs in the cabinet and patronising adverts about the pastimes enjoyed by hardworking people might suggest that for our politicians at least, it seems class still matters. There was a time when a person’s class was defined by their job, but that’s become much more tricky since the demise of large scale industries like coal mining. It hasn’t though stopped many people from defining themselves as working class – and claiming a Prolier-than-Thou kind of moral superiority, – even though by most measures like income, education and profession, they’re anything but. We’ve all experienced that kind of reverse snobbery, but how many of us would be comfortable in a socially mixed group of saying they were middle class and proud of it? Let alone upper class? It was Alan Clarke who famously dismissed his fellow Conservative MP Michael Heseltine as the kind of person “who bought his own furniture”. Not all of us are blessed with his patrician perspective, so what should be the modern indicators of class? Is our obsession with class a sign of our deep sense of fairness and desire for a more open society, or a prejudice that should be consigned to the dustbin? Or is the problem that we need more subtle categories? Beer and bingo? Bolly and ballet? Class on the Moral Maze.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk with Melanie Phillips, Claire Fox, Michael Portillo and Matthew Taylor.

Witnesses are Kate Fox, Owen Jones, Alwyn Turner and James Delingpole.