Working Paper CNR-IRCrES

Working Paper CNR-IRCrES

CNR-IRCrES
Working Paper CNR-IRCrES
372 objects

2022

A Simulation Model of Technology Innovation of a Territory

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2022. The technology innovation of a territory is considered as the result of R&D activity. This view represents the basis for statistical studies of innovation guidelines. However, studies on technology dynamics have shown that technology innovation is also the result of organizations, other than R&D, such as the startup-venture capital or the industrial platform systems, which differ in terms of financial strategies or generation of knowledge. In this paper, we develop a mathematical simulation model of a technology innovation of a territory in which all these three organizations are operating by calculating the number of developed successful technologies, which are considered as triggers of the economic growth. The results show that both startups and industrial platforms boost the formation of successful technologies compared to industrial R&D activity only. Due to the uncertainty of the parameters used, this model is just a rough representation of the reality. However, it presents a detailed description of the processes of generation, use of knowledge, and new technologies’ development. Regardless of industrial or economic factors, this model is still valid for any industrial or economic situation. Its descriptions and results may be useful in R&D and technology management as well as in statistical studies for the innovation policies of a territory.

Evolution of Deep Learning from Turing machine to Deep Learning next generation

Greta Falavigna
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2022. Despite the increasing of research papers, methodological developments, and applications of Deep Learning algorithms, a paper on the history of these models is still missing. In this study, it is provided a biography of Deep Learning, starting from its origin to this (very) moment considering the most relevant results. The history of Deep Learning is particularly interesting; indeed, as probably never before, it was born out of the interaction of different expertise, and now we are often in touch with technologies based on these algorithms. Indeed, the first definition of neuron has been possible only for the synergy between a psychologist/neuro-anatomist, McCulloch, and a mathematician, Pitts. Together they laid the foundations for what we now call Deep Learning. In this paper, the history with the most significant intuitions is shown, as, to our knowledge, it has never been done in previous literature. This work aims at covering this lack, presenting a chronological history of the evolution from the first neuron to today’s sophisticated Evolutionary Computing, and providing the most relevant references for each addressed issue.

Le donne marittime: fra stereotipi di genere, discriminazioni e scarse opportunità occupazionali.

Barbara Bonciani, Silvia Peveri
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2022. The presence of women in the maritime world has been systematically canceled for centuries, overshadowed or, if recognized, even objectified. Although today they can actually be hired as seafarers on board, there are still some cultural barriers. This paper analyzes the main concerns about the living and working conditions of women seafarers in order to promote research on this topic, still poorly explored. At the basis of the exclusion of women from the maritime environment there is a dense network of stereotypes and social beliefs that identify gender roles and they attribute women opposite characteristics to the male ideal type. The space of the ship, the highly hierarchical power structure, the confinement and the exaltation of “hegemonic masculinity” determine an environment in which women are generally identified as inadequate compared to male colleagues. They are often the object of harassment and aggression, discrimination and inequality in employment. The maritime sector is one of the world’s most profitable. However, it has significant gray areas. It is a symptom that huge movements of capital do not automatically correspond to better living conditions for the employed crew. Among the many critical elements there is gender segregation. Furthermore, due to numerous issues, men and women seafarers represent an invisible category to the eyes of international safeguards. To achieve a more diverse workforce, it is essential that women are visible.

Logit statico, Logit dinamico e modelli hazard

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2022. The application of survival analysis to credit risk has received a lot of attention and is the base of many empirical research. Here that analysis has been applied to a sample of Italian corporates working in the metallurgical sector. The survival analysis in the discrete and continuous domains have been compared to the traditional static logit regression. The results have been raised some interesting problems in both life table and dynamic logit regression; in the first case the heterogeneous aggregation of observations can produce difficulties in the interpretation of the metrics of the table; in the second case the treatment of the past observation of bad companies as observation from good companies reduces the accuracy of the model and contributes to obscure the identification of typical patterns to default.

Technology and Environmental Policies

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2022. This article explains how fundamental aspects of technology and technological innovation are involved in the environmental policies in terms of practicability and possibility of reaching their objectives. After a brief presentation of fundamentals of technology and its innovation, it discusses the limits of the precautional principle and its valid substitution with a risk analysis considering not only the dangers of using technology but also the dangers of not using technology. As regards problems of pollution and depletion of resources, this article describes the two environmental systems of natural capitalism and circular economy, while considering non-viable the objective of mature circular economy. As regards global warming, it discusses the available free carbon technologies and technologies under development in view of a global substitution of all conventional technologies. Environmental policies are criticized because the problem of global warming may be essentially solved by political agreements without taking account of technological implications. Scenarios of development of various green technologies are considered in the frame of various types of structural organization carrying out their development. Finally, this article observes the absence of a technological strategy considering the uncertainty about the time necessary for a full control of global warming, and the necessity to develop technologies able to mitigate its unavoidable dangerous effects.

2021

An online survey on the effects of agile working in Italian Public Research Organisations.

Serena Fabrizio, Valentina Lamonica, Andrea Orazio Spinello
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2021. This contribution summarizes the reference framework and main features of the online survey launched by CNR-IRCrES as part of the project Agile working in research institutions: organisational factors and individual behaviours in the production of knowledge. The survey aims to explore the individuals’ effects of the massive activation of agile working, due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, within selected Italian Public Research Organisations (PROs). These organisations belong to a peculiar work sector, mainly characterized by intellectual and creative work performances, which include highly innovative activities. Considering the extensive implementation of this work mode in emergency circumstances, the investigation deals with specific dimensions of the individual’s scientific work, such as productivity, collaborations, and other research routines. The survey has a specific interest in the value of the organisational autonomy of the research workers and considers side aspects connected to personal and social well-being as well. An overview on the literature on agile working and on the Italian legislation will introduce the main analytical dimensions treated. The survey design is outlined retracing the stages of the research implementation, like the definition of the target population (researchers and technologists from the PROs) and the strategy for contacting the respondents. As regard both to the public and the private sector, the investigations on the effects of the implementation of agile working are at the early stages. Thus, the strategy presented configures as a methodological proposal to be applied for studying the adaptation processes and the eventual changes in intellectual or creative jobs.

Covid-19 e rischio di insolvenza: il punto di vista del mercato azionario

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 07/2021. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a big shock for economic systems. Governments and Central Banks quickly got fundamental decisions to counteract the main effects of the pandemic. Here the increase of default risk of Italian industrial corporates is studied. The perspective adopted is that of stock market: effectively the share prices have been deeply affected by the pandemic and this research has used data from 69 Italian listed companies. The probabilities of default of these firms have been estimated with the recourse to the Merton’s model and its adaptation from KMV. Statistical results show a significant rise of the credit risk metrics in 2020’s early months, followed then by a fast recovery.

Design and implementation of a web survey on the effects of evaluation on academic research

Andrea Orazio Spinello, Emanuela Reale, Antonio Zinilli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2021. The project ‘The effects of evaluation on academic research: knowledge production and methodological issues’ (PRIN–Research Projects of National Interest 2017 - Prot. 2017NKWYFC), coordinated by CNR-IRCrES, aims to investigate the effects of the evaluation implemented by the government on research work and knowledge production, taking as a case the academics working in Italian universities. The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines different skills in social sciences (sociology, economics and organisational studies), and qualitative and quantitative methodological tools. As regards the latter, as part of the activities of the CNR-IRCrES, a web survey has been launched between October 2020 and March 2021 at national level to collect information on the effects of the evaluation on various dimensions related to the academic research, including the decisions on the contents of research activities, the modes of codification of knowledge produced, the research networking, etc. The target population has been made up of all academics from the universities subject to evaluation by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR). The invitation link to fill in the online questionnaire has been sent to a probability sample selected through a ‘multi-stage’ stratified sampling method. The survey received 1,365 responses, yielding a response rate slightly higher than the 43%. This contribution outlines the survey's methodological approach, presenting the various stages of the research design. In addition, an analysis of the response rate and the sample representativeness in relation to the reference population will be presented. The design and the stages of implementation of the survey demonstrate their value as an original and robust methodological proposal for studying the research evaluation effects at the micro-level of the producers of knowledge.

Different waves and different policy interventions in 2020 Covid-19 in Italy: did they bring different results?

Mario Nosvelli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2021. Covid-19 pandemic hit very harshly Italy in two waves: the first can be temporally placed in spring and the second between autumn and winter. Data shows some relevant differences among the two phases, in particular, the first wave caused less infection but with a higher lethality rate. These differences in epidemic and social conditions in the two phases suggested a change in the strategy of containment measures: stricter and homogeneous in the first wave, flexible and diversified in the second wave. The interrupted analysis applied to daily data of new infected shows positive results for both interventions in flattening the infection curve. Both policies achieved almost the same percentage of positives cases avoided. For this reason, these measures seem rightly tuned, in both cases, to the specific epidemic and social conditions of each wave.

Francia-Italia: parole in campo. Intorno alla narrazione del Campionato del Mondo di calcio donne

Antonella Emina
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 08/2021. The aim of this working paper is to summarize the research carried out so far on narrative modes in women’s football writings. In particular, we begin by reporting on the work done on the specific event of the 2019 World Cup, which took place in France from 7 June to 7 July. The points discussed constitute a kind of draft for further developments in the research on the French and Italian double track.

Institutional efficiency and budget constraints: a Directional Distance Function approach to lead a key policy reform

Greta Falavigna, Roberto Ippoliti
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2021. This manuscript focuses on the Italian judicial system and on how to shape a policy reform aimed at increasing court efficiency, taking the financial negative externalities generated by this production process into account. On the one hand, the authors identify the benchmarks and main drivers of judicial inefficiency, while, on the other hand, they show how incorrect model definition may mislead policy makers tackling this reform process, based on an analysis of the Directional Distance Function with and without bad outputs. According to the results, incorrect model definition causes a type I error equal to 10.37% and a type II error equal to 3.66%. Policy implications concern the opportunity to adopt the proposed model and the collected benchmarks to reform the judicial system, improving its technical efficiency and maintaining the public budget under control.

Management of open access research infrastructures in large EU projects: the “CultureLabs” case

Andrea Orazio Spinello, Danilo Giglitto, Eleanor Lockley
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 09/2021. Research funding organizations, particularly at international level, are increasingly promoting the creation and maintenance of open access research infrastructures (RI). These resources have assumed a pivotal role as support for the new open and networked science in their dimension of technical and operational frameworks that allow scientists and stakeholders to collaborate and share scientific data and results. In Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), the creation and exploitation of open data platforms is still attempting to catch up with longer-standing practices in the “hard sciences” as the resistance to wider data sharing has not yet been completely overcome. This paper aims to describe how a large project, financed by the European Commission, managed the creation of a RI in the field of SSH, showing the steps undertaken to comply with the GDPR regulations and prepare the data for useful sharing and reuse. In this regard, the authors present the case study of the Horizon 2020 “CultureLabs” project, placing emphasis on some specific practical factors that they believe are particularly important for implementing open access principles in the establishment and maintenance of RIs in the new course of science based on sharing and openness. In particular, the authors will focus on creation of “useful” and GDPR-compliant data and the impact on research activities as a result of their (re)utilisation; the control of the data management process; and the compliance with funders’ requirements (e.g. in terms of data security). The reflection on the interplay of these aspects, operated through a case study, appears to be crucial in moving away from a merely theoretical approach to addressing the issue of open access, and it hopes to serve as a guide or a warning for those who create and administer open RIs.

On Search of a General Model of Technology Innovation

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2021. This work has the objective to present a general model of technology innovation considering technology as a separated discipline from scientific research and economy. That is justified by the fact that many technologies have been developed without economic purposes but after generating technologies with a great economic importance, and that there are limits to the study of fundamentals of technology only from an economic point of view. The study defines some principles that are at the base of technology and of its innovation. These principles lead to a model considering technology as a time-oriented structure of technological operations, and allowing the definition of concepts such as technological space, technological landscape and space of technologies. From this model it is possible to explain various technological processes including the nature of knowhow and the transfer of technology. The model then defines three organizational structures for innovation concerning the industrial R&D project, the startup-venture capital and the industrial platform systems, and then the stages of the innovation process. It follows the development of a model of technology innovation of a territory, based on loops of fluxes of knowledge and capitals, and in which these three organizational structures are in action. Applications of the general model of technology innovation concern the relation between science and technology, the technological competitivity, the relation between R&D investments and growth, new possible statistical studies, the relation between technology and the environment and the importance of intermediate scientific and technical education. The work terminates giving a perspective of evolution of the organizational structures for innovation toward a system of industrial platforms network.

Technology Transfer Activities in Universities and Public Research Organizations: A Literature Overview

Ugo Finardi, Secondo Rolfo, Isabella Bianco
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2021. This theoretical paper aims at collecting and reviewing the existing literature on two underexplored topics related to Technology Transfer. In fact, while researchers working on this topic have focused mainly on Universities and on quantitative analysis of Technology Transfer activities, some topics remain underexplored. Among these topics we focus in particular on the scientific works performing qualitative analyses via exploitation of case studies and on those dealing with Technology Transfer activities of non-University Large Public Research Organizations. Aim of the paper is to highlight and put on the spot unconventional topics of research. The paper performs a comprehensive literature review of these fields, introduced by an analysis of literature on University-Industry interaction performed in order to frame the main research topics. A final section resumes the results of the literature review and sets suggestions for further research.

2020

Binomio Burnout e Mindfulness nelle organizzazioni. Alcuni studi e scenari di applicazione

Oriana Ippoliti, Riccardo Briotti, Bianca Crocamo, Antonio Minopoli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 09/2020. This paper offers a brief review of some essays on the themes of stress, burnout and mindfulness. It is focused on the application of MBSR stress reduction protocols to teachers, a specific professional category exposed to the risk of developing Burnout syndrome. In emergency situations, the risk of developing work-related stress syndromes increases significantly in the helping professions: the precise purpose of this work is to assess the effectiveness of stress management tools based on mindfulness meditation in the Italian context to place them between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention levels, as to saving and improving health and quality of life.

Blockchain e Internet of Things per la logistica. Un caso di collaborazione tra ricerca e impresa

Edoardo Lorenzetti, Lucio Morettini, Franco Mazzenga, Alessandro Vizzarri, Romeo Giuliano, Paolo Peruzzi, Cristiano Di Giovanni
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2020. In February 2019 the Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IRCrES) promoted a collaboration between firms and research institutes which involved, in addition to IRCrES itself, Blue Logistics Italia, the Department of Enterprise Engineering of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and the Department of Innovation and Information Engineering of the University “Guglielmo Marconi”. The collaboration aimed to identify areas of development and implementation of technologies and procedures related to Blockchain in the field of global logistics. In this contribution we will illustrate the development and conformation phases of the collaboration project, presenting the dynamics of interaction between the subjects involved and illustrating the results produced during the work, that was not possible to bring to complete maturity because of the problems that have invested the activity of Blue Logistics Italia in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Il lavoro agile negli enti pubblici di ricerca

Emanuela Reale, Serena Fabrizio, Andrea Orazio Spinello
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2020. This paper presents a first result of an IRCrES research project on the effects of smart working in public research organizations. The study aims at understanding the value of autonomous organization of individual work relatively to the production of new scientific knowledge in public research institutions (OECD, 2011), with a focus on the forms of smart working implemented in public research institutions also with reference to the social containment measures deriving from the pandemic due to COVID-19. The organizations examined in this first phase are the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), which have introduced regulations of smart working before the pandemic emergency. In addition to these, the National Research Council (CNR) which had not yet activated smart working at the time of the emergency due to COVID-19 pandemic, and had to face problems connected to its regulation. For each of these organizations, authors analyze the implementation of smart working through rules and regulations.

Innovation and communication of companies on Twitter before and during COVID-19 crisis

José N. Franco-Riquelme, Antonio Zinilli, Joaquín B. Ordieres-Meré, Emanuela Reale
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 08/2020. We address the diffusion of information about the innovation before and during COVID-19 emergency with extensive data analysis on Twitter. We examine Italian and Spanish companies engaged in ICT, automotive, and pharmaceutical fields to understand how the message on innovation has changed. Furthermore, we observe the evolution of the discourse on a global scale, also considering the feedback of their users’ retweets, likes, etc. We used web scraping approaches to retrieve the information on the platform, and we analysed the data through text mining, and complex system approaches. Making the period between the year 2019 – previously the outbreak – and during COVID-19 pandemic as balanced as possible, we extrapolated the data from December 31, 2019, to May 4, 2020. In this work, we provide an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of communication in a time window in which narratives and moods in social media due to COVID-19 have emerged and spread. In this work, we also performed a comparative analysis of messages (in three different languages: Italian, Spanish, and English) elaborated by companies localised in Spain and Italy.

La ricerca in Nanotecnologie e Nanoscienze in Italia: spesa del settore pubblico e aree tematiche prevalenti

Ugo Finardi, Andrea Orazio Spinello
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 11/2020. Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences (NST) have become more and more relevant in the field of hard and applied sciences, and topics of interest for social sciences. Regarding the latter field, only a limited number of contributions have been dedicated to the national-level analysis of NST research in Italy, and little attention has been paid to presenting a systemic view of public expenditure and providing information on the research trends. The purpose of this contribution is therefore to offer an initial representation of the state of public research on NST in Italy in view of future studies that need to be addressed on topics related to Italian NST research. Italian data from official statistics on public sector expenditure in NST research are examined and, afterwards, characteristics and trends of this sector are studied through a bibliometric analysis performed on the publications of the Italian largest public research organization, the CNR, National Research Council of Italy. Results show that Italy devotes a non-marginal share of public research funding to the nanotechnology sector. As for the trends of the various NST scientific areas within the CNR, the interests of research have slowly changed, showing a progressive decrease of the topics related to the physical sciences and a simultaneous growing preference for the chemical sciences and, above all, the materials science.

L’impatto economico e fiscale di un evento culturale: misure e scala territoriale

Giovanna Segre, Andrea Morelli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2020. In this working paper we study the role of culture as an activator of the local economy, by analyzing the case of the 30th Salone Internazionale del Libro, held in Turin in 5 days in May 2017. The aim is to examine the positive economic effects that this cultural event generates on the territory, highlighting the differences in the results obtained by referring to the Piedmont region and to the Turin metropolitan area. Overall, the analysis indicates an impact of approximately € 41.6 million on the Piedmont region, 29 million of which on the Turin metropolitan area, generated by direct expenses incurred by visitors and event organizers. Furthermore, the results show a "leverage effect" of the public intervention equal to 15.85, i.e. for each public euro invested in this cultural event, € 15.85 is produced in the regional economy, and a multiplier of return on investment equal to 0.56, i.e. for each euro invested by the public sector, € 0.56 comes back into their funds in terms of fiscal revenues.

Mapping the tangible and intangible elements of the historical buildings and spaces

Edoardo Lorenzetti, Nicola Maiellaro
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2020. The void is the key element of the urban configuration: an empty space identified by the work of man or nature, which is defined and transformed by civic, religious, and social events. It is the people moving, talking, living in the streets and squares, and identifying with the landscape which actually transforms geometrically or naturally defined spaces into cultural spaces. It is from here that we would move towards the proposal of an integrated approach to the study of cultural heritage in its substance, made of elements that are both tangible and intangible such as the spirit of places, celebrations, traditional skills, and the social memory of the urban spaces, which have been shaped by humanity through time. Today, a crucial and innovative contribution to the approach sharped above is the practical possibility of direct involvement of the community, using innovative technologies, to map all the aspects and elements of their cultural heritage: as flexible, interactive maps (GIS-based) for the organization of different types of data about historic urban buildings and spaces, with specific reference to the strong links between tangible and intangible heritage.

Persistent fast growth and profitability

Lucio Morettini, Bianca Potì, Roberto Gabriele
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 10/2020. Fast growth firms are a recent political objective given their impact on economic dynamics. Notwithstanding this, there is no unanimity in the literature on their determinants and impact and many aspects remain open questions. Several analyses consider growth and fast growth a random event, without possibility of prediction and policy action. This paper intends to contribute to the current large debate, looking at the characters of growth episodes (spell), type and persistence, and how they impact on firms’ profitability. We focus on a sample of medium-sized firms included in CHEETAH database, whose main characteristics is to have experienced at least one episode of fast growth, according to the OECD definition, in at least one of the cohorts of three years considered of 2008-2011, 2009-2012 and 2010-2013. We develop a descriptive analysis of how firms evolve over time from their starting level of turnover growth and the estimation of how different trajectories of growth (more persistent versus episodic) influence firm’s profitability through a panel regression. Our hypothesis that fast growth persistence makes a positive difference in terms of firms’ profitability is confirmed.

Storia dell’industria delle macchine utensili in Piemonte dalle origini alla seconda guerra mondiale

Secondo Rolfo
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2020. The machine tool industry is still of great importance in Piedmont. Its origin dates back to the mid-nineteenth century when the process of industrialization began in Piedmont, too, lagging behind other countries. This working paper analyzes the birth of the first factories in Turin, the role played by military establishments and the expansion of railways. In the early 1900s and after the First World War, the automotive industry led the next development. In Turin, the machine tool factories are concentrated in a restricted area with district features. Other development poles are in the provinces of Novara and Alessandria. Between the two World Wars, the technological delay against United States and Germany continues and high import dependency remains, despite internal development.

The proposal of a new hybrid methodology for the impact assessment of energy efficiency interventions. An exploratory study

Monica Cariola, Greta Falavigna
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 07/2020. The paper proposes a preliminary analysis of a combination of two very interesting techniques used for assessing the economic and environmental sustainability of retrofitting interventions in the building sector and their eco-efficiency. Indeed, one of the most popular methodologies proposed by the literature is the Life Cycle Assessment (i.e., LCA) because it considers not only costs and investment necessary for an intervention but also its spillovers on environment and society. For this reason, the LCA can be considered a technique able to guarantee a holistic assessment of retrofitting. However, data required for LCA are not always so easy to find and the necessity to evaluate the holistic impact of the intervention remains unsolved. This paper suggests a hybrid methodology for evaluating different solutions of retrofitting interventions combining results from Life Cycle Costing (LCC) with those from the non-parametric technique of the Directional Distance Function (DDF). The simplicity but, at the same time, the completeness of these methodologies allow to obtain efficient scores that can help to evaluate the holistic impact of retrofitting interventions on buildings, in particular in terms of energy savings and less CO2 emissions in the environment.

The technology innovative system of the Silicon Valley. Comparison with the innovative system of the Italian industrial districts

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2020. This work is focused on the technology innovative system of the Silicon Valley, the difficulties of the transfer of this system to other territories, and what it might be transferred to Italian industrial districts in order to improve their technology development. This study is based on American literature about the Silicon Valley system and two study tours made in the Silicon Valley in 2016 and 2019 visiting universities, startups, medium and big companies of this territory. The study includes a first part dedicated to the Silicon Valley concerning its technological evolution, objective and strategies of its firms, its technology innovation process, the relation university-industry, the venture capital and the competitive advantages of the cluster of firms. In a second part we present a brief history of the technological development of Italian industrial districts and their technological innovation system, the limits of transfer of the Silicon Valley technological system and what it might be transferred to Italian industrial districts for their technological development. The study shows that Italian industrial districts have a common cultural and entrepreneurial vision in firms of the same territory similar to that of the Silicon Valley, although not necessarily of the same nature, and a weakness in the relation university-industry with difficulties existing in both sides.

Unexpected loss multiperiodale e pricing del rischio di credito

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 12/2020. The banks’ capital regulation is essentially static in nature and considers the regulatory requirement as the difference between two expected losses: the first is based on a stressed probability of default and the second is based on the expected probability of default. The framework defined in this paper considers the credit risk as the volatility of the discounted credit losses, that is coherent with the credit risk pricing. Nevertheless, there are some open questions in this framework, as the calibration of the capital requirement and the different kinds of correlations to be estimated.

2019

Complessità delle organizzazioni, complessità della formazione. Report di studio qualitativo ed analisi ermeneutica del Modello TRASE – IRCRES/CNR-IMO

Antonia Chiara Scardicchio
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2019. The Report presents the results of a qualitative study conducted from 2012 to 2018, with a phenomenological-hermeneutic research approach, around the TRASE Model. The Report, by a critical-interpretative nature, identifies the elements of strength and innovation that allow the TRASE Model to stand out in the international literature about adult learning in organizations. The study identifies three core-focus as main outcomes of TRASE vision and practises.

Flussi di traffico attraverso il tunnel automobilistico del Frejus: un semplice esercizio di forecasting e alcune considerazioni a margine

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2019. This research report presents data on the heavy traffic through the car Tunnel of Frejus, between the Susa Valley in Piedmont, Italy and the Maurienne Valley in Savoie, France. Once traffic data are presented a simple forecasting exercise is performed offering hypotheses on their future development. Data are also compared with those of other Italy-France border crossing, as well as with other traffic data also based on future scenarios. The report, though not conclusive, offers instrument to those wishing to deepen the problematics connected to the international commercial traffic flows and to their social, economic and environmental effects.

Research activities in Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences: an analysis of Piedmont’s nanotech research system

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2019. Nanotechnologies and nanosciences are since the end of the 20th century a relevant scientific and technological field. Nanotechnologies are widely exploited in industrial innovation in several industries, due to their pervasive nature. Being a highly knowledge-content field nanotechnologies deeply rely on the results of nanoscience research. This work presents the results of a survey, conducted with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, on the nanoscience research activities performed in the research institutions of the north Italian Region of Piedmont. In order to perform a quantitative analysis scientific products belonging to each of the Universities and Public Research Organisations have been retrieved exploiting a specific methodology, and the analysed. The qualitative analysis has been realised conducting an impressive number of interview to researchers and university professor. The aim is to present a complete panorama of researches in this specific topic, with the aim of contributing to the analysis of the local nanotechnology and nanosciences regional system of innovation. At the end of the paper, results are commented, and conclusions are drawn.

The Start-up Venture Capital Innovation System Comparison with industrially financed R&D projects system

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2019. This paper concerns a study on the start-up venture capital (SVC) system, now becoming an important structure for generation of new technologies. SVC system may be considered an evolution of R&D projects system financed by industrial capitals. The study considers start-ups companies of technological nature characterized by carrying out not only R&D but also searching business models suitable for the developed technology. Venture capital (VC) owns the more radical aspect of the SVC system, looking for selling the developed technology or business, and refinancing new start-ups instead of exploiting the use of the technology as done by industrial capital financing R&D projects. The SVC system have the objective to reach an exit selling the developed technology or business and obtaining an adequate return of investment (ROI) for the VC. The SVC system operates in a financing and refinancing cycle that may reach an equilibrium when obtained ROI covers costs of both successful and abandoned start-ups and cost and rewards of VC. Should ROI be higher than the equilibrium value it might start an autocatalytic process generating a high number of technologies and ROI. The SVC cycle may be simulated mathematically showing that a selection strategy of financed start-ups based on high potential ROI and team validity gives in practice superior economic results in respect to a selection strategy based on the probability of a successful exit of the start-up. Comparison of SVC system and industrially financed R&D projects shows that the SVC system is superior in the development of radical technologies with suitable business models in respect to industrially financed R&D projects that are limited by pre-existent strategies in firms financing R&D.

Women’s candidatures in local elections: does the context matter? Empirical evidence from Italian municipalities

Igor Benati, Greta Falavigna, Lisa Sella
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2019. A long tradition of electoral studies focuses on the effects of the social context on political participation (Marsh, 2002; Huckfeldt and Sprague, 1993). At the same time, an equally fertile line of research applies to the determination of the main causes of the gap of women in political representation. This article is located at the crossroads of these two fields of research. Its purpose is to illustrate how context variables can determine female candidate quota. In order to investigate the relationship between the quota of female candidatures and a plurality of social and economic variables related to context, a specification of the Correlated Random Effect (CRE) model has been applied to a panel. Indeed, this model allows to consider together time variant and time invariant variables. Data refer to municipal elections in Italy from 2009 to 2016. This period is particularly interesting since in 2012 an electoral reform became law that provides some gender rebalancing mechanisms in municipal elections.

Xylella fastidiosa: patogenesi, danni economici e lotta al disseccamento rapido dell’olivo

Maurizio Conti
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2019. X. fastidiosa is a xylem-limited plant pathogenic bacterium having a wide host range and many leafhopper vector species. It causes several serious plant diseases such as the Pierce’s Disease of grapevine (PD), Peach phony Disease (PPD) and Citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC). The bacterium was first detected in grapevine in the USA then spread to both central and southern Americas to appear in Europe in 2013 for the first time. The area involved was that of Salento (Apulia, Southern Italy) where it infected the plantations of olive trees and several other cultivated and wild plants. X. fastidiosa is a unique species including four subspecies, which differ each other for their biological and molecular properties, namely: X.fastidiosa ‘fastidiosa’, X.fastidiosa ‘multiplex’, X. fastidiosa ‘sandyi’, and X. fastidiosa ‘pauca’, this latter being the only subspecies detected so far in Salento. Symptoms on olive trees consist in marginal burning of leaves, which gradually extends to the whole leaflets, drying of branches rapidly expanding to the whole vegetation, and death of plants within 1-2 years after the early symptom appearance. Damage may be increased by two more parasites of the olive plants, the moth Zeuzera pyrina which carves deep galleries in both their trunk and branches, and the fungus Phaeoacrimonium sp. that can penetrate and cause diffuse rot of the plant wood. The disease due to Xylella in association with the two above parasites has been named “Olive quick die-back complex” (CoDiRO”). Three spittlebug species have been identified as local vectors of the disease, i.e. Phylaenus spumarius, Ph. italosignus and Neophylaenus campestris. The hoppers acquire Xylella by feeding on its many cultivated or wild host plants and retain the bacterial cells attached to the lining of their foregut: adult leafhoppers can transmit immediately after acquisition and retain infectivity for their whole life span while their immature forms, when infected, loose infectivity after molting. About 60 mlns olive trees are grown in Apulia, 22 mlns of which occur in the area affected by the disease. Five mlns of these are one-hundred or more years old while three-thousands are the so called “monumental plants”, i.e. those older than one-thousand years. It has been estimated that economic losses since the early detection of the disease are about 1,200 mlns Euro. One project to eradicate the disease started soon after detection but in a couple of years it was realized that it was not efficient as CoDiRO continued to spread causing more and more severe damage. It was then attempted to contain at least the disease by using control strategies most suitable in the local situation. They are briefly reported and commented in this paper, and include: insect vector control by insecticides and innovative products, removal of infection sources by using various cultural practices, eradication and destruction of infected olive trees and surrounding plants or just their branches with symptoms, spraying with various chemical products, looking for sources of resistance to Xylella in olive cultivar. It is finally pointed out that, on the basis of its pathogenetic characteristics, X. fastidiosa can be included in the new taxonomic group of “Vascular (insect-borne) phytopathogenic bacteria”.

2018

A new taxonomy of rewards in public administration for management implications

Mario Coccia, Igor Benati
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2018. A fundamental question in the field of management is how rewards support the motivation and performance of individuals and the efficiency of organizations. Literature of public administration categorizes rewards with some dimensions, such as formality, tangibility, measurability, etc. However, these interpretative models seem to be incomplete because they don’t classify all the elements of rewards system within the domain of public administration. The purpose of this paper is to systematize the categories of rewards in a new taxonomy that also considers the dimension of legality in order to detect good and bad practices in public sector. This theoretical framework here may be a comprehensive model to analyze many elements of rewards system in public administration to support fruitful management implications. Moreover, this study begins the process of clarifying and generalizing, as far as possible, the comprehensive elements of rewards system in public organizations to lay a foundation for the development of more sophisticated taxonomies and theories.

Competenze di sviluppo sistemico evolutivo per la leadership e le organizzazioni orizzontali

Erica Rizziato, Erika Nemmo
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 12/2018. This working paper describes a framework of competences for a systemic evolutionary development of horizontal leadership and organizations. It is divided in two parts: the first one proposes a reflection at international level about the need of new competences, to better respond at the complexity of the actual socio economic situation. A new way of thinking, perceiving the context and acting is required, to be able to take good initiatives and learn to learn. The second part presents the competences which come out from an innovative path for people and organization development, named TRASE (Training Systemic Evolutionary), described in Ircres WP12 (Rizziato, 2018). These competences respond to what is required at international level, as they permit people to explore and experiment new processes to improve organizational life in a perspective of synergic development among clients, people and capital. The individual is the synthesis element of complexity and the client is the ordering element. The competences described are the base of a new type of leadership, named horizontal leadership, which do not guide people, but processes where people can be active connecting their inner world to the external one and the inner world of the organizations (processes) to the external one (the client). This allows the evolution of the individual social identity in connection with the evolution of the organization identity, given by the client. The described competences come from a research activity of CNR-IRCrES with IMO Foundation.

Does the construction of biogas plants affect local property values?

Marco Modica
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2018. Although biogas is considered a renewable source of energy, the social acceptability of biogas plants is controversial due to resistance from local communities who are afraid of potential local negative externalities. This paper aims to investigate this claim, by means of a diff-in-diff model, using evidence from the housing market of Piedmont, where 167 biogas plants were opened between 2006 and 2015. The results show no significant impact of the opening of a biogas plant on housing values in neighboring areas.

Evaluating social innovation: results and emerging issues from a random-trial evaluation of a program for the inclusion of migrant adolescents

Valentina Lamonica, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 10/2018. This paper presents the experimental evaluation of a pilot program for the educational inclusion of foreign adolescents with low language skills and high dropout risk in junior high school. The intervention aims at filling migrant students’ gaps in both general subject knowledge and character skills. The pilot is jointly developed by a private VET (Vocational Education and Training) center for adolescents in Turin, Italy, and some local junior high schools. During the pilot, treated students attend 290-hour classes at the VET center. VET classes aim at restoring students’ interest in education by professionally-oriented teaching, inductive innovative pedagogical methods, and individual mentorship. The pilot is evaluated through experimental counterfactual design. In the recent past, a similar preliminary project had positive results, but its evaluation was based on qualitative evidence and on teachers’ subjective assessment. Now, a grid of outcome variables is proposed to monitor students in the treated and control groups regarding their educational inclusion and scholastic achievement. The aim is to assess social and behavioral skills, alongside school performance. Previous experimental evaluations of similar programs (see Kautz et al., 2014 for a survey) provide ambiguous results: depending on program features such as length of the treatment, role and pervasiveness of training, tutors, mentors, families’ and peers’ influence, long-term analyses showed either positive (Durlak et al., 2011; Tierney et al., 1995; Orr et al., 1994) or negative (Rodrigues-Planas, 2012) effects on some outcome variables such as behavioral attitudes, character skills, educational attainment, future wages and other labor market outcomes. For this reason, the project adopts a randomized experimental design, so as to get sound evidence on the effectiveness of the implemented activities.

I canali innovativi di industria 4.0 e le PMI

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 07/2018. This paper concerns a preliminary study on the innovative channels for implementation of enabling technologies of Industry 4.0, in particular SMEs. The offer of these enabling technologies occurs in an industrial ecosystem constituted by various actors such as ICT industries, consulting firms, startups, universities and research laboratories supplying innovations to manufacturing firms, and it is characterized by appearance of a new way of transfer of technology using industrial platforms.The study describes the structure and processes of industrial platforms as well as activities of technological consulting firms, and the role of startups and universities in the ecosystem. The relation between firms and university is discussed considering the Italian governmental plan with the introduction of digital innovation hubs and competence centers. Comparing the innovation channels, industrial platform might assume a future important role in the implementation of Industry 4.0. Concerning SMEs, the study describes the main difficulties to be faced through the implementation of Industry 4.0. Then, it presents a preliminary discussion about the case of producers of taps and valves considering application of the various enabling technologies to the operational structure of this manufacture. Cooperation among SMEs in studies about aspects of implementation of enabling technologies appears favorable for this purpose. More advanced cooperative ideas concern the realization of a common producing plant, fully applying Industry 4.0 technologies, leaving to SMEs only product developments and commercialization.

Le tecnologie di Industria 4.0 e le PMI

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2018. This paper concerns a study on the next production revolution called Industry 4.0 based on confluence of various technologies, mainly digital, with far reaching consequences especially for productivity and employment. This study considers the implementation of Industry 4.0 in SMEs and industrial districts that represent a great part of Italian industry. The latter represents certainly a major challenge to such implementation because of the existence of various obstacles constituted by availability of investment capitals, small scale productions and tendency to develop and to adopt only incremental innovations rather than radical ones typical of Industry 4.0. In this work we study the technologies involved in Industry 4.0, taking account of existence of specific technologies, called enabling technologies, whose confluence in the manufacturing industry determines the implementation of Industry 4.0. Such enabling technologies originate from the major fields of R&D activities such as nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). In this paper we study the dynamic and possible evolution characterizing the formation of the various enabling technologies in a sort of ramification process, using specific models of technology, technology innovation and R&D, and their relation with manufacturing in SMEs and industrial districts. The results of the study underlines the importance of AI in determining possibilities and limits to Industry 4.0, the necessity to disrupt the tendency of SMEs in adopting only incremental innovations, the existence of “intranality effects” raising difficulties from the supply chain, and the importance of technology consulting firms in the integration of ICT in operating technologies of a manufacturing activity.

Nanotechnology patenting in Piedmont: analysis and links with research and industrial environment in the Region

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 08/2018. The aim of the present paper is the analysis of nanotech patent activity in Piedmont. The experimental work at the core of the article is based on a database of patents that are relative to assignees located in Piedmont and belong to the Cooperative Patent Classification class B82, nanotechnology. Once prepared, the database is analysed under several aspects: time evolution of patenting, characteristics of the assignees, technological content. The present paper also tries to connect patenting activities with the local industrial and scientific environment. At the end of the work results are summarised and conclusions are drawn.

Organizzazioni e leadership orizzontali: il percorso di training sistemico evolutivo (TRASE)

Erica Rizziato
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 12/2018.The growing complexity of our time urgently demands that the organizational culture is innovated. The traditional managerial culture, characterized by systems, procedure and control, does not help to find more and more effective solutions to organization problems. Behind this vertical structure, we can see a rationalistic, reductive vision of people and organization, considered as two independent realities. This paper shows the relationship between the organization and the workers through a new perspective, considering them as two realities that keep evolving with synergy, in an evolutionary systemic-complex vision. An innovative approach named TRASE (Training Systemic Evolutionary) is also proposed as the final elaboration of a previous one named Development-Training (Rizziato 2010). TRASE integrates the Methodology of evidential to investigate and transform the socio-organizational reality (Bekman 2007, 2014) and focuses on people and organization development in a horizontal space. This will be a space for connections between functions and hierarchies, which permit the generation of new processes and competences towards a horizontal, client oriented organization and leadership. In this horizontal space, people can find a place of self-development, thereby strengthening their responsibility and motivation. TRASE is an action research and action learning approach developed within a CNR-IRCrES and IMO Foundation action research project.

Overcoming sustainability barriers through Formalized Network Contracts (FNCs): the experience of Italian SMEs

Laura Corazza, Maurizio Cisi, Greta Falavigna
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2018. The role of formal business networking in SMEs is receiving more attention from scholars and practitioners. However, several aspects remain unclear, including if and how, corporate sustainability approaches are implemented and aligned within such networks, mostly created for competitiveness and resource efficiency purpose. With the aim of filling this gap in the literature over Small Business Social Responsibility, an empirical investigation is proposed by analyzing 389 Formalized Network Contracts and their original legal document, following Bocken et al. (2014) business model archetypes and NBS (2012) studies on sustainable innovation and, normative-making perspectives. Findings include the addition of a new general aims for such FNC that is the creation and enablement of clusters, following the perspective of Creation of Shared Value. In addition, we demonstrate that FNC is a suitable tool for micro, SMEs, and individual entrepreneurs to meet sustainability issues introducing eco-innovations, eco-efficiency and shared value herein their products/services, business models and organizational changes as roughly half of these contracts include a reference to sustainability issues.

Point-in-time vs. through-the-cycle: filosofie di rating a confronto

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 11/2018. There are two fundamental philosophies of credit rating: the point-in-time and the through-the-cycle approaches. This survey consider the explanations of the three main rating agencies, Standard&Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch, and compare them with the various quantitative models proposed in the scientific literature by researchers, consultants and regulators. Some common frameworks characterizing these models are identified and evaluated.

Promozione dell’Imprenditorialità nelle Nuove Tecnologie. Caso Studio: Associazione “La Storia nel Futuro”

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 09/2018. This work aims to describe the activity of the Italian association “La Storia nel Futuro” which organizes study tours for students, managers and entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley. Its task is to favor the creation of start-ups, to improve firms’ organization and business models , and the transfer of the technological culture of Silicon Valley at the base of success of this territory. The tour, organized with the help of SVIEC, the Silicon Valley Italian Executive Council, normally includes discussions in Italian with Italian researchers, managers and entrepreneurs working in the Silicon Valley. In addition to the study tours, the association organizes tech scouting stages for firms and start-ups in the Silicon Valley and conferences in Italy on the Silicon Valley experience. Between 2005 and 2017 a total of 314 students and 285 people of firms have made this experience. At the return of the tour, study tours for students have generated about 20 startups. Concerning the tours for firms, a survey on a sample of 30 participating people has shown that the major interest in carrying out this trip was the novelty of firm organization followed by the models of business.

Public research in Nanotechnology in Piedmont (Italy)

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2018. Nanotechnologies and nanosciences are a relevant interdisciplinary field in sciences and technologies. They belong to the group of Key Enabling Technologies, and are considered a general purpose and a disruptive technological field. This working paper describes the research activities in nanotechnologies performed inside the regional research system of Piedmont, Italy. After performing a bibliometric search using a tested and reliable methodology, the database of scientific works is analysed. Several features of the nanotech scientific production of the regional research system are analysed: numerical evolution, scientific topics and subject of the works, authors and institutions. The obtained results are commented in the framework of regional systems of innovation. At the end of the analysis, the paper offers comments and draws conclusions.

The role of collective remittances in community development: the case of Hometown Associations

Barbara Bonciani
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2018. Remittances to developing countries exceeded $438 billions in 2015. This amount is three times larger than overseas development assistance. Those flows have become an important source of money in these countries, playing a key role in the survival strategy of many people. Differently to personal remittance flows spent on household expenditures for consumption purposes, collective remittances are used for investment in social and productive projects in the villages or municipalities of origin. This paper explores the role of Hometown Associations (HTAs) as new actors in transnational funding strategies within collective remittance management. HTAs are involved in various community projects ranging from building of infrastructures to social benefits, with potential beneficial effects on the community of origin. In recent years, different subjects engaged in development issues have shown their interest in working in partnership with HTAs. The strength of the development programmes managed by HTAs derives by several factors, such as their knowledge of local needs and the capabilities of harmonizing local demand with support programmes. In spite of this, there are still some obstacles that need to be overcome to improve their full potential as agents of development. In this framework, both Governments and International organizations can play an important role in supporting HTAs to improve their organizational and technical capabilities.

2017

A mathematical toy model of R&D process. How this model may be useful in studying territorial development

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2017. This work describes a mathematical application of a technological model of the R&D process, presented in a previous work, with the objective to contribute to a better knowledge of relation between R&D investments and growth. The model considers R&D as an organized flux of knowledge and capitals generating new technologies and a general knowledge exploitable for further R&D activities. The mathematical model makes an oversimplification of the R&D activity considering R&D investments related to number of R&D projects carried out, and economic growth, stagnation or decline, related to the number of new technologies entering in use. The model considers the circulating knowledge in a territory in term of number of information packages generated by R&D projects and external contributions in term of scientific, technical or other knowledge. A combinatory process with all available packages gives the total number of potential innovative ideas, part of them generating R&D project proposals. The ratio between the number of R&D proposals and the total number of potential innovative ideas may be considered related to the innovative system efficiency of the territory. Proposals are selected forming the number of R&D projects effectively carried out following the adopted strategies for financing R&D projects. The number of new technologies entering in use depends on a selection rate of all R&D projects carried out, and the number of new successful technologies with high rates of return of investment depends on a selection rate of all new technologies entering in use. The study considers an application of the model consisting in the introduction of a variable number of initial R&D projects in a territory with various degrees of innovative efficiency resulting or not, after a certain time, in entering in use of new technologies and possible successful technologies. Calculations show that dependence curves, in term of number of carried out R&D projects as a function of the innovative efficiency of the territory, and following dependence of formation or not of new or successful technologies, delimit three specific areas in the diagram corresponding to development, stagnation and decline of the technological asset of the territory. The results of calculations of the model show how complex is the relation between R&D investments and economic growth, characterized by absence or weak growth at level of R&D investments under a critical value, and exponential growth above due to the autocatalytic effect of R&D. This discontinuity resulting by the model calculations is in contrast with assumed continuity of dependence of growth by R&D investments often considered in econometric models.       

A technological model of the R&D process and its implications with scientific research and socio-economic activities

Angelo Bonomi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2017. This work describes a model of the R&D process derived by technology management and experience in carrying out this type of activity. The model gives a comprehensive description of the numerous processes of technological nature involving innovations from science to business. The model sees R&D as an organizing activity of fluxes of knowledge and capitals with a dynamics that is determined by R&D projects and their implementing rather than by R&D investments. The model recognizes the existence of a general knowledge generated by R&D activities, formed either by successful or abandoned projects, not necessarily linked to the objectives of the projects, and diffusing among the various actors making R&D in the distributed innovation system existing in conditions of open innovation. Such general knowledge has a role of driving force in developing innovative ideas and saving R&D costs. The model separates neatly the R&D process from scientific research considering existence of an intertwining process between research and R&D. About relation with socio-economic factors determining the effects of new technologies, the model presents different views about relation of R&D investments and economic growth. In fact it considers the inexistence of limits to generation of new technologies, when unlimited financing of R&D is available, and highlights the importance of the specific innovative system of a country in determining the contribution of R&D investments to its economic growth. Concluding the model considers that economic growth does not depend actually on R&D investments, that should be considered rather a means, but on the intensity of generation of innovative ideas, that depends on the efficiency of the territorial innovative system, and on adopted strategies and availability of capitals financing their development joined with an effective industrial organization.      

Agroecologia e agricoltura convenzionale a confronto. Un’analisi di sostenibilità socio-economica e ambientale nella produzione familiare di caffè in Brasile

Andrea Pronti
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 07/2017. This paper aim at comparing agroecological and conventional practices for small coffee producers in Leste Region of Minas Gerais state (Brazil). Six production units have been deeply analyzed and compared in: income generation with price volatility, productivity, working conditions, product diversification, agrobiodiversity, cost composition, environmental impacts and forest conservation. The results show that agroecology practices help local small farmers in stabilizing and diversifying incomes, reducing production risks and improve working conditions. Furthermore agroecological practices both reduce the use of chemical inputs and improve forest conservation. According with the results of this study agroecology is a cost-effective and sustainable alternative of conventional monoculture agriculture for smallholder farmers of the examined region.       

Cosa s’intende per sostenibilità economica? Riflessione sul significato di sistema economicamente sostenibile

Giuseppe Cornelli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 10/2017. The brief contribution presented in the next pages aims at rigorously defining what is meant for economic sustainability by a theoretical point of view. It is true that many authors in the last decades have discussed in terms of sustainability in the broad sense but at the same time it is true that from a strictly economic point of view today there is no a rigorous definition of sustainability: in fact it’s a common mistake to confuse the economic sustainability with the financial one. The following pages aim to put order in this regard.       

Disruptive technologies and competitive advantage of firms in dynamic markets

Mario Coccia
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2017. A fundamental problem in the field of management of technology is how firms develop and sustain disruptive technologies for competitive advantage in markets. The vast literature has analyzed several characteristics of disruptive innovations. However, the determinants are hardly known. The study here seems to show, in a market with high intensity of R&D investments (anticancer drugs), that the emergence of disruptive technologies can be driven by the coevolution of consequential problems and their solution in R&D labs of firms. In general, incumbent and entrant firms have a strong incentive to find innovative solutions to unsolved, consequential and new problems in order to achieve and sustain the prospect of a (temporary) profit monopoly and competitive advantage in markets with technological dynamisms. Overall, then this study shows one of the general sources of disruptive technologies that seems to support industrial and corporate change in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.       

General purpose technologies in dynamic systems: visual representation and analyses of complex drivers

Mario Coccia
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2017. The main aim of this study is to provide a new graphical representation of the potential root causes of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs) for the analysis and foresight of these path-breaking innovations that support the technological and economic change over the long run. Firstly, the study here shows that basic driving forces set the stage for the source of GPTs, such as higher democratization, high population and continuous demographic change, high investment in R&D, the purpose of global leadership between great powers, contestable socioeconomic environments with effective/potential threats of belligerent subjects, etc. Secondly, an appropriate graphical representation of these drivers of GPTs is given by a fishbone diagram, which is a visualization technique for a comprehensive theoretical framework to represent, systematize and analyse the source of GPTs. This technique of the fishbone diagram can provide fruitful information for the foresight of GPTs that support the economic change over time. Some examples are given by applying the Fishbone diagram to describe the determinants of specific GPTs over time: steam engine and ICTs. Overall, then, fishbone diagram seems to be an appropriate and general technique of graphical representation to systematize and analyse whenever possible, the complex root causes of GPTs for the foresight of these path-breaking innovation in society.

La correlazione tra PD ed LGD nell’analisi del rischio di credito

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 14/2017. The international regulation on banking developed by Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has set a simplified link between default probabilities and loss given default, avoiding to introduce the correlation. The scientific literature ha proposed many models that try to improve the Basel framework. This article examines the most important models proposed in the literature and apply two of them to aggregate data from the Bank of Italy.

Long time series of highly cited articles: an empirical study

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 12/2017. The study of how citations, received by scientific works, evolve with time is a relevant bibliometric topic. The present work aims at describing the evolution of received citations of highly cited scientific articles over a long time span (30 years or more). It tries to answer to the question on how such citation trends evolve, and on how much it is possible to assimilate them to a single model, by performing an empirical descriptive study. Thirty articles (the five most cited for each of the six Subject categories in two Research domains) are taken into account. Once obtained the citation received by the articles, their trends are traced and analysed. The empirical results show that received citations exhibit significantly different trends. Moreover, many articles are not affected by the phenomenon of aging. Such facts make it more difficult to generalize citation trends.

L’Alterità nel “Terzo Paesaggio”: una risorsa di sostenibilità socio-territoriale. Gli stranieri residenti nella Valle del Turano, fonte di rinascita tra innovazione e tradizione. Presentazione progetto di ricerca etnografica

Brunella Bonetti
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 13/2017. This paper aims to analyse the presence of foreign and immigrant individuals or groups that are financially, socially and geographically disadvantaged in small villages of Central Italy. The essay focuses on Castel di Tora, a village situated in Turano valley, in the Province of Rieti, Lazio, Italy. Castel di Tora is a mountainous hamlet of the central Appennino, and today it is significantly depopulated due to the economic crisis. The current inhabitants are groups of foreigners from different countries who work in various fields. The aim of this research is to investigate the potential added value represented by foreigners for development of the community in the professional, economic, social, cultural and environmental areas. The project assumes that the relations between foreigners and locals stimulate a virtuous circle and encourage both the renaissance of the villages and the integration of foreigners. Moreover, the work of immigrants may help in the recovery of traditions in cross-cultural and sustainable methods at the environmental and social level. The project uses an anthropological perspective and ethnographic method for gathering qualitative data from the field. The assumptions made will serve as theoretical reference the ecological anthropology of Gregory Bateson.

Supportare la ricerca e l’innovazione in sanità tramite i modelli organizzativi: il caso dell’Azienda Ospedaliera “SS. Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo” di Alessandria

Greta Falavigna, Roberto Ippoliti, Marinella Bertolotti, Franca Riva, Antonio Maconi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 09/2017. Research and innovation is broadly recognized as a key factor to contain public expenditure and to enhance human resources. However, there are not models to support this key activity. In other words, there are not organizational models which can support physicians’ research activity. Obviously, considering the current age of austerity, this model becomes essential to be competitive on the research market. This paper proposes the case study of the General Hospital "SS. Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo" of Alessandria, and the decision of adopting a structure aimed at supporting and coordinating scientific research and innovation. An organizational model which might be adopted by other hospitals and/or medical centers.       

Technostress. Test di valutazione: il modello SOGI

Oriana Ippoliti, Silvio Givarruscio
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 08/2017. This work develops a model (SOGI) for the evaluation of technostress in all kind of workplaces. The aim is to understand the causal determinants of technostress and it is based on models already developed by Nathan and Ayyagary. SOGI is specifically devoted to the evaluation of risk deriving from the use of ICT (Information and Communication Techonology). It considers technologies , independently of possible purposes. The model is presented in a descriptive way; starting from the technological features the evaluator can understand those aspects of a technology that can become technostressors and therefore can determine the emergence of technostress problems in the exposed worker: work satisfaction, organizational engagement, and continued commitment can indicate the presence of technostress in a worker. Moderators, individual differences, and inhibitors are the factors that can respectively reduce / increase the technostressors' danger and the effects of technostressors. Some examples of application of the SOGI model are presented. The possibilities for the SOGI implementation (test) are presented in annex.

The relation between typologies of executive and technological performances of nations

Mario Coccia
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2017. The general determinants of socioeconomic and technological performance are of profound interest in social and political sciences to understand the historical developmental paths of nations. The vast literature has suggested several approaches to explain the differences of technological performances among nations, such as the varieties of capitalism’s theory of innovation argues that a dissimilar behaviour of political institutions is a principal driver of differences in national innovative behaviour. However, in the varieties of capitalism and other frameworks, the notion of state power and the relation between typologies of executive, technological and socioeconomic performances of countries are generally absent. The present study confronts these problem and endeavours of analyzing the nexus (relation) between leadership-oriented executives, technological and socioeconomic performances of nations. Results show that high levels of technological performance of nations seem to be associated to executive with parliamentary monarchy and monarchy (leadership-oriented government), whereas nations with mixed executive tend to have lower performances. A possible reason of these results is that, in general, some typologies of executive leadership-oriented (e.g., Monarchy) support the political stability of countries with subsequent fruitful socioeconomic developmental paths over the long run. In short, the study here shows the vital role of the structure of government in national systems of innovation and in particular how leadership-oriented executives can support socioeconomic performances of countries. Overall, then, the structure of executives might be one of contributing factors to explain dissimilar patterns of technological innovation and economic growth of nations over time.       

The role of culture in urban contexts

Giuseppe Cornelli
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2017. This short paper aims to analyse from an interdisciplinary perspective the role of culture, cultural institutions and cultural actors in the urban scenarios. The main goal is to underline that this type of analysis have to take in consideration several academic disciplines: in particular, the analysis will be done from the point of view of public art, urban sociology, urban geography and economics of culture in order to provide a comprehensive tretment of the subject.       

Un’analisi multidimensionale della sostenibilità per l’agricoltura familiare. Il caso dell’area amazzonica peruviana

Andrea Pronti, Flavio Bertinaria
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 11/2017. In the last century the agricultural sector grown exponentially with outstanding increase in food productions that released poverty and malnutrition in many parts of the world. These important results have been achieved to the detriment of the environment and equity caused by massive externalities that the new productive paradigm had generated. Since 1992 sustainability in agriculture is one of the main cornerstone of the international agenda for reaching global sustainable development and reducing poverty. One of the main challenge in designing sustainable agricultural policies is the use of effective measurement of sustainability that would encompass the intrinsic multidimensionality of small farming agriculture that is characterized to be a complex socio-ecological system in which social, economic and environmental aspects strictly interacts. This paper examines the application of an experimental method of sustainability assessment using HESOFI, a measurement framework developed in Central America for small scale agriculture. The paper analyzes by the use of several indicators of sustainability thirty mixed small farms located in Peruvian Amazon. In addition, the assessment has been developed with different categories of agricultural units divided by ethnic origin (Andean or Indigenous) and by certification (Fair Trade and Organic) in order to compare the different levels of sustainability reached by each category.

2016

Fame e abbondanza. Il glossario. Scelte lessicologiche, criteri di lemmatizzazione e analisi testuale

Grazia Biorci, Greta Falavigna
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 06/2016. This working paper aims at showing the design of a textual and linguistic analysis focusing on the specific field of food in the Piedmont literature. Texts studied are stored in an online repository, i.e., FABB, that collects Piedmont literature as well as some popular tales, short narratives, novels, lyrics, interviews written in Piedmont from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. In addition, it considers a collection of fifty dialect poems by Giovanni Rapetti, a contemporary Piedmont poet. In this study, a sample of all these work has been analysed through the definition of a glossary built on the corpus collected in FABB repository and gives advices on its utilisation. The main issue of the glossary description concerns the definition, in a clear and univocal way, of the criteria chosen for its redaction, in order to realise a coherent pattern useful for further studies. The goal of this work is twofold: to display the completion of a useful linguistic research tool; and to investigate the food theme within the corpus of Piedmont literature contained in the FABB repository.

Individual Disadvantage and Training Policies: The Makings of "Model-based" Composite Indicators

Rosanna Cataldo, Maria Gabriella Grassia, Natale Carlo Lauro, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2016. In evaluating a policy, it is fundamental to represent its multiple dimensions and the targets it affects. Indeed, the impact of a policy generally involves a combination of socio-economic aspects that are difficult to represent. In this study, regional training policies are addressed, which are aimed at recovering the huge gaps in employability and social inclusion of weak Italian trainees. Previous counterfactual estimates of the net impact of regional training policies show the mess to observe and take into account the manifold aspects of trainees’ weakness. In fact, the target population consists of very disadvantaged individuals, who experience hard situations in the labour market. To overcome this shortfall, the present paper proposes a Structural Equation Model, that considers the impact of trainees’ socio-economic conditions on the policy outcome itself. In particular, the ex ante human capital is estimated from educational, social and individual backgrounds. Then, labour and training policies augment the individual human capital, affecting labour market outcomes jointly with individual job search behaviour. All these phenomena are expressed by a wide set of manifest variables and synthesised by composite indicators calculated with Partial Least Squares SEM. The makings of SEM are appraised, applied to the case of trainees in compulsory education.  

L'albero del rischio: relazioni stocastiche (elementari) tra gli indicatori di bilancio

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2016. Starting from a map of financial ratios organized to analyse the corporate profitability, here is proposed a closed formula approach to compute the averages of ratios and their variabilities over the whole map. An application is provided using the 2016 edition of Mediobanca’s Dati Cumulativi. The proposed approach is easily generalizable and could be use in the domain of risk analysis of non-financial companies.   

Le ferriere genovesi in età preindustriale: aspetti tecnici, innovazioni e declino

Giovanni Ghiglione
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2016. These pages take up very briefly, the results of a series of research on "The steel industry of the Ligurian ancient regime (sec. XV-XIX): technical, settlement, language", one of the first activities developed by the Centre for Study of History Technology (CSST) of CNR of Genoa, since the early seventies. The study on the local production of iron in the pre-industrial age, has identified a number of production sites in particular settled Ligurian Apennines, the detecting method of reduction of iron ore - direct method of low fire - and technical innovations adopted in the production process, from bellows to idroeholic machine, the change in the composition of the charge: iron ore, scrap iron in different percentages and fluxes. They did not miss, in the course of research, comparisons with other steel settlements that used the same method of the low fire, particularly the ironworks Catalan and also references to other production sites that operated differently, with the indirect method or blast furnace, just in the neighboring Tuscan area. Research has achieved a sufficiently clear activity practiced by the genoese steel industry ironworks of old regime, considering all the technical-scientific difficulties accompanying historical aspects.Therefore, this paper highlights some moments, especially economic and technical, of a very broad research and aims to point out some possible interpretations that have emerged during that long period of investigation. However, the interpretation of the low fire Genoese as technical back, compared to the blast furnace "at the Brescian way" and that has been given by researchers from the CSST - while trying appreciation historic - a recent article that we point out in the course of these pages, provides useful information for the genoese technical not considering it outdated compared to contemporary blast furnace "at the Brescian way"; in fact, the Genoese being linked to the elbano mineral could not operate differently, demonstrating among other things, most suitable technique. Therefore, suggestions and criticisms in the historical re-reading of one of the oldest and main activity are welcomed, and all that requires further study, in view of the fact that the old genoese ironworks also lost the memory, in favor of more recent term "Catalan".Finally, to investigate historical technique of ancient genoese ironworks we also give here a small push to observe and investigate historically the subsequent to the current complex technical steel works (when it was possible to give more toughness to the steel using the alloys) in consideration that the steel industry and metallurgy, despite the increasing scientific knowledge of metal properties, is still today an essentially empirical activity in which the production of new alloys stimulates the search and, substantially, takes place proceeding by trial and error.   

L’agroecologia come nuovo paradigma per l’agricoltura sostenibile. Un breve quadro teorico

Andrea Pronti
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 05/2016. This paper aim at analyze the concept of sustainable agriculture developing the base of agroecology as scientific multifunctional approach to obtain sustainable agroecosystem. Agroecology has been recognized as both a scientific method and a set of practical activities to study and project sustainability in agriculture at several scale, but unfortunately it is still unknown or restricted to the international cooperation sector. At the beginning of this paper it is studied the theoretical framework of agroecology as an holistic system of study and the evolution of its concept along time. Then it is examined the concept of agroecosystem showing some agroecological practices and examples of agroecology experiences realized around the world.   

Technology Modelling and Technology Innovation

Angelo Bonomi, Mario Andrea Marchisio
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2016. This work concerns an extension of a mathematical model of technology developed at the Santa Fe Institute in the late nineties. It is based on analogies existing between technological and biological evolution and not on economic principles. This extension has the purpose to make the model useful in the studies of the innovation process. The model considers technology activity, independently of possible economic purposes, and having its own properties, structure, processes as well as an evolution independently by economic factors but more similar to biologic evolution. Considered purpose of technology is reaching of a technical result and not necessarily an economic result. The model considers technology as a structured set of technological operations that may be represented by a graph or matrix. That opens a description of a technology in term of technological spaces and landscapes, as well as in term of spaces of technologies, in which it is possible to represent search of optimal and evolutive paths of technologies, changes in their efficiency and measure of their radical degree linked to their technological competitiveness. The model is presented in a descriptive way and its mathematical development is presented in annex. The main applications of the model concern the use of the defined radical degree of a technology linked to its technological competitiveness. In this way it is explained the existence of Red Queen Regimes, characterized by continuous technical but not economical developments, among firms producing the same product. Such regimes are disrupted only by the entering of a technology with a high radical degree. Changes in operational structure of technologies may suggest the existence of three types of technology innovations, the first concerning learning by doing and consisting in minor changes giving incremental innovations, the second and the third, both able to obtain radical innovations through R&D activity, but the second exploiting scientific results and the third based only on a combinatory process of pre-existing technologies. This last way of innovation may explain the innovative potential, existing for example in Italian industrial districts, without resorting to any scientific research.   

2015

La carta dal mare: il porto di Livorno e la competitività del distretto cartario di Lucca

Barbara Bonciani, Alga Foschi, Giampaolo Vitali
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 02/2015. The pulp related products are one of the most important shipping services at the port of Livorno. Almost 300 break-bulk vessels every year ship pulp to Livorno, mainly from North America and South America. On average, the Livorno port deals with 80% of the Italian imports of pulp (the latter are about 3.1 billons of tons), in order to deliver pulp to Lucca, where the local cluster has a strong specialization on the paper industry. The trade service supplied by the Livorno port is a positive component of the competitive advantage of the Lucca district, where there are the leaders of the Italian tissue paper industry. The study describes the evolution of the pulp shipment along the last decade, with new producers from South America, new contractual agreements, new relationships between paper mills and pulp producers, and new investment plans to increase the Livorno shipment capacity are the main factors that will shape the relationships between the Livorno port and the Lucca cluster.   

Microeconomia in incertezza: un quadro di riferimento per l’analisi dei rischi d’impresa

Franco Varetto
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2015. The introduction of risk in the microeconomic theory has some important effects on the behavior of the competitive firms: the level of optimal production under condition of risk is lower than under certainty; the optimal mix of productive input shifts to ones with less uncertainty; vertical integration, diversification and hedging are as many responses for optimal management of risks. The conclusions of the microeconomics under uncertainty depend also from the way the risk is modeled: additive risk is easier to handle than multiplicative risk, and conclusions from that are closer to microeconomics under certainty.   

Nanotechnologies for textiles, fabrics and clothing: an overview of the scientific literature on the topic

Ugo Finardi
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 03/2015. Aim of the present work is the analysis of the scientific literature on the topic of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies applied in the field of the study and production of fabrics, textiles and clothing. A dataset, obtained with a specific methodology, is analysed in order to describe the features and the evolution of this field. Several features of the dataset are highlighted in the study. Results on numbers and trends of the different features are presented and discussed, and at the end of the work conclusions on the evolution of scientific production on the topic are presented.    

Politiche di sostegno al settore agroindustriale in Piemonte: una valutazione controfattuale

Sara Pavone, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
Working Paper Ircres-CNR 01/2015. This paper aims at analysing the role played by the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in supporting the Piedmont (Italy) agro-food industry, i.e. that part of the agricultural production chain characterised by the highest added value. This is a first attempt to extend the previous in itinere evaluation to an ex-post quasi experimental counterfactual evaluation of the subsidies’ net impact. Since the agri-food industry is characterised by an extreme variety of firms, and having observed that the treated firms do not share the characteristics of the average population. The counterfactual group has been selected by adopting the coarsened exact matching technique, a quite recent imbalance-reducing matching method. The final results do suggest, above all, a stabilizing effect of the subsidy in a period characterized by a sever worldwide economic crisis. However, since results are quite uncertain, we expect that on-going further research (on the data-base, the model, and balance sheet indicators) will lead to stronger conclusion on the effectiveness of the policy. Nonetheless, this exercise already shows that the selected matching set and methodology, the chosen timing, and the quality of the available data do strongly influence the impact analysis.   

2014

A collective land tenure system with popular shareholding and sustainable agriculture

Valentina Moiso, Elena Pagliarino
WP 21/14; The Italian land structure displays some features which make access to land difficult for many farmers, in particular young people who have not received land by intergenerational transmission and who want to engage in alternative and sustainable agriculture. In Europe, innovative experiences facilitate the leasing of land for agricultural use, promote multifunctional agriculture, organic farming and short chain and, indirectly, counteract soil consumption and loss. These are forms of collective shareholding: the companies, which have small investors as their shareholders, own the land and lease it to farmers with long-term contracts. Similar solutions are in the planning phase in Italy, but they struggle to take off because of generally unfavourable structural and regulatory conditions. This article presents a preliminary overview of these experiences, highlighting risks and opportunities related to their different characteristics

Artificial Neural Networks and risk stratification in Emergency department

Ivo Casagranda, Giorgio Costantino, Greta Falavigna, Raffaello Furlan, Roberto Ippoliti
WP 12/14; The primary goal of the Emergency Department physician is to discriminate individuals at low risk, who can be safely discharged, from patients at high risk, who deserve prompt hospitalization for monitoring and/or appropriate treatment. Obviously, the problem of a correct classification of patients, and the successive hospital admission, is not only a clinical issue but also a management one since ameliorating the rate of admission of patients in the emergency departments could dramatically reduce costs and create a better health resource use. Considering patients at the emergency departments after an event of syncope, this work propose a comparative analysis between multivariate logistic regression model and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), highlighting the difference in correct classification of severe outcome at 10 days and 1 year. According to results, ANNs can be very effective in classifying the risk of severe outcomes and it might be adopted to support the physician decision making process reducing, at least theoretically, the inappropriate admission of patients after syncope event

Bridging Organizations between University and Industry. From Science to Contract Research

Angelo Bonomi
WP 15/14; Two bridging organizations, NIS and Agroinnova, formed both in 2003 internally to the University of Turin, have been studied through a good practice benchmarking in view to assess their validity in the science to business process especially concerning Italian SMEs. References for benchmarking have been established by suitable definitions of technology, technology innovation and a structured model of technology followed by a description of the innovation process as a sequence of steps. Benchmarking attention has been focused on contract research and technology transfer office activities. The results of the study show that such type of bridging organizations, and especially their spin-offs in contract research, may be a good possibility to foster the science to business process. However bottlenecks exist and concern the low diffusion of an entrepreneurial mentality that limits generation of innovative ideas for new technologies despite a large activity in scientific research. Bottlenecks concerning SMEs are mainly lack of experience in R&D and technology management. Fostering of science to business process by a simple increase of funds does not appear effective without a change in mentalities, adoption of suitable industrial policies and new concepts for bridging structures and financial aids to SMEs

CTREATREG. Stata module for estimating dose-response models under exogenous and endogenous treatment

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 05/14; This paper presents ctreatreg, a Stata module for estimating a dose-response function when: (i) treatment is continuous, (ii) individuals may react heterogeneously to observable confounders, and (iii) selection-into-treatment may be endogenous. Two estimation procedures are implemented: OLS under Conditional Mean Independence, and Instrumental-Variables (IV) under selection endogeneity. A Monte Carlo experiment to test the reliability of the proposed command is finally set out

Come valutare l'efficacia della formazione professionale per l'integrazione dei soggetti deboli. Lezioni dall'esperienza dell'area Istruzione e Formazione Professionale della Provincia di Torino

Arturo Faggio, Paola Mussino, Elena Ragazzi, Elena Santanera
WP 24/14; Sociological and economical literatures agree in asserting that individual integration in the labour market represents an important vehicle of social inclusion. In fact, individual exclusion from the labour market could have economical (poverty), sociological (disrepute and weakening of relational networks) and psychological (impoverishment of self-esteem) effects that eventually could bring to a spreading and persistent social exclusion. Vocational training policies, as they are conceived in Piedmont and more generally in Italy, are particularly helpful in contrasting such individual weakness and social exclusion. This is due to its pedagogical and didactical methods and to the attention that vocational training policies pay to the improvement of individual relational and professional skills. Both the programming and management phases of vocational training policies need, to be effective, to include an evaluation process that highlights its weak and strength points. Aware of this, the P rovince of Turin is enhancing its evaluation competences by directly implementing and/or by externalizing some vocational training policies evaluation projects. This article describes some of these projects with the aim of analyzing both the existing and the potential connections between the evaluation and the programming phases in vocational training policies

Debt capacity bancaria e credit crunch: alcune osservazioni empiriche

Franco Varetto
WP 23/14; The financial crisis has emphasized the importance of the credit crunch in constraining the financing of the firms. The debt capacity from banks is defined as the maximum amount of debt that the banks are available to grant to companies. Using annual report's data and information from Centrale dei Rischi of Bank of Italy on a set of 321 industrial firms some econometric models on bank overdrafts have been estimated. Applying the models estimated on 2009 data to 2011 data has been obtained an appraisal of the credit crunch between 14% and 15% of the total bank lending to these companies

Explaining the efficiency of Italian car suppliers during the crisis

Alessandro Manello, Giuseppe Calabrese, Piercarlo Frigero
WP 06/14; This empirical study, focused on the Italian automotive sector during the recent international crisis, detects technical performance of firms using Data Envelopment Analysis. We pay specific attention to the role along the supply chain, to size and to vertical structure of firms. In particular, this study highlights how the recent crisis stimulates a deep process of re-organization, re-location and re-thinking of firms' position along the value chain but, in particular, the crisis stresses the pre-existing heterogeneity among firms. The technical frontier is driven by firms able to contribute to the technology, which represents essential link of the automotive value chain. Those firms are large, vertically disintegrated and operate in metals, plastic or machinery

Gender inequalities and labour integration. An integrated approach to vocational training in Piedmont

Greta Falavigna, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 07/14; Public policies are even more interested in vocational training issues, because spillovers fall on the labour market, and then on life quality. Reports of the European Commission registered that women are disadvantaged subjects on the labour market but, at the same time, they are more ambitious and are at their best on the educational side. This paper aims at analysing data of Piedmont Region on vocational training policies, focusing on the role of women into the labour market. Data refer to subjects that accomplished their training course during 2011. Analyses have been performed on interviews, in order to evaluate the effects of training on medium-term employment outcomes of trainees. A control sample has been selected with the aim to evaluate the effect of training, with a special focus on women. Probit models and average marginal effects (AMEs) allow authors to estimate the net impact of training into the labour market. Results suggest that the employment gap between men and women is completely recovered in trainees, also when considering qualitative aspects of employment

I dati amministrativi per la valutazione delle politiche. Riscontri dall'esperienza piemontese sul FSE

Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 16/14; Impact assessment is usually based on direct surveys of treated individuals. The net impact should be estimated observing untreated individuals which are very similar to the treated group. However, the high cost of implementation does not allow to use large samples, and therefore it is difficult to carry out statistically significant comparison at the local level. The open access to databases which were created for different purposes (e.g., tax, administrative, monitoring) could overcome these limitations with many advantages. In this article we present a validation exercise based on data records provided by the Italian law whenever a change in an employment contract occurs, i.e. the so called compulsory communications (COB). This was possible because of an exceptional access to two different data sources, with the aim to assess the impact in terms of employment of vocational training policies in Regione Piemonte (northwest Italy), that is the COB database and a direct survey performed on students one year after the course. We describe the major differences between indicators calculated on survey data and indicators calculated on COBs. Discrepancies are observed for 20% individuals in the sample analyzed. In addition, the change of source distorts the results of the net impact evaluation. In fact, both the determinants of the employment probability and the importance of the net impact do significantly vary across sources. Whenever an administrative database is used as a source for socio-economic analysis, it is essential to be cautious and critic, validating its reliability by comparison with different data sources. In the absence of such a preliminary validation process, which should take place in close collaboration with regional and national authorities managing the informational systems, researchers do not only risk to uncritically accept information that provide systematic distortions, but they prevent corrective procedures which are fundamental for the development and improvement of the whole system

Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects in the Presence of Neighbourhood Interactions

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 04/14; This paper presents a parametric counter-factual model identifying Average Treatment Effects (ATEs) by Conditional Mean Independence when externality (or neighbourhood) effects are incorporated within the traditional Rubin's potential outcome model. As such, it tries to generalize the usual control-function regression, widely used in program evaluation and epidemiology, when SUTVA (i.e. Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption) is relaxed. As by-product, the paper presents also ntreatreg, an author-written Stata routine for estimating ATEs when social interaction may be present. Finally, an instructional application of the model and of its Stata implementation through two examples (the first on the effect of housing location on crime; the second on the effect of education on fertility), are showed and results compared with a no-interaction setting

Il sistema pesca. Italia e Europa a confronto

Monica Cariola, Greta Falavigna, Elena Pagliarino, Sara Pavone
WP 09/14; The main objective of this paper is to provide a concise overview of the fisheries and aquaculture industries at European and Italian level. The European Commission has recently highlighted the necessity to evaluate the performance of these sectors due to the decline of fish stocks. For this reason, strict rules oblige the Member States to manage fish stocks safeguarding natural resources and, at the same time, the productivity of the industry. The present study aims at providing not only a comprehensive analysis but also at offering remarks and observations helpful to understand the role of this economic activity in Italy and Europe

Insights on the efficiency of Embodied Knowledge Transfer. Results from a localized initiative

Ugo Finardi
WP 19/14; Embodied knowledge transfer is a relevant way of connecting public research and firms. The present work analyzes the results of a public initiative aiming at connecting research institutions and Small and Medium Enterprises of the Piedmont Region (northwest Italy). The initiative financed grants to employ young persons in possess of a university degree. Grantees were employed to spend part of their working time in a SME, and part in the collaborating Department/Institute. Drawing on the responses to the final survey of the project, the present work tries to determine whether grantees have been an efficient medium of knowledge transfer. Results show that in many cases they have been determinant, though the result can't be generalized

Italy's New Requirements for Academic Careers. The New Habilitation and its Worthiness

Giulio Marini
WP 03/14; The new habilitation, established in Italy in 2010 and commenced in 2012, was designed (outcomes released commencing December 2013). Its aim is to filter who will be eligible to apply for competitions for the two permanent level professor positions in the universities. The results of the first set of data are 20 scientific sectors representing more than 10% of all sectors analyzed to understand if the outcomes reflected in a worthy way the indicators of productivity and quality of scientific production of candidates. Some legal and statistical framework are fostered before the data analysis in order to have a better understanding of the reform and the context where it operates. The hypothesis of the worthiness is here addressed on the assumption that the current position held by a candidate should not play any role in the attainment of the habilitation. Splitting candidates into two roles and having controlled for age as a variable, the data was used to reveal that the indicators of quality of scientific production (H index for hard sciences and articles in top ranked journals for social sciences and humanities) are more frequently the best predictors. Though some limits of the present analysis are faced and illustrated, some critical points of this new institution are discussed

La crisi finanziaria nei bilanci delle imprese. Una nota con i dati Mediobanca

Franco Varetto
WP 11/14; The financial crisis had a severe impact on financial statements of Italian manufacturing companies: in 2012 total revenues are still under the level got before 2009, while gross margins (EBITDA) are even below the level of 2007. The decrease of the accounting depreciation rates allowed the companies to contain the fall of net margins (EBIT). The cutback of fixed investments and the slow dynamic of the operating working capital have allowed the companies to limit their external financial needs, whose coverage came mainly from bond issues and net increases of short term financial debts

La ricerca azione: un approccio per comprendere ed interagire con i processi delle dinamiche socio-economiche

Erica Rizziato
WP 26/14; This working paper give a frame work about action research as a research approach useful to understand and interact with social-economic dynamic processes. The paper underline also some critical aspects of the international debate about action research and focus on action research for the organization development and learning, describing a contribution given by a long Ceris action research project focused on finding innovative elements

Labour productivity and social network metrics in scientific research

Greta Falavigna, Alessandro Manello
WP 18/14; This paper presents an analysis of relationships between collaborations and scientific outputs of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). In order to evaluate collaborations among CNR institutes and between CNR institutes and universities, social network metrics have been applied with the aim to measure relationships and to understand if to cooperate allows researchers to publish higher quality outputs, improving their labour productivity. Research institutes are considered as nodes of the internal collaboration network, following the main aim of recent reform. Collaborations are stimulated not only by governments with the aim to have knowledge spillovers but they can improve citations and also their reputation. This last is extremely relevant for winning competitions, calls or grants. In this paper authors used data of scientific publications related to all institutes of CNR for the 2007 year and they ask to the question if researchers that publish more and better are those that collaborate more

Making access to credit more democratic. Tools and practices between social innovation and old inequalities

Valentina Moiso
WP 20/14; The economic crisis highlights the problem of access to credit also from the point of view of families. The Italian banking industry has launched projects aimed at offering financial support to disadvantaged people, implementing new products for certain categories of customers normally excluded from credit due to the high risks involved. The information collected about each customer is an input in the decision-making process. Hence, it is crucial to investigate how it is selected, how it is (re)assembled, and how it is evaluated. Understanding how information about a customer is selected and processed helps us to identify what resources owned by households are translated into a positive score to access credit and into opportunities to enjoy additional goods and services, thus reconfiguring the trends of inclusion and exclusion within the financial system

Mapping the environmental pressure due to economic factors. The case of Italian coastal municipalities

Marco Modica, Elena Pagliarino, Roberto Zoboli
WP 10/14; In this paper we map the main economics characteristics that may impact the environment of the Italian coastal municipalities. The mapping aims at quantitatively characterizing the main characteristics of the coastal municipalities from the point of view of sector specialization. More in details, in this work, first we briefly quantified settlement pressure on the Italian coasts, then we provide a detailed analysis of economic specializations by sectors of coastal municipalities. Finally, we develop a more specific analysis on the specialization and dependence of coastal municipalities. This latter study is based on the classification of two specific groups of economic sectors: i) those that depend on the sea as the primary source input (tangible and intangible) and ii) those that do not depend on the sea but that have high environmental pressures. This second set of sectors can have adverse impacts, direct and indirect, on the marine and coastal environment - and consequently on the ‘marine' sectors. We then provide evidence of the relationship between sectors depending from the sea, i.e. ‘marine' sectors and sectors that have a high pressure on the environment, i.e. ‘high pressure' sectors in coastal municipalities. The analysis is based on municipal data of the Census of Industry and Services of 2011 provided by ISTAT on seven selected Italian regions: Campania, Emilia Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Apulia, Sardinia and Veneto. The choice fell on them because of their regional peculiarities in terms of length of coastal territory, number of coastal municipalities and ratio between coastal areas and hinterland areas

Path-breaking directions of nanotechnology-based chemotherapy and molecular cancer therapy

Mario Coccia, Lili Wang
WP 01/14; A fundamental question is how to detect likely successful anticancer treatments based on nanotechnology. We confront this question here by analyzing the trajectories of nanotechnologies applied to path-breaking cancer treatments, which endeavour to pinpoint ground-breaking and fruitful directions in nanomedicine. Results tend to show two main technological waves of cancer treatments by nanotechnology applications. The early technological wave in the early 2000s was embodied in some types of chemotherapy agents with a broad spectrum, while after 2006, the second technological wave appeared with new nano-technological applications in both chemotherapy agents and molecular target therapy. The present study shows new directions of nanotechnology-based chemotherapy and -molecular cancer therapy in new treatments for breast, lung, brain and colon cancers. A main finding of this study is the recognition that, since the late 2000s, the sharp increase of several technological trajectories of nanotechnologies and anticancer drugs seems to be driven by high rates of mortality of some types of cancers (e.g. pancreatic and brain ones) in order to find more effectiveness anticancer therapies that increase the survival of patients. The study here also shows that worldwide leader countries in these vital research fields and in particular the specialization of some countries in applications of nanotechnology to treat specific cancer (e.g. Switzerland in prostate cancer, Japan in colon, China in ovarian and Greece in pancreatic cancer). These ground-breaking technological trajectories are paving new directions in biomedicine and generating a revolution in clinical practice that may lead to more effective anticancer treatments in a not-too-distant future

Politiques publiques et secteur agro-industriel. Le rôle du programme de développement rural en Piémont

Sara Pavone, Elena Pagliarino, Alessandro Manello
WP 14/14; This work aims to better understand the role played by the Rural Development Programme (RDP) to support the agro-food industry in Piedmont. The agro-food sector is the portion of the production chain dealing with food processing and characterised by the highest added value. Differently from other production sectors, it includes various types of businesses: large farming enterprises, cooperatives of producers, as well as processing industries. The effect of rural development policies is assessed by comparing the economic-financial performance of businesses receiving public support to that of businesses which are not supported through public funds. In order to do so, the sample under investigation comprises enterprises which received financing earmarked for the agro-food industry during the periods 2000-2006 and 2007-2013. Our purpose is to understand the role played by the RDP and how financing affects agro-food businesses, as well as to describe the features of beneficiary enterprises

Real Option Theory and Application to the Fishery Industry. A survey of the literature

Matteo Ferraris, Elena Pagliarino
WP 08/14; This paper would be a review of the literature of the main and innovative methodologies of evaluation of real investments: the real option approach (ROA). In particular, the aim of this work is to define an optimal methodology and to select the main drivers that permit to make a more accurate evaluation of the investments in the fishery market. ROA methodology comes from the need to overtake the traditional theory of the net present value (NPV) and from the need for the management of a fishery enterprise to adapt to the future market conditions and to the competitive behavior in the changes of the fishery techniques. ROA was born from the theory of Dixit & Pyndick (1994) that started to use the models of the financial option theories in order to evaluate investments in other sectors like oil, energy, ICT, manufacturing. From a theoretical point of view, indeed, real investments are characterized by “irreversibility” and “possibility of delay” since a manager can defer, expand, abandon an initial project in different years of its own operational life. In this context, despite of the financial option models ROA has a real investment as underlying asset. If the enterprise decides to invest in a real investment it means that the enterprise exercises an option and this decision is irreversible. In the context of the Ritmare project, we would use the same methodological approach by using the evaluation of the investments in the fishery market. Our first step is to provide a review of the main papers that focus on ROA in the fishery with some empirical applications. Finally, we also try to underline the main drivers or variables of the literature that permits to use the ROA and to present a possible scheme of work to apply to the fishery market, by using data at regional or municipal level

Strategie di conservazione della biodiversità animale zootecnica in aree montane

Elena Pagliarino
WP 17/14; Domestic animal genetic resources (DAnGR) include all animal species and breeds that have been domesticated and selected during the past 10000-12000 years to provide a range of products and functions. Unfortunately, a large number of farm breeds have been lost and many more are at risk of loss. To disappear, replaced by few high-yielding and specialized animals, are local breeds. They are adapted to the local environmental and disease stresses, they need low external inputs and are able to give many different products (i.e. milk-meat-wool) and services. In few words, they are sustainable and multipurpose. Mountains are rich in local breeds that are resistant to inclement conditions of the surrounding environment, plastic enough to contribute to the self-sufficient economy of mountain communities, and preserved in genetic purity because of the geographic isolation. The research compares the strategies adopted in mountain areas for the conservation of three different sheep breeds facing extinction. Throughout deep-interviews to various actors (breeders, representatives of breeders' associations, SME, public officials, policy makers and researchers), the analysis reveals that in all case-studies the program of conservation is linked to a wider process of local development. The research highlights the factors of success or failure, it analyses the role of the different actors involved in the conservation program and the relationships among them. It describes the characteristics of those partnerships between public and private that have some prospects in the medium-long term

The impact of Rural Development Program on the economic performances of agro-food industry: the results of a counterfactual analysis in Piedmont, Italy

Monica Cariola, Elena Pagliarino, Sara Pavone, Alessandro Manello
WP 22/14; The purpose of this research is to compare, by means of a counterfactual analysis, the economic performance of Piedmontese agro-food enterprises in 2005-2012, period characterized by the economic crisis, in relation to whether they received fundings during the last two programming periods. In particular, the main objective is to analyse the role played by the Rural Development Programme in the agro-food businesses in Piedmont and the effects of financing on the enterprises under investigation. The results provide insights and guidelines for policy makers as well as for researchers involved in the evaluation of public policies and they can be used to elaborate effective interventions and targeted actions

The role of inter-organizational proximity on the evolution of the European Aerospace R&D collaboration network

Pier Paolo Angelini
WP 02/14; The influence exerted by five dimensions of inter-organizational proximity (geographical, organizational, network, institutional and technological) on the evolution of the collaboration networks subsidized by the European Union Framework Programmes in the Aerospace sector is studied. The role of the proximity dimensions is controlled by means of a longitudinal analysis with a stochastic actor-oriented model, which will be run on four observations of the network starting in the fourth (1994-1998) and ending in the seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013). Results show that organizational proximity is the most important driver for the longitudinal evolution of the network. Further, this form of proximity is constant in time, analogously to the geographical one which, on its side, only moderately affects network's evolution. Network proximity plays a weak but positive influence, while the institutional and technological dimensions do not affect the evolution of the network. Anyway, when proximity is evaluated on single institutional and technological types, different roles are detected. Regarding the former, research centres have a preference for inter-organizational mixing, while firms prefer to cooperate with firms. As for the latter, a repulsive tendency among system integrators is appreciated. Organizations' patenting activity, introduced as a control variable, does not play a significant role on network's evolution

Une expérience d'intégration entre analyse quantitative et qualitative. L'évaluation de la formation professionnelle en Région Piémont

Igor Benati, Valentina Lamonica
WP 13/14; Impact assessment, in public policy evaluation, faces two major challenges: on the one hand, the theme of impact measurement, on the other that of its explanation. Quantitative research techniques usually play a vital role in the measurement, while qualitative techniques are much more useful in explanation. In order to carry on a successful impact assessment is therefore necessary to integrate the first with the second, combining them in a balanced research design. The use of mixed methods in this direction, allows to overcome some criticism to quantitative approach, as well as to qualitative approach. But how is it possible to achieve an effective integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in impact assesment? The article attempts to answer this question. After a brief theoretical excursus on the use of mixed methods in evaluation research, with the presentation of three different theoretical options for use of mixed methods (sequential, concurrent, and transformative), the pap er describes a single experience of integration between qualitative and quantitative methods, based on the analysis of employment effects of vocational training, experienced in Piedmont Region, within the independent evaluation of the ESF Operational Programme. The paper explain the choices made in research design, discussing the positive and critical

Vocational training and labour market: inclusion or segregation paths? An integrated approach on immigrant trainees in Piedmont

Greta Falavigna, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 25/14; Considering the multidimensional nature of employability, which is a latent notion, and its intrinsic connection with education and training policies, this paper uses a mix of quantitative methods to explore the integration of migrants into the Piedmont VET system (North-West Italy), and their subsequent transition into the labour market. In particular, four different approaches are developed: a macro one, investigating gross placement indicators; a micro one, investigating individual scores of integration into the labour market; a multivariate one, estimating a probit model that controls for individual characteristics; and a duration approach, analysing migrants' survival on the labour market. The counterfactual design allows to estimate the net impact of training. Generally, migrants appear to be disadvantaged with respect to EU nationals, but their gap is filled whenever considering foreign trainees. However, the duration analysis does not detect different paths for the treated migrants, but only different paths for migrants on equal integration levels. Hence, data fully confirm the role of Piedmont training policies to contrast and re-cover the disadvantage of target groups which appear weak on the labour market

2013

Eco-Efficiency in the Italian Waste Management sector

Matteo Ferraris, Alessandro Manello
WP 12/13; In the light of the recent European environmental regulation, in Italy, waste collection management has been involved in some important changes both from environmental and management point of view. From the one hand, firms want to maximize the quantity of collected Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) showing an increasing capacity of waste collection per unit of labor and capital, from the other hand they want to minimize the level of Undifferentiated Solid Wastes (USW) in order to meet environmental goals. This paper extends the concept of Directional Distance Function (DDF) to the waste sector, in which previous applications of efficiency models have been mainly focused on the cost-function side. The idea of DDF (by Chambers et al.,1996; 1998) is here applied to treat asymmetrically two categories of outputs: one desirable (amount of MSW) and one undesirable (level of undifferentiated wastes) both observed (with inputs) from a sample of around 450 Italian municipalities during 2006. Computed efficiency scores are analyzed in light of different tariff systems (e.g. flat fee and pay as you through), different socio-economic contexts (e.g. Northern vs Southern Italy) and prevalent political side in local government (Left wings vs Right-wing parties). Keywords: 4-6 nanocompounds, atmospheric pollutants, social costs evaluation, social saving, titanium dioxide

Efficienza nel settore europeo delle TLC

Alessandro Manello, Clementina Bruno
WP 10/13; This paper proposes an efficiency analysis of the major European incumbent firms in the fixed telecommunications sector. The non-parametric approach, that has been adopted here, expresses the efficiency according to a directional distance measure, allowing to consider the different nature of outputs categories, according to their technological content. Efficiency measures are analysed in relation to some indicators that capture the effect of recent reforms in the direction of liberalization, privatization and vertical separation. The results show that while private ownership and market concentration do not significantly affect the operational efficiency, the vertical separation has a positive effect on performances. This suggest that any losses of vertical scope economies, are more than balanced by performance improvements generated by the expectation of an increase in competition in the medium to long term

Emerging scientific directions in plasma technology for food decontamination

Mario Coccia, Ugo Finardi
WP 03/13; The purpose of this research is to analyze the evolutionary growth of knowledge in non-thermal plasma technologies applied for food decontamination in order to pinpoint emerging scientific directions. The sample uses 22,836 articles and 2,282 patents from Scopus/SciVerse database in order to calculate the rate of scientific and technological growth that may detect emerging technological trajectories and applications. Results show that emerging plasma technology for food decontamination are mainly cold atmospheric pressure plasma and gas plasma. Moreover, plasma seems to be a promising technology for decontamination of fresh food from bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus, Listeria Monocytogenes and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, respectively. However, key limitations are the relatively early state of technology development, and the largely unexplored impacts of non thermal plasma on nutritional qualities of treated foods. Nevertheless, this technology shows promise for bio-decontamination and is the subject of active research to enhance efficacy and open up crucial opportunities to industrial and social safety

Etica ed economia, famiglia & impresa. Filosofia sociale e prospettive concrete

Rosalia Azzaro Pulvirenti
WP 09/13; “Corporate Family Responsibility” means that Households and Stakeholders can help each other, supported by institutions, to increase their growth. Our aim is to explain the main result of it: a higher level of social benefits can be effective for achieving economic goals. The first part of the paper illustrates the status of the art and some theories on business ethics; the final part some practical perspectives about it in Italy

Etica ed economia, famiglia & impresa. L'approccio innovativo della Corporate Family Responsibility

Rosalia Azzaro Pulvirenti
WP 08/13; The starting point of this paper is a comparison between science and economy, considering how ethical approach could be a same key to understand some reasons of their recent crisis. We propose a theoretical framework based on the idea that families and firms are not only “private goods”, but also “common goods”. Our interest is concentrated upon an innovative approach of business ethics, the “Corporate Family Responsibility”

Evolutionary growth of knowledge and new technological directions of non-thermal plasma technology in medicine

Mario Coccia, Ugo Finardi
WP 02/13; The paper analyzes the evolution of scientific production and patenting, main proxies of scientific and technological breakthroughs, concerning non-thermal plasma for biomedical applications in order to detect emerging technological trajectories. New scientific directions of non-thermal plasma in medicine play a critical role because they might generate important innovations that could change the clinical practice. Occurrences of scientific products and patents are retrieved with Boolean queries on SciVerse database after a meticulous procedure to delineate the most promising applications in biomedical sciences. Data are analyzed with two methodological approaches: an exponential model of growth and regression analysis. Results show high rates of scientific growth for applications of non-thermal plasma in disinfection, anticancer treatments, dermatology, whereas for surgery, although values of occurrences are similar to the other research fields, it shows a different trend that after the 2005 is decreasing due to the peculiar application to materials for implantation. Some arguments are discussed at the end of the paper

Il patrimonio culturale e naturale delle isole europee. Un approccio interdisciplinare

Edoardo Lorenzetti, Mario De Marchi
WP 04/13; The designing of a new knowledge model – to be tested on particularly significant cultural areas such as Islands and on their historic urban spaces, taking into account the tangible and intangible elements of their historical cultural heritage – is a concrete opportunity to resume a debate aimed at identifying a scientifically correct and interdisciplinary methodology of analysis to attain thorough knowledge of the various factors that contribute to the definition of historical, architectural, anthropological, and landscape-based features of towns and historic centres, particularly those of islands. This knowledge process should strive to overcome an approach, focused mostly on the protection of individual architectural features of great historical-artistic importance. This perspective concentrates on monumental structures and major architectural works rather than on a much wider heritage, made up of artefacts displaying various levels of quality, which take on specific scientific relevance because of their mutual functional and structural relations and the historical, social, anthropological, and landscape context which they express. However, following such a method, the various disciplines involved in the research activity can assess their mutual ability to relate to one another when they deal with a wide subject, which actually includes several areas of common interest. A methodologically correct research view must provide a knowledge framework that is both detailed and comprehensive in describing the mutual relations among the features of historic centres as well as how the latter are linked to the surrounding environment and landscape. Last but not least, it can be clearly seen that such an operation would pave the way for specific sector-based interventions with great economic potential for the areas involved; even if adequate tools of such economic analysis are still lacking

Il ruolo delle Politiche di formazione nel settore agricolo e forestale. Il caso Piemontese

Sara Pavone, Elena Pagliarino
WP 20/13; Training plays a strategic role in improving the competitiveness and the productivity of the agricultural sector. Its role is widely recognized by the European Union that encourages it through the Rural Development Program, financing training courses for agricultural and forest operators. The present working paper reports the results of a research carried out in Piedmont Region to evaluate the public agriculture training system. It explores the quality of training courses and the coherence with the training needs expressed by farmers and forest workers. In addition, it tries to reflect about public fund flows, suggesting policy implications for future actions. The methodology includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis and it is characterized by an exhaustive field research. The main results show a high satisfaction among participants, a good coherence between training offer and training needs, but also some weak points related to the management of the training system and the relationships among the several actors involved

Infezioni correlate all'assistenza ospedaliera: un caso studio di costo efficacia

Greta Falavigna, Roberto Ippoliti, Grazia Lomolino
WP 18/13; This study proposes a cost-effectiveness analysis concerning the implementation of a tool to check for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in Intensive Care. VAP is a sub-type of hospital-acquired pneumonia which occurs in people receiving mechanical ventilation. An empirical analysis is performed to estimate the effectiveness of a specific procedure to prevent VAP (i.e. Ventilator Bundle), as well as to evaluate cost savings related to not developing the infection. The relevance of the results thus obtained is not only clinical but also managerial and economic, since a reduction in costs improves the economic performance of hospitals and a lower incidence of VAP improves their reputation on the national market of healthcare services

Inquinamento e costi sociali. Una prima stima dei risparmi potenzialmente ottenibili con l'applicazione di materiali nano strutturati in ambito urbano

Monica Cariola, Alessandro Manello
WP 11/13; Because nowadays more than 200 kind of diseases are to some extent connected to atmospheric pollution, with a very significant impact on the social cost of a community, it can be important to study the effect that plans for using technologies able to treat urban areas atmosphere as a whole (in particular public areas), may have on reducing social and economic costs. The relationship between the increment of air pollutant concentration and morbidity/mortality due to natural, heart, encephalovascular and respiratory causes has been widely documented in national and international scientific literature. A technology based on nano-structured materials (TiO2 based nanocompounds) which, under ultraviolet radiations, presents photocathalytic effects, can be able to decompose a wide variety of atmospheric pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nano-powder (PM10). In this paper we study and set up a model for the economic and social impact assessment of a large scale implementation of this technology in the field of urban and building construction. The paper assumes that the estimates of economic-social costs of air pollution, can be used as a starting point for a preliminary determination of the savings, which can be realized by employing photocatalytic pigments and mortars on a wide urban scale. This analysis has been applied to data referred to the town of Turin and has highlighted the possibility of a considerable level of saving in terms of social and economic costs

Interdisciplinary research. Measurement and assessment indicators

Mario De Marchi
WP 06/13; In order to implement appropriate policies to face the difficulties and remove the obstacles that hinder interdisciplinary research, it is necessary to clarify how this ever broader and more dynamic portion of science works and which incentives best support the activities of scientists. Interdisciplinary studies are a peculiar aspect of the activities performed by researchers operating at the frontier of science, for instance in cutting-edge sectors. They might encompass fields of investigation that already exist, but they cannot be exclusively ascribed to any one of them. Abstract answers regarding the very unusual matters investigated by interdisciplinary research would make it extremely difficult to provide quantitative output measurements and evaluations. Yet, the shift from general abstract answers to specific empirical problems, which is the objective of most interdisciplinary research, turns out to be an advantage when assessing this type of research. Concentrating on problems and on approaching their solutions in objective quantitative terms can allow for output measurement and assessment also in the case of interdisciplinary research. This can be achieved by using precision and efficiency parameters able to provide public policies and entrepreneurial activities with content that is as clearly defined and as rigorous as that of specialist research

L'efficacité des politiques de formation: méthodes pour l'évaluation de l'impact

Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 14/13; Net impact evaluation in a non-experimental context is discussed, addressing the case of vocational training policies provided by Piedmont Region, in the North-West Italy. Impact evaluation plays a major role in determining the effectiveness of public policies, being the net effect a crucial element in policy planning. Accordingly, the spreading of impact evaluation and its use in the ESF programming is particularly urgent in the current socio-economic context, which is characterized by scarce financial resources claiming for increasing effectiveness and efficiency. In particular, evaluation is useful for investment programs in vocational training policies, which are mostly financed through the ESF and play a crucial role in the fight against unemployment and social exclusion. The paper presents an impact assessment on vocational training courses provided by Piedmont Region, discussing its methodological viability and proposing a quasi-experimental evaluation strategy on the employment outcomes of the trainees. The authors discuss the operational choices and the implementation of the assessment, stating the advantages and disadvantages. Particular attention is devoted to the identification of the control sample. Gross and net impact evaluation strategies are explained, discussing the selection bias problem. In conclusion, the authors explain the major lessons learned in both the methods and the process of evaluating training effectiveness

La vente directe de produits agricoles sur les marchés urbains: le cas de Turin

Secondo Rolfo, Sara Pavone, Gian Franco Corio
WP 19/13; Selling directly to consumers is based on a quality convention (Eymard-Duvernay, 1989) related to social relationships, shared values and beliefs (Bénézech et al., 2008). This channel sales, concerning the relationships proximity, reports an increasing relevance on the multifunctional agriculture and on the sustainable production (Rossi et al., 2008). This study seeks to explore famers' markets that take place in Turin (capital of the Piedmont region) and changes over time. If in Turin is placed the biggest European open market (Mercato di Porta Palazzo), where farmers have a reserved place historically, new initiatives have been launched in recent years, creating a wider supply

Managerial capacity in the innovation process and firm profitability

Giovanni Cerulli, Bianca Poti
WP 01/13; This paper studies at firm level the relation between managerial capacity in doing innovation and profitability. Moving along the intersection between the evolutionary/neo-Schumpeterian theory and the Resource-Based-View of the firm, we prove econometrically that managerial efficiency in mastering the production of innovation is an important determinant of firm innovative performance and market success, and that it complements traditional Schumpeterian drivers. By using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis, we provide a “direct” measure of innovation managerial capacity, then plugged into a profit margin equation augmented by the traditional Schumpeterian drivers of profitability (size, demand, market size and concentration, technological opportunities, etc.) and other control-variables. We run both a OLS and a series of Quantile Regressions to better stress the role played by companies' heterogeneous response of profitability to innovative managerial capacity at different points of the distribution of the operating profit margin. Results find evidence of an average positive effect of the innovation managerial capacity on firm profitability, although quantile regressions show that this “mean effect” is mainly driven by a stronger magnitude of the effect for lower quantiles (i.e., for firms having negative or low positive profitability). It means that lower profitable firms might gain more from an increase of managerial efficiency in doing innovation than more profitable businesses

Migration and work: the cohesive role of vocational training policies

Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 16/13; Migration and work are truly connected notions, both because one major cause of migration is the search of better working conditions, and because work is a fundamental vehicle of social cohesion, especially for the migrants. Hence, the European social model strongly connects social cohesion and employment policies, fostering sustainable growth and integration by offering increasing job opportunities, particularly concerning the weak categories. Therefore, work is a pillar of active citizenship and a fundamental step in individuals' self-construction and the development of social abilities. In such context, vocational training represents a twofold integration channel, combining both education and work paths. Hence, the European Commission (2010) fosters a cohesive growth through vocational education and training (VET) policies, promoting a modern VET system and increasing its quality and efficiency. In Italy, the role of VET is particularly important for first- and second-generation immigrants, who are more likely to attend VET courses than different education paths. However, Italy is the only European country where VET is perceived like a segregation path, rather than like a port of entry to active citizenship and true integration. In fact, Cedefop (2011) notices that high linguistic barriers and rigid teaching methods characterize the Italian vocational education, while it stresses the high flexibility of Italian vocational training, including an higher adaptability to immigrants' needs. The present work discusses the hypothesis of “subordinate integration” of immigrants into the Italian VET system. In particular, it examines the effectiveness of Piedmont VT policies in fostering employability of weak subjects. The results of a CATI survey on a representative sample of Piedmont VT students suggest no specific discrimination to the detriment of immigrants, whose individual background and work assimilation is similar to that of Italian VT students. Moreover, the net impact evaluation suggests a positive impact of training courses on strangers, which is generally higher for communitarian immigrants. Hence, immigrants' participation to VT courses in Italy seems to denote a sort of normalization strategy of their specific differences, rather than a subordinate integration scheme

New industrial policies for the automotive industry in Europe

Giuseppe Calabrese, Dan Coffey, Tommaso Pardi
WP 21/13; The aim of this paper is to present a comparative analysis of the Plateforme de la Filière Automobile and The British Automotive Council. The two operating structure were established respectively in France and UK to support the national automotive sectors at the dawn of the ongoing crisis. The Italian government is on the way to set up a similar structure. These operating structures can be defined as two instruments of industrial policy introduced in parallel to the classical industrial policy measures allowed by the European Union and that in some ways represent a turning point of the mode of state intervention in the real economy. The challenge is to force different actors to cooperate, not only central government and industry, but more deeply different local authorities and different automotive tiers. In so far as the roles of the different actors are balanced, dissimilar configurations of Triple Helix can be detected and, as a consequence, different evaluations can be deduced

Parcours formatifs et entrée dans le marché du travail pour les femmes. Analyse des différences homme-femme dans le cas des politiques de formation en Piémont

Greta Falavigna, Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 13/13; IPublic policies are even more interested in vocational training issues because spillovers fall on the labor market, and then on life quality. Reports of the European Commission registered that women are disadvantaged subjects on the labor market but, at the same time, they are more ambitious and are at their best on the educational side. This paper aims at analyzing data of Piedmont Region on vocational training policies, focusing on the role of women into the labor market. Data refer to subjects that accomplished their training course during 2010 and 2011. Analyses have been performed on interviews, in order to evaluate the effects of training on medium-term employment outcomes of trainees. A control sample has been selected with the aim to evaluate the effect of training, with a special focus on women. Probit models and average marginal effects (AMEs) allow authors to estimate the net impact of training into the labor market. Results suggest that the employment gap between men and women is completely recovered in trainees, but some inequality in labor quality still persits

Population and technological innovation. The optimal interaction across modern countries

Mario Coccia
WP 07/13; Population growth is one of the major problems facing the world today because it affects the pattern of sustainable economic growth. Theory of endogenous growth shows that total research output increases faster than proportionally with population due to increases in the size of the market, more intensive intellectual contact and greater specialization. The study here analyses the relationship between population growth and level of technological outputs (patent applications of residents), focusing on OECD countries. The study seems to show the existence of an inverted-U shaped curve between the growth rate of population and the patents with an optimal zone in which the average rate of growth of the population (roughly 0.3131%) is likely to be associated to a higher level of technological outputs. The policy implications of the study are that, in average, it is difficult to sustain a optimal level of technological outputs either with a low (lower than 0.2197%) or high (higher than 1.0133%) average growth rate of population (annual). In addition, the estimated relationship of technological outputs vs. population growth tends to be affected by decreasing returns of technological innovation to population growth

Technological Innovations in Agricultural Tractors. Adopters' behaviour towards new technological trajectories and future directions

Ester Ferrari, Luigi Bollani, Mario Coccia, Eugenio Cavallo
WP 05/13; Latest advancements in tractors engineering have allowed farmers to increase productivity, and simultaneously to reduce operator's hazards. However, little attention has been given to farmers' behaviour and attitude toward the adoption of technological innovations concerning agricultural tractors. The study explores farmers' behaviours on agricultural tractors current and future technological trajectories. A main case study concerning Italy is analyzed. Results show three different behaviours of farmers concerning tractors' technological innovations. These adopters' profiles would help developing new technologies that satisfy, more and more, farmers' needs and expectations, speeding up the adoption process, enhancing agricultural tractors' efficacy and efficiency

Technology and demand mechanism in firm diversification strategies. An experimental method to discriminate the fundamental drivers

Elena Santanera
WP 17/13; An essential part of any firm's corporate strategy is the choice of the business portfolio through which to compete. When the portfolio's decision involves more than one business, firms are said to implement a diversification strategy, which is put into action through the firms concomitant entry in different market segments. It implies that the nature of the market segmentation affects the firms' differentiation degree. The aim of this paper consists in exploring a method for determining the market segmentation that is most informative to understand firms' diversification strategies, or in other words the market segmentation that most clearly reveals about firms' main diversification drivers. Given that each business can be described according to a set of business characteristics and by using different levels of detail, in the perspective of understanding firm diversification strategies, it is fundamental to determine the directions in the space of business characteristics along which it is “mostly convenient” to claim the business diversity and which is the “best” level of aggregation at which assess the businesses boundaries. This paper proposes an experimental method to do it. In particular, it empirically discerns which of two particular criteria – functional versus technological – mostly enrich our understanding of the diversification strategies adopted by Italian plastic processing machinery suppliers, finding out the most instructive level of aggregation of the market segmentation – namely the best segment dimension – to investigate the firms diversification strategies

Una valutazione di impatto delle politiche formative regionali: il caso piemontese

Elena Ragazzi, Lisa Sella
WP 15/13; Impact evaluation plays a major role in determining the effectiveness of public policies. In fact, information about the program net effect is a crucial element in policy planning. Accordingly, as advocated by the Barca Report, impact evaluation spreading and its use in programming on European Funds is even more urgent in the current socio-economic context, characterized by scarce financial resources, which claim for increasing effectiveness and efficiency. In particular, evaluation is useful for investment programs in human capital and vocational training policies. The latter, mostly financed through the ESF resources, play a crucial role in fighting against unemployment and social exclusion. Italian public administration must start thinking in terms of impact assessment and ex-ante evaluation, in order to build policies boosting the territorial development and cohesion, while simultaneously redeeming the quality of the public action. In this context, the paper presents an impact assess ment carried out on vocational training courses, which the Piedmont Region co-financed by the ESF, discussing the methodological feasibility and proposing a quasi-experimental evaluation strategy on the job placement of vocational training students. The authors illustrate the design operational choices and the implementation of the assessment, stating the advantages and disadvantages. To this extent, the sampling strategy is explained, with particular attention to the identification of a proper control sample, finally identified on the basis of the course drop-outs. The paper proposes an accurate description of gross and net impact evaluation strategies. Gross impact evaluation is carried out through an analysis of the employment outcomes in the mid-term and it represents just a crude measure of training effects. Net impact evaluation is estimated through net employment differentials between the main and the control sample, as well as through multivariate probit analysis, which investigates the effects of individual characteristics on the probability of being employed a year later the end of the course. The selection bias problem is discussed, illustrating the strategy adopted to measure and counteract its effects. In conclusion, the authors distill this research experience through a series of lectures about both the methods and the process of evaluating training effectiveness

2012

A continuous treatment model for estimating a Dose Response Function under endogeneity and heterogeneous response to observable confounders: Description and implementation via the Stata module 'ctreatreg'

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 18/2012; This paper presents an original econometric model for estimating a Dose Response Function though a regression approach when treatment is continuous, individuals may react heterogeneously to observable confounders and selection-into-treatment may be (potentially) endogenous. After the description of the model, two estimation procedures are set out: one based on OLS under conditional mean independence, and one based on IV under selection endogeneity. The paper goes on by presenting ctreatreg, a author's user-written Stata routine for an easy implementation of such a model. The paper proceeds by performing a Monte Carlo experiment to test the reliability of the model and of its associated Stata routine. Results show that the model and the Stata routine ctreatreg are both reliable as estimates consistently fit the expected results.

Centralization and Accountability: Theory and Evidence from the Clean Air Act

Federico Boffa, Amedeo Piolatto, Giacomo A. Ponzetto
WP 13/2012; This paper studies fiscal federalism when voter information varies across regions. We develop a model of political agency with heterogeneously informed voters. Rent seeking politicians provide public goods to win the votes of the informed. As a result, rent extraction is lower in regions with higher information. In equilibrium, electoral discipline has decreasing returns. Thus, political centralization efficiently reduces aggregate rent extraction. The model predicts that a region’s benefits from centralization are decreasing in its residents’ information. We test this prediction using panel data on pollutant emissions across U.S. states. The 1970 Clean Air Act centralized environmental policy at the federal level. In line with our theory, we find that centralization induced a differential decrease in pollution for uninformed relative to informed states.

Comparing green performances of Italian and German firms

Alessandro Manello
WP 09/2012; This paper analyses the environmental efficiency of a sample of chemical firms located in Italy and Germany, which are included in the European Pollution Emission and Transfer Register (E-PRTR). The adoption of a common set of standards can open important way to compare economical and ecological performances of firms which must follow the same formal rule, but operating in different countries. The Directional Distance Function (DDF) approach is here applied to obtain global efficiency scores able to consider pollution in computations: emissions generally increase between 2004 and 2007, with a worse performance of Italian firms. Eco-efficiency indicators partially slim down that evidence considering both turnover and input usage, underlining a reduction of average inefficiencies over time. From a dynamic viewpoint empirical findings shows a most favourable trends in environmental TFP growth for German firms.

Concept cars and the development of the bleucar project

Giuseppe Calabrese, Monique Vervaeke
WP 12/2012; Many scholars are discussing signs and company strategies that seems to confirm that the transition to cleaner vehicles is starting. Freyssenet (2011) announced a new automobile revolution and Rifkin (2011) a third industrial revolution. How could industrial design be a field of study and discussion about ideas related to an automobile revolution? What are the links between an automobile revolution and a third industrial revolution? The prospective design approach would be used to analyse the new orientation taken in the automotive industry. Concept cars and new experiments are giving signs about the evolution of the automotive sector towards new forms of mobility. The Bleucar and Autolib in Paris, an innovative electric car sharing system is the outgrowth of an historical process. The paper examines how design of concept cars introduced new representations and changing social uses of the cars in the 1990’s. It will be described the first step of the Bleucar’s project, the design research, the actors and the companies involved in the project since 2005. Finally, the paper analyses actors and institutional interactions between public and private partners for setting up the Autolib mobility system in Paris. The conclusions present some reflections about the issue of new mobility systems for the automotive industry.

Coopération pour l'innovation à niveau local: un exemple italien de succès (Cooperation for the innovation at the local level: a successful Italian case)

Secondo Rolfo, Angelo Bonomi
WP 15/2012; the cooperation for the innovation within the industrial districts has been largely investigated, but the economic literature counts a limited number of successful and durable cases. In this paper the focus is Ruvaris , a company operating in the taps & fittings industry, that represents a good example of a structured cooperation growing during the years. In fact Ruvaris has been created by some competitors based in different districts and areas of Italy, in order to manage cooperative projects for innovation without the implication of public bodies and, in the first phase, without public financial support.

Dynamics of the steel and long-term equilibrium hypothesis across leading geo-economic players: empirical evidence for supporting a policy formulation

Mario Coccia
WP 02/2012; The aim of this study is twofold – on the one hand, to report a flow analysis based on historical trends of steel, from 1997 to 2008, across some leading geo-economic players; on the other, the analysis of long-term relationship between steel consumption and economic growth by the sensitivity of the demand for steel consumption to a change in the national income. Results show that steel production and consumption have different economic behaviour across some countries: China and Italy have higher average annual growth of production of crude (CHN 9.75%; ITA 0.83%), steel crude use equivalent (CHN 8.37%; ITA 1.95%) and steel use finished products (CHN 9.38%; ITA 1.65%), whereas the US have higher average annual growth of imports (13.23%) and China of exports of semi-finished/finished steel products (20.38%). In addition, the estimated average elasticity of consumption of steel on national income statistical per countries, based on unidirectional causality that runs from national income to steel consumption, shows de facto positive values, except in UK economies. The analysis here provides main information on the industrial structure of countries and for designing industrial policies aimed to support patterns of economic growth in current turbulent and fast-changing markets.

Groundbreaking technological applications of nanotechnology in biomedicine: detecting emerging pathways from scientific and technological outputs

Mario Coccia, Ugo Finardi
WP 07/2012; The purpose of this paper is to measure and analyze the rate of scientific and technological advances of nano-technological research in biomedicine. The approach, based on models of growth, shows the current evolutionary trends of nano-research that may underpin future patterns of technological innovation in biomedicine. In particular, results show that biosensors, nanoparticles, quantum dots, carbon nanotube and nanomicelle have innovative applications in diagnostics and target therapies that have been generating a revolution in clinical practice. The present study also shows two main implications of determinants that have been supporting continuous application of nanotechnology in biomedicines such as the patterns of technological innovation driven by converging research fields and a learning process. These factors have been paving the way to innovative nanomedical drugs applied in biomedicine that lead to longer, better and healthier living of patients and therefore of societies.

Ivtreatreg: a new STATA routine for estimating binary treatment models with heterogeneous response to treatment under observable and unobservable selection

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 03/2012; This paper presents a new user-written STATA command called ivtreatreg for the estimation of five different (binary) treatment models with and without idiosyncratic (or heterogeneous) average treatment effect. Depending on the model specified by the user, ivtreatreg provides consistent estimation of average treatment effects both under the hypothesis of “selection on observables” and “selection on unobservables” by using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression in the first case, and Intrumental-Variables (IV) and Selection-model (à la Heckman) in the second one. Conditional on a pre-specified subset of exogenous variables x – thought of as driving the heterogeneous response to treatment – ivtreatreg calculates for each model the Average Treatment Effect (ATE), the Average Treatment Effect on Treated (ATET) and the Average Treatment Effect on Non-Treated (ATENT), as well as the estimates of these parameters conditional on the observable factors x, i.e., ATE(x), ATET(x) and ATENT(x). The five models estimated by ivtreatreg are: Cf-ols (Control-function regression estimated by OLS), Direct-2sls (IV regression estimated by direct two-stage least squares), Probit-2sls (IV regression estimated by Probit and two-stage least squares), Probit-ols (IV two-step regression estimated by Probit and ordinary least squares), and Heckit (Heckman two-step selection model). An extensive treatment of the conditions under which previous methods provide consistent estimation of ATE, ATET and ATENT can be found, for instance, in Wooldgrige (2002, Chapter 18). The value added of this new STATA command is that it allows for a generalization of the regression approach typically employed in standard program evaluation, by assuming heterogeneous response to treatment.

L'etica dello sviluppo organizzativo e la responsabilità sociale delle organizzazioni: punti di arrivo, criticità e proposte nel contesto italiano e internazionale (The ethics of the organizational development and the organizations' social responsibility: main findings, critical issues and proposals in the italian and international context)

Erica Rizziato, Erika Nemmo
WP 11/2012; This Working Paper focuses on the organizations’ social responsibility aspects linked to the active and creative involvement of the working community in the dynamics of change. The work, then explores organizational development area in the organizations’ social responsibility context. The Paper, from a broad survey about political policy and research, analyzes the weaknesses and the development areas at an international, European and national level. The work closes illustrating, a project proposal for the creation of a network of action research for Social Responsibility Organizations (network ELSE) focused on issues regarding the ethics of organization development.

L'identità del territorio e la comunicazione dei prodotti enogastronomici come leva per il marketing territoriale.(Local identity and food and wine communication as a lever for place marketing)

Paolo Enria
WP 08/2012; Having defined place marketing and taken into consideration the public and private actors who contribute to the design of a strategic plan for the promotion of a local area, food and wine products are analyzed as an example of assets that can be emphasized in order to add value to the identity of a specific place and on which to build communication activities. The use of the concepts of “identity” and “spirit of a place” combined with the use of food and wine products as an example of typical local production can be a useful departure point around which to organize local development projects, especially if they are included in a coordinated promotion programme for the whole country. In fact, even while keeping the salient characteristics of each area distinct, it is necessary to plan combined promotion and communication policies, so as to promote local products as well as the historical, cultural and natural contexts in which they are produced, making the entire qualitative potential of our country more perceptible to the eyes of possible domestic and foreign investors and users.

Local factors and small firms of non-EU immigrants

Giampaolo Vitali, Michelangelo Filippi
WP 14/2012; Our paper analyzes the characteristics of micro firms managed by immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy. We process ISTAT data on individual businesses at province level, in order to understand if the foreign entrepreneurial rate is determined by local factors or by the ethnic characteristic of the firm. The descriptive analysis of the phenomenon suggests that there are different entrepreneurial rates, and that the ethnic, the economic activity and the geographic location of the company could play a major role in determining those differences. The results of the econometric exercise show the importance of local factors at province level, such as unemployment rate, province openness to immigrants, age of local population.

Multinationals and productivity: evidence from the Turin Area

Alessandro Manello
WP 10/2012; This paper present a non-parametric estimate of efficiency levels and productivity trends of small and medium multinational firms operating in the Turin area in respect to domestic firms active in the same sectors. MNEs appear more technically efficient in combining inputs to obtain output, however this evidence is mainly driven by firm’s characteristics and specialisation in certain activities. Moreover, an higher Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth emerges for the subgroup of MNEs also after different control process, while no clear evidence could be find on the entrance strategy pursued by foreign firms (Greenfield vs Brownfield investments).

Nota sulle relazioni fra l'analisi di Schumpeter e quella di Sraffa

Mario De Marchi
WP 05/2012; This paper considers the matter of possible links between Schumpeter’s theory of technological change and the economic theory of the classical or neo-Ricardian school. The paradigm of the neo-Ricardian theory adopted here is that found in Sraffa’s book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. The idea of investigating how distribution changes as technology changes take place by adapting a method originally conceived for the determination of rentes is put forth. Shifts in the hierarchy of dominant-dominated techniques are explicitly taken into account here. This way, the model helps explain the shifts in prices and production efficiency caused by the diffusion of innovation as well as the related changes in the volume of surplus generated by the economic system and how such surplus is shared among the various classes.

Outlining policy responses to stimulate automotive car demand by environmental impact reduction

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 17/2012; The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative approach for outlining policy responses to stimulate the automotive industry. The scientific community has been involved by the Delphi method in order to collect and convey perspectives and impressions and define a number of financially viable proposals. The panel of experts takes the view that traditional industrial policy measures denote limited effects to stimulate car demand, in a context of macro-economic downturn. By contrast, the panel also believe incentives for car demand are important for environmental purposes, for safety and for the diversification of energy sources. The policy measures proposed are fundamental from the viewpoint of overturning path dependencies in the automotive industry which impede the diffusion of alternative vehicles, with respect to business models and consumer attitudes.

Path-breaking innovations for lung cancer: a revolution in clinical practice

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2012; Lung cancer is one of main cause of death worldwide and traditional chemotherapy agents have reached the maturity phase in the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolutionary growth of knowledge patterns of vital radical innovations to treat lung cancer, driven by new technological paradigm of the targeted therapy, that have generating a revolution in clinical practice, increasing the overall survival of patients and quality of life. This new scientific pathway has evolving with an allometric process that involves a disproportionate growth of targeted therapy in relation to standard platinum-based chemotherapy alone.

Performance of the health care industry: the Italian case study

Greta Falavigna, Roberto Ippoliti, Alessandro Manello
WP 16/2012; Considering the Italian healthcare system, the present study analyzes the aspects that might affect the efficiency of Italian hospitals. In this work, the authors analyze what influences a specific definition of efficiency, which is calculated maximizing healthcare production but minimizing potential financial losses. In other words, this work considers efficient each hospital which is able to maximize the production of medical treatments while complying, at the same time, with budget constraints. Hence, the results of this paper are two-fold: from the organizational point of view and from the technical one.

The distribution of agricultural funds towards undeveloped areas: evidence from Italy

Greta Falavigna, Alessandro Manello, Sara Pavone
WP 19/2012; The present working paper aims analyses efficiency and productivity growth of agricultural production in Italy. Appling a recent tool from environmental management field, the Directional Distance Function (DDF), global performance indicators has been estimated for 102 Italian provinces considering both quantities produced and emissions of ammonia, from fertilizers usage, as undesirable output. Therefore, productivity enhancements can come from the contraction of pollution and from the expansion of desirable outputs, in this case agricultural products. Our shows that huge differences among Italian macro emerge by considering both efficiency and productivity dynamics. This evidence is interpreted in light the amount of public fund distributed by Rural Development Programs over the period 2000-2006 and our findings suggest that a larger amount of resources were distributed to more disadvantaged areas. Then we can conclude that the flows of public fund seems to follow the right direction,highlighting interesting policy implications for future actions.

Transaction costs and pharmaceutical clinical research, a Data Envelopment Analysis approach

Greta Falavigna, Roberto Ippoliti
WP 04/2012; Taking human experimentation into account, this work aims at estimating the relationship between transaction costs, which are related to the protection system of patients’ rights, and localization of pharmaceutical industry’s testing phase. Assuming that the competitiveness of the protection system is based on the time required to obtain an authorization for an experimental activity, pharmaceutical clinical research should be positively affected by a process aimed at internalizing the review process, if efficient. By analyzing said system with operational research, this paper concludes suggesting the potentiality of a competitive system of reviewers, that is to say, the efficiency of that internalization process is performed by medical centers in which the experimental treatments are proposed to subjects.

What are the effects of public debt on innovation and employment growth?

Mario Coccia
WP 06/2012; The study here analyzes, across European countries, the relationship between labour and drivers of technological innovation, also considering the interaction of these variables with the structural indicator of the public debt. The main findings are: the fruitful effect of total public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP and R&D intensity on employment rate, whereas an increase of general government consolidated gross debt has a negative effect for employment rate as well as for technology proxies. Empirical evidence provides some elements to discuss main economic policy implications from relationships between observed facts.

2011

Agency Issues in a Family Controlled Corporate Governance Structure The Case of Italy

Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya, Julie Ann Elston, Laura Rondi
WP 06/2011; This study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between dividend payout ratios, executive compensation and agency costs in Italy. Corporate governance in Italy is distinguished by the fact that a large number of Italian firms are family controlled, which may theoretically reduce asymmetry of information and associated agency costs. Using a panel of listed manufacturing firms we find evidence that family control plays a significant role in resolving agency issues, i.e. that increases in family control of the firm lead to a higher dividend payout. Nevertheless, as we also find that managerial compensations are negatively related to dividend payout ratios, even in this family controlled environment, dividends do play their role in mitigating agency problems.

An artificial neural network approach for assigning rating judgements to Italian Small Firms

Greta Falavigna
WP 04/2011; Based on new regulations of Basel II Accord in 2004, banks and financial nstitutions have now the possibility to develop internal rating systems with the aim of correctly udging financial health status of firms. This study analyses the situation of Italian small firms that are difficult to judge because their economic and financial data are often not available. The intend of this work is to propose a simulation framework to give a rating judgements to firms presenting poor financial information. The model assigns a rating judgement that is a simulated counterpart of that done by Bureau van Dijk-K Finance (BvD). Assigning rating score to small firms with problem of poor availability of financial data is really problematic. Nevertheless, in Italy the majority of firms are small and there is not a law that requires to firms to deposit balance-sheet in a detailed form. For this reason the model proposed in this work is a three-layer framework that allows us to assign ating judgements to small enterprises using simple balance-sheet data.

Asian tigers in nanotechnologies: evolutionary path of scientific production of People's Republic of China, Japan and South Korea

Ugo Finardi
WP 05/2011; Nanosciences and nanotechnologies (NST) are a developing scientifictechnological area in full expansion and evolution. Their character of General Purpose Technology has been assessed. Asian countries play a relevant role in the evolutionary path and growth of NST, as in some cases they present a rapid growth of scientific production. This work analyzes the performance of three of such countries – People’s Republic of China, Japan, South Korea – emphasizing several aspects of their performance in scientific production and putting in reciprocal relations these aspects. Results show a different behaviour of Japan – which starting from a dominant position is loosing ground with respect to its competitors – and of the other two countries which are catching up. Insights on the internal organization and on the mutual relations are also offered, together with a comparison of the relation with other important areas of NST scientific production.

Environment and economic efficiency: an analysis of some polluting Italian industries

Alessandro Manello
WP 03/2011; this research presents an extension of the directional distance function model to measure performances for firms which produce a large number of pollutants and operate in different industrial sectors. I use this methodology to estimate productivity indexes on a sample of Italian firms that were forced to declare their emissions to the European Pollution Release and Transfer Register in 2007. A proxy for the environmental regulation’s cost is derived and results show a significant impact in term of potential value added lost. Estimations also reveal differences in mean environmental performances among industries; furthermore, the effect of pollution control follows the same path.

Evolutionary dynamics and scientific flows of nanotechnology research across geo-economic areas

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2011; The purpose of this paper is to analyze, by concentration measures, metrics of dispersion and heterogeneity, the dynamics of the production of scientific output in nanosciences and nanotechnologies across worldwide economic players. The main result is that the concentration ratio of the production of nanotechnology research across different macro subject areas has been reducing over time and space, because knowledge dynamics of nanotechnology research has been spreading among new research fields and different industries. In addition, South Korea and China show higher performance than other countries in nanotechnology scientific products per million people. This scientific analysis is important in order to understand the current knowledge dynamics and technological trajectories in nanotechnology that may support future patterns of economic growth.

FINANZIAMENTI ESTERNI E PRODUTTIVITA' TOTALE DEI FATTORI NEL SETTORE DELLA RICERCA: IL CASO DEL CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE [Scientific productivity and external funding, the case of CNR institutes]

Alessandro Manello
WP 07/2011; The recent reform of the Italian CNR has increased the focus on external collaboration and decreased the amount of government funds. That process bring research institutes to operate on the market in order to obtain the necessary resources, but causes also a re-allocation of efforts among different research products. This paper present an application of the Directional Distance Function (DDF) model to build productivity indicators able to consider two different kinds of scientific outputs: someone more important than others from a scientific view point. Financial constraints do not allow institutes to freely dispose of their output portfolio and less important outputs have to be produced in order to obtain external funds. In a regime of limited human and temporal resources a substitution process cannot be avoided, then a cost in term of desirable scientific outputs is imposed. An estimate of that opportunity cost is here proposed, also with a comparison of standard efficiency measures.An evidence of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) trend during the 2004-2007 period is provided by applying Malmquist-Luenberger indexes and standard indicators. From a comparison of the two set of results some different conclusions on the 2003 Reform can be drawn.

Politiche sui patrimoni culturali: uno sguardo indietro per fare il punto

Mario De Marchi, Edoardo Lorenzetti
WP 08/2011; Even before the integration in a multinational entity, culture has been fundamental in the making of Europe, maintaining within itself a remarkable diversity. From 1986 onwards, the Framework Programmes have supported and financed more than 120 projects in the field of cultural heritage, linking about 500 public and private research organisations – universities, research centres, museums, firms – overall the Union and among its Mediterranean partners, aiming at developing and applying state-of-the-art technology and the best know how to our cultural heritage. During the same period, in Italy we can single out two great research areas in this sphere; they had a different origin and different objectives - the first one concerned high level professional training, the second one regarded applied research - but dealt indeed successfully with the same issues. The two were the Cultural Fields Programme (1989-1991) and the Finalised Project Cultural Heritage of the National Research Council (1996-2000), prepared by a Strategic Project with the same name, in the previous three-year period (1992-1995). At the international level, along with the above mentioned public interventions in Europe and Italy, on the 16 November 1972, during its 17th general Conference, the Organisation of United Nations for Education, Science and Culture, adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Natural and Cultural Heritage, in order to build up a list of sites (historical centres, monuments, landscape areas) on the basis of which it could start protection and development actions for these places. Also during the 1980s and beyond, while the United Nations promoted the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-1997) several experts’ groups dealt with these problems, originating an in-depth discussion whose results were embodied, in the following decade, in the Convention for the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003.

The transformation of steering and governance in Higher Education: funding and evaluation as policy instruments

Emanuela Reale, Marco Seeber
WP 02/2011; This paper focuses on policy implementation in higher education (HE) to be analysed through the evolution and transformation of the policy instruments, namely those related to the Government funding and evaluation. The research questions are: to what extent instruments can reveal the evolution of policy rationales and justifications? How instruments emerged, and become institutionalised, affecting and being affected by the characteristics of national configuration of HE systems? Whether and how they produce desired effects or evolve in unpredictable ways, generating unexpected results, playing new roles and functionalities? The evolution of the instruments seems to be dependent on some characteristics of the context and some key features of the instruments. The development has been often inspired by NPM principles, which aimed at increasing steering capacity of the policy maker on one side, and university role and autonomy on the other. The common narrative is then declined in very different ways among countries, and instruments implementation reveals the extent to which it is adapted to the existing characters (dominant paradigm) of the HE system.

2010

A responsiveness-based (composite) indicator with an application to countries' innovative performance

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 10/2010; The aim of this paper is twofold: on one hand, from a methodological-statistical perspective, it develops a responsiveness-based index for a series of input factors on a specific target variable (assumed to capture the phenomenon the analyst wishes to look at), by means of an extended version of a random coefficient regression approach; on the other hand, it applies this methodology to the case of countries’ innovation performance, where the target variable is the country number of patents (as proxy of “innovativeness”), and where inputs are chosen according to the literature dealing with the measurement of country technological capabilities. The novelty of the approach presented in the paper regards the possibility of extracting from data a country-specific “reactivity effect” or “responsiveness” (that is, mathematically, a derivative) to each single input feeding into the regression. Thus, the paper provides a promising approach for ranking countries according to their responsiveness to specific inputs, an approach that can be complementary to the analysis on “level” performed, for instance, in the canonical composite indicators’ literature. As for results on countries’ innovation function, besides a (new) ranking of countries, this approach allows also for testing - in an original and straightforward way - the (possible) presence of increasing (decreasing) returns. Two years are considered and compared, 1995 and 2007, on 42 countries. Our tests conclude that in both years innovative increasing returns are at work, although in 2007 their strength drops considerably compared to 1995. According to a huge literature on the subject (both neoclassical and evolutionary), we conclude that a self-reinforcing mechanism in new knowledge production, absorption and diffusion is at the basis of these results. As for the structural change found between 1995 and 2007, we deem it to depend on the growing globalization of production and innovation processes and on the brilliant growth of some developing countries worldwide, with a remarkable role played – according to our results – by post-communist economies.

ART ET CULTURE DANS L'EVOLUTION DES DISTRICTS INDUSTRIELS ITALIENS [Art and culture in the evolution of Italian industrial districts]

Elena Ragazzi, Secondo Rolfo
WP 09/2010; The competitiveness of a territory is more and more explained by factors that combine technological innovation, recognized as a key element of the competitive advantage of an economic system, with knowledge, creativity, and sometimes even art and culture. In some areas of ancient industrialization we can find at local level a social capital that is a synthesis of economic, social and cultural aspects. This can be used both for the products promotion and for the support to new industries able to offer to the end consumer not only products but the opportunity to carry on an experience with the local tradition. The paper examines two cases of industrial districts in Italy (Biella and Carrara), where the cultural aspect of the traditional manufacturing has been the starting point for enhancing the territorial system and for the beginning of an integrated supply, products-services, which has expanded the boundaries of the previous specialization and it is now a strong element of territorial competitiveness.La compétitivité d’un territoire est de plus en plus expliqué par des facteurs qui associent à l’innovation technologique, depuis longtemps reconnue comme élément de l’avantage compétitif d’un système économique, la connaissance, la créativité et, parfois, même l’art et la culture. On voit ainsi comme dans les territoires d’ancienne industrialisation on retrouve à niveau local une synthèse entre aspects économiques, sociaux et culturels qui représentent un capital utilisable soit pour la promotion sectorielle, soit pour le soutien à la naissance de nouvelles filière capables d’offrir au consommateur final pas seulement un bien, mais la possibilité de faire expérience avec une tradition. Le papier examinera deux cas de districts industriels italiens (Biella et Carrara) où l’aspect culturel de la production traditionnelle a été le point de départ pour une valorisation du système territorial et pour la naissance d’une offre intégrée produits-services qui a élargi les frontières de la précédente spécialisation et représente un élément fort de la compétitivité territoriale.

Are R&D subsidies provided optimally? Evidence from a simulated agency-firm stochastic dynamic game

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 11/2010; By means of a simulated funding-agency/supported-firm stochastic dynamic game, this paper firstly shows that not only the level of R&D performed by firms is underprovided (as maintained by traditional literature on the subject), but also the level of the subsidy provided by the funding (public) agency (used to correct exactly for the corporate R&D shortage). This event is due to externalities generated by the agency-firm strategic relationship. Two versions of the model are simulated and compared: one assuming rival behaviors between companies and agency, and one associated to the Social-planner (or cooperative) strategy. Secondly, the paper looks at what “welfare” implications are associated to different degree of funding effect’s persistency. Three main conclusions are drawn: (i) the relative quota of subsidy to R&D is undersized in the rival compared to the Social-planner model; (2) the rivalry strategy generates distortions that favor the agency compared to firms; (3) when passing from less persistent to more persistent R&D additionality/crowding-out effect, the lower the bias the greater the variance is and vice versa. As for the management of R&D funding policies, all the elements favouring greater collaboration between agency and firm objectives can help current R&D support to reach its social optimum.

Critical aspects in the management of new technologies: A case study

Monica Cariola
WP 08/2010; The good and effective management of a new technology is fundamental for its success not only among the scientific and technical community, but especially for its entry and expansion in the market. There are many examples of new product or process technologies that, notwithstanding the technological relevance and many chances to succeed, have found many obstacles to their dimensional development due to a lack of management of technology in their specific sector. The aim of this paper is to analyse the case of many new process technologies developed along 50 years in the titanium metal sector where some critical aspects ad mistakes in the management of these new technologies have limited or stopped their complete development and the following introduction in the sector. Some useful elements will be pointed out in order to reach more general remarks.

Il servizio idrico in Italia: un'analisi empirica sull'efficienza dei gestori [The water service in Italy: an empirical analysis about cost efficiency]

Anna Giolitti
WP 02/2010; In this paper we investigate the existence of the economies of scale and density in the Italian water sector, in the period 2005-2007. For this purpose, given the current developments of the reform introduced by the Galli Law, we review the main studies on the cost variables and on the evidence of economies of scale and density in this sector. Considering a sample of thirty water firms, through the use of descriptive statistics we find the values of the most important variables used to study efficiency and productivity, such as the average labour cost per employee and the Km of network per user. The econometric analysis on efficiency is conducted by using the SURE method in the estimate of a TransLog variable cost function. The results show evidence of economies of scale and density in the short and in the long run. The small-medium firms display significant economies, whereas, as size increases, benefits from scale gradually decline until they turn to diseconomies of scale for companies serving a population of more than 500000.

La Formazione-sviluppo per la creazione di moderne comunità lavorative [Developmnt-training to create working communities]

Erica Rizziato
WP 03/2010; This paper proposes a new methodology for training in the field of organization development, named development-training. The approach on the base of the methodology come from a research project of Ceris-CNR and the Association Motiva; it is inspired by complexity, constructivism, personalism, evolution theories for man and organization and is based on action research, creating a strong connection among lean, learning and living organization concepts and practices. The focal point is the connection between organization and individual development as way to create modern communities. Development training is an explorative, anthropocentric, participative, experimental, rhythmic, biographic, horizontal approach.

Positive and negative stress in business cycle behaviour

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2010; The economic theory shows as business cycles have longer periods of expansions than contractions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze their behaviour in order to present a metrics that assesses the negative and positive stress of the economic system. In addition, this analysis presents some forecasting implications supporting modern political economy of growth.

Research trends in nanotechnology studies across geo-economic areas

Mario Coccia, Ugo Finardi, Diego Margon
WP 05/2010; The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current temporal and spatial research trajectories in nanoscience and nanotechnology studies in order to display the worldwide patterns of research fields across main economic players. The results show the leadership of Europe and North America in nanotechnology research, although the role of China has been growing over time. Current nanotechnology studies have been growing in chemistry and medicine because of applications of nanomaterials mainly in Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology. Results also show a relative higher scientific performance in nanotechnology research production by South Korea in comparison with Japan and other geo-economic areas. This research can provide vital findings to support research and innovation policies aimed at improving the development of this technological system for modern patterns of economic growth.

Steering heterogeneous sciences in the Dutch and Italian higher education systems

Marco Seeber
WP 04/2010; This paper studies how the implementation of New Public Management reforms in Higher Education affects the academic bodies’ steering in different national systems and disciplines. It is assumed that the steering capability depends on the characteristics of each system and discipline. The work includes three case studies (two Italian universities and one Dutch university); two research institutes are selected for each university: one HS institute (either Biomedical Sciences or Physics) and one SoSc institute (Management). Evidence confirms that steering capability improves in some disciplines, while other scientific fields remain hardly steerable because the levers are weak, the interest of society and policy makers in research outcomes is small, and the reputational organisations are very influential.

Sussidiarietà e istruzione tecnico-professionale in Italia. Note metodologiche per la ricerca

Carlo Lauro, Elena Ragazzi
WP 06/2010; Technical education and training is now interested by a reform process, trying to integrate the different paths that a student can follow to get a technical degree: the professional schools and training courses. Another challenge is that of integrating in the new system the lessons coming from best innovative practices in the field of the fight to early school living. For this reason the level of application of subsidiarity principle can help to explain differences in the job and social outcome for students. The paper analyses the methodological aspects to be afforded to design a research on the level and effects of subsidiarity in the technical educational system.

Temporal and spatial relations between patents and scientific journal articles: the case of nanotechnologies

Ugo Finardi
WP 07/2010; Patent citations have been widely used in order to study inter-technology and science-technology relations. The present work aims at: i) exploring time relations and distance between technical/innovative activities and scientific knowledge, using journal articles citations in patents as a proxy; ii) exploring the origin of the knowledge cited in patents. The study is performed on a field particularly relevant both on the scientific and technological side, that of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. In parallel a field less on the edge of research (polymers) is studied in order to compare results and shed better light on what is happening in nanotech. Studied items show a common behaviour and a higher rate of citations and a shorter time lag between citing patents and cited articles for nanotechnologies rather than for polymers. Knowledge cited in patents shows in many cases a common origin with that of citing documents. Conclusions on these behaviours are drawn.

2009

Business cycles and the scale of economic shock

Mario Coccia
WP 06/2009; The purpose of this paper is to determine the scale of economic shocks (SES), considering a new indicator based on the duration (in months) of contractions and expansions within Business Cycles and their amplitude, measured by GDP percent change based on chained 2000 dollars. Data of US Business cycles are used. The result is that the SES shows the real economic impact of contractions and expansions over time and serves as a warning signal that the economic system is entering into a turbulent state in the short-run.

Forecast horizon of 5th - 6th - 7th long wave and short-period of contraction in economic cycles

Mario Coccia
WP 04/2009; The purpose of this essay is to determine the forecast horizon of the fifth, sixth and seventh long wave. As the period of each long wave can change according to the data, it has been used a deterministic approach, based on historical chronologies of USA and UK economies worked out by several scholars, to determine average timing, period and forecast error of future long waves. In addition, the analysis shows that long waves have average upwave period longer than average downwave one. This result is also confirmed by US Business Cycles that have average contractions shorter than expansions phase over time.

Il cluster delle nanotecnologie in Piemonte

Ugo Finardi, Giampaolo Vitali
WP 10/2009; The main goal of the paper is to shed light on the industrial structure of the local nanotech cluster, in order to make an industrial policy proposal to renew the local industrial system. The concept of industrial cluster and the main characteristics of nanotechnologies are discussed, to define the theorethical and the technological background of the empirical analysis. The latter is based on the characteristcs and the behaviour of the different actors of the nanotech cluster (research institutions, firms, technology transfer institutions). These actors are described by their quantitative and qualitative features. Finally, a SWOT analysis summarizes the key elements of the cluster and the opportunities of future growth. The results show that the Piedmont nanotech cluster is at the beginning its life-cicle and is not well defined in terms of industrial structure yet. In any case, as all the key actors of the sectorial innovation system are present in the area, it will be possible to foster the nanotech cluster through a local industrial policy based on subsidized technology transfer programmes.

Impact analysis of technological public services supplied to local firms: a methodology

Serena Novero
WP 03/2009; The aim of this work is to present a methodology useful to verify the impact of public interventions directed to support the technological innovation in local groups of SMEs. In the last decades, in several agglomerations of firms, some difficulties emerged, related to the small-medium enterprises gaps in innovation, to their low competitiveness and to the rising of distinct historical heritages in specific areas. To overcome them, some public interventions have been put into place, aimed at supporting the local units’ development, and at sustaining the growth of the area. The work examines two central points of this mechanism. Is it possible to evaluate the effects and the utility of the above mentioned public actions on the involved SMEs? Which is the methodology that is appropriate for such an evaluation? In the economic literature these questions are linked to the “evaluation problem”. This work suggests four methodologies (statistical - descriptive analysis and the application of regression, Probit and difference in difference models) to achieve these targets and, before that, it discusses the type of data that should be collected to apply them.

Internal organizational demography of public research institutions

Mario Coccia, Secondo Rolfo
WP 08/2009; The purpose of this paper is to analyse the public research organizations by a demographic approach. The research focuses on the biggest Italian public research body, considering personnel data of 2004. The results show the irregular spatial structure of the research personnel per macro regions as well as the average age of hiring and index of seniority over time, indicating older research personnel in North and Central Part of Italy than South Italy. This analysis displays the evolutionary change of the research personnel and provides vital information to policymakers in order to improve the future organizational behaviour of this main research institution.

L'Environmental Kuznets Curve nel Settore dei Rifiuti Solidi Urbani

Matteo Ferraris
WP 13/2009; This paper provides a specific application of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory in order to explain the correlation between income and household waste generation. The model highlights an U-shaped path of income-refuse relationship that verifies the existence of EKC depending on the effort of household recycling and consumption. The existence of delinking can derive by income and other socio economic variables that affect the shape of the curve. This model would be a particular application of the theory of delinking with the intent to be empirically implemented.

La misurazione del capitale umano: una rassegna della letteratura

Mario Nosvelli
WP 02/2009; As well known, human capital plays a crucial role both for private and social wellbeing. Notwithstanding, measurement of human capital is not univocally defined in empirical analyses, since different indicators and methods are employed and, sometimes, the proxies seem to be not very efficient for human capital econometric specification. The main aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of different measurements of human capital showing the most diffused approaches based both on simple indexes and on more complex statistical and econometric tools. Since human capital is a multifaceted and complex asset, a necessary condition to better measure it is to improve its understanding and definition, which are the basic requirements of an efficient measurement. Two major results emerge from this analysis. Firstly, it appears quite clearly that the best measurement of human capital in absolute terms does not exist, but, on the contrary, methods or formula which seem the most efficient and coherent to analytical objectives should be adopted. Secondly, approaching human capital measurement, data quality and availability are essential, more than any other methodological and theoretical issue.

Metrics for driving political economy of energy and growth

Mario Coccia
WP 07/2009; Energy metrics is the development of a whole new theoretical framework for the conception and measurement of energy and economic performances, energy efficiency and productivity improvements with important political economy implications consistent with the best use of all natural and economic resources. The purpose of this research is to present some vital energy indicators based on magnitude and scale of energy weakness, GDP per barrel that is an indicator of energy productivity and barrels per capita that is an indicator of energy efficiency. Energy metrics can support policy maker to monitor energy system of countries in order to design effective strategy and political economy focused to increase the competitive advantage of countries in modern economies.

Possible technological determinants and primary energy resources of future long waves

Mario Coccia
WP 05/2009; The purpose of this paper is to conjecture the possible underlying technological determinants of future long waves, based on prominent studies of scholars and leading forecasting companies; in particular, this research assumes the converging of nano-bio-info-cogno technologies to be the foundation of 5th and 6th economic cycles, whereas the future technological revolution that may underpin the 7th long wave is assumed to be Faster-Than-Light technologies. The positive effects of these future technological revolutions on worldwide economic system are a high increase of productivity, employment rate, consumption and economic growth that lead to longer, happier, and healthier living as well as general well-being.

Predicting strategic change of public research institutions under unstable negative growth

Mario Coccia
WP 09/2009; The purpose of this paper is to forecast and analyse, by a demographic perspective, the organizational behaviour of public research labs. The research focuses on the biggest Italian public research body. Demographic models of growth, based on different human resource policies, show the uncertain and retrogressive evolutionary change of Italian public research bodies that would halve their research personnel over the forecast horizon. These results provide vital information to the public management about the weaknesses and environmental threats in order to support decisions for improving the strategic change and survival of public research institutions over time.

Specializzazione produttiva e crescita: un'analisi mediante indicatori

Federico Boffa, Stefano Bolatto, Giovanni Zanetti
WP 01/2009; The paper analyzes the evolution of the trade specialization patterns in Italy and its main trade partners (France, Germany, and the United States). In the methodological section we discuss the effectiveness of the Lafay index as an indicator of specialization. We then propose some modifications and integrations to the original index, so as to capture specific aspects of the comparative advantages. In the empirical part, we discuss the implications emerging from the application of the indexes. It confirms the specialization of the Italian manufacturing in low-tech sectors; furthermore, it shows that, differently than other countries, Italy specializes in sectors with stagnating productivity and little drive to globalization.

Structure and transformation of the Italian car styling supply chain

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 12/2009; In a short space of time the car styling supply chain has undergone deep changes, which are being amplified by the current economic-financial crisis. The digitalisation of production and the transformation of supply links have modified the competitive positioning of companies along the supply chain. In the Turin area the design-product-service relationships have been strengthened and have manifestly acquired the size and complexity of a system, with a high concentration of designers working in the styling industry and a continuous transfer of know-how from the motor vehicle sector to related and specialised sectors. The main objective of this paper is to analyse Turin’s companies specialised in car styling, in order to highlight their peculiar features and operating strategies. As a matter of fact the Turin car styling supply chain quite accounts for the entire Italian sector.

Un modello di agenzia sociale per un intervento socio-sanitario integrato contro la povertà

Simone Cerlini, Elena Ragazzi
WP 11/2009; After a review of the governance of welfare policies and of subsidiarity experiences in the third sector, the Social Agency Model is proposed. It integrates in a structured way public and private action against poorness, above all the activity of the third sector. The model is based on the following principles: policies centred on the person through unified service points and demand financing systems, local networks of public and private actors.

2008

Best performance-best practice nelle imprese manifatturiere italiane

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 08/2008; The aim of this working paper is to analyse the best practices of a sample of manufacturing firms that have carried out lasting best performance in terms of solvency, growth and profitability. Firstly, the paper analyses the factors that have favoured or hindered best performance, that is: size; ownership and corporate structure; product and production strategies; competitive and international position; human resources management; product and process development, and so on. Secondly, the paper analyses the correlation between size, qualitative and relational growth. By cluster analysis, three groups of firms have been defined with different levels of qualitative and relational contents. The clusters are the dependent variable of an ordered logit regression and the explanatory variables are the performance and structural variables. The research has been founded by the Piedmont Region and, consequently, is focused on the manufacturing companies located in this region.

Democratization is the determinant of technological change

Mario Coccia
WP 06/2008; The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between democracy and technological innovation. The primary findings are that most free countries, measured with liberal, participatory, and constitutional democracy index, have higher technological innovation than less free and more autocratic countries, so that the former have a higher interaction among social, economic and innovation systems with fruitful effects on economic growth and the wealth of nations. In fact “democracy richness” in these countries displays a higher rate of technological innovation. In addition, democratization is an antecedent process (cause) to technological innovation (effect), which is a major wellknown determinant of economic growth. These findings lead to the conclusion that policy makers need to be cognizant of positive association between democratization and technological innovation to sustain modern economic growth and future technological progress in view of the accelerating globalization.

Drivers of regional efficiency differentials in Italy: technical inefficiency or allocative distortions?

Fabrizio Erbetta, Carmelo Petraglia
WP 02/2008; This paper estimates regional economic efficiency differentials at the firm level in the Italian manufacturing sector over the period 1998-2003. We implement an input distance function approach providing measures of both technical inefficiency and allocative distortions in the choice of input mixes. Our results confirm the substantial technical efficiency gap suffered by firms located in Southern regions, thus providing empirical support to the “structural and technological gap” interpretation of the Italian dualism. On the other hand, allocative distortions in the use of inputs show less remarkable regional differences. As for policy implications, our results suggest the need for a re-allocation of public resources for development policies from business incentives measures towards public investments.

Evaluating the Effect of Public Subsidies on firm R&D activity: an Application to Italy Using the Community Innovation Survey

Giovanni Cerulli, Bianca Poti
WP 09/2008; The aim of the paper is twofold: to verify a full policy failure of public support on private R&D effort, when in presence of a potential plurality of public incentives; to compare the most recent econometric methods used for the analysis of the input additionality. Compared to previous studies our work wants to trace out an advance in two directions: adding more robustness by comparing results from various econometric techniques and providing an analysis of the R&D policy effect behind the average results. A by-product of the paper is a taxonomy of the econometric methods used in the literature, according to the structure of the models, the type of dataset and the available policy information. We exploit the third wave of the Community Innovation Survey for Italy (1998-2000) with a sample size of 1,221 supported and 1,319 non-supported firms. Given the used type of data, the article presents two main limits: first, we do not know the level of the subsidy, so that we can control only for the presence of a total crowding-out; second, we can check only the short-run effect of the supporting policy, while an increase in the private R&D effort could be more likely in the medium term. Our results suggest that: 1. the main factors influencing the probability to participate to the incentive policy are R&D experience, human skills, liquidity constraints, but also foreign capital ownership; 2. on average, the total substitution of private funding by the public one is excluded for Italy as a whole, although some cases of total crowding-out are found: low knowledge intensive services, very small firms (10-19 employees) and the auto-vehicle industry. We get, on average, 885 additional thousand Euros of R&D expenditure per firm with a ratio equal to 4.62: it means that if a generic control unit does 1 thousand Euros of R&D expenditure a matched treated does 4.62 thousand Euros. The additionality for the R&D intensity is about 0.014 with a ratio of about 2.67.

How should be the levels of public and private R&D investments to trigger modern productivity growth? Empirical evidence and lessons learned for Italian economy

Mario Coccia
WP 05/2008; Governments in modern economies devote much policy attention to enhancing productivity and continue to emphasize its drivers such as investment in R&D. This paper analyzes the relationship between productivity growth and levels of public and private R&D expenditures. The economic analysis shows that the magnitude of R&D expenditure by business enterprise equal to 1.58% (% of GDP) and R&D expenditure of government and higher education of 1.06 (% of GDP) maximize the long-run impact on productivity growth. These optimal rates are the key to sustain productivity and technology improvements that are more and more necessary to modern economic growth.

Investimento pubblico e privato in R&S: effetto di complementarietà o di sostituzione?

Mario Coccia
WP 04/2008; The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between public and private research funding. Data from Eurostat are used. The methodology applies econometric models based on regression analyses. The main results are: public R&D expenditure is a complement for private R&D one, but the latter has to be higher than the former to be a determinant for economic growth of countries. These results can be affected by several factors concerning the structure of National System of Innovation as well as Triple Helix interaction. In addition this research shows that the composition of public and private magnitude of national investment in research depends on the level of country development.

La responsabilité sociale, est-elle une variable influençant les performances d'entreprise?

Greta Falavigna
WP 10/2008; In the last decades, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been deeply studied. Many researchers focused on the best social report form underlining advantages, and they shown that these documents follow more and more often balance-sheets. This work analyses the relation between the writing of social report and both with the profitability and with the technical efficiency. The outcomes suggest that Corporate Social Responsibility improves firm profitability and expands firm market share. Moreover, the relation between the writing of social report and technical efficiency shows that firms interested in Corporate Social Responsibility are also the most efficient, from a technical point of view.

Modelling and measuring the effects of public subsidies on business R&D: theoretical and econometric issues

Giovanni Cerulli
WP 03/2008; It is the aim of this paper to review the principal econometric models used so far to measure the effect of government’s support to private R&D expenditure; in order to reach this task, we first present a basic theoretical framework to identify the effects of public subsidies on business R&D, going on by extending it to the case of dynamic complementarities and presence of subsidy spillovers. The review of the econometric models, the core of the paper, starts from section 4. We first classify econometric models according to three dimensions: 1. structural (based on a system of equations) and non-structural (based on a reduced-form equation and, possibly, a counterfactual) models; 2. models using the subsidy variable in a continuous or in a binary form; and finally, 3. studies exploiting a cross-section versus a longitudinal (panel data) structure. The final part of the paper is an original contribution providing some guidelines to implement R&D policy evaluation in a dynamic subsidization setting.

Nouveaux instruments d'évaluation pour le risque financier d'entreprise

Greta Falavigna
WP 01/2008; On a wake of Basel II in 2004, banks and financial institutions had focused on the default analysis of firms. In this contribution, artificial neural networks are used for extracting balance-sheet variables determining the default of enterprises on a base of prospective vision. A manufacturing sample and a services one are introduced in the network and then analysed. In this way, the goal has been to show that artificial neural networks were good tools for classifying firms on a base of balance-sheet data. Moreover, these models are also able to underline indices determining the default risk of firm.

Produttività, progresso tecnico ed efficienza nei paesi OCSE

Alessandro Manello
WP 07/2008; This paper aims at analyzing trends in TFP and labour productivity growth. Data Envelopment Analysis is used to estimate a technological frontier and to compare all nations to it. The estimation of Malmquist productivity index as TFP indicators allows to decompose labour productivity growth in efficiency change, technical progress and capital accumulation. This framework is used in the convergence analysis to investigate the role of every single component in the process. The results in term of ß-convergence are compared to other studies, to the evidence of s-convergence analysis and to the results obtained by kernel distribution.

Public Interventions Supporting Innovation in Small and Medium-Size Firms. Successes or Failures? A Probit Analysis

Serena Novero
WP 11/2008; The aim of this work is to investigate the probability of success or failure of public interventions, made to support the development of some Italian firms. The great number of small and medium-size enterprises, placed in the Canavese area, north of Turin, Italy, has suffered, in the nineties, of a gap in technological innovation in their production. The Consortium for the Canavese Technological District (CCTD), a public local association established in 1993 specifically to support the firms of the area, has supplied them with some technological, innovative services, sustaining their growth. More exactly, some research centres, named Centres of Competence, were created, with the pre-existing structures of the Polytechnic of Turin and of the firm RTM (placed in Vico Canavese, Province of Turin): their targets were to supply innovative services to the local firms and to place technical machineries at the disposal of the local units, to support their innovation and competitiveness. The present research analyzes a central point: which has been the impact of these services? Which is the probability that a public o private intervention to innovate has success and brings economic growth to the involved firms? This objective is achieved with a Probit Model, built on a panel of 103 firms, that covers a 6-year range (from 1999 to 2004) and contains their balance-sheets data and the technical information regarding their collaborations with the Centres; the results highlight the role of a solid patrimonial stability, of the choice of the right innovations to apply to the production processes as well as the importance of a high previous technological status of the involved enterprises.

2007

Coopération et gouvernance dans deux districts en transition

Mendez Ariel, Elena Ragazzi
WP 10/2007; Industrial district are often described as systems of firms in static equilibrium, in which changes in the environment or in the power of stakeholders can break the cooperation mechanism and lead to the crisis and even death of the district. The authors analyse two industrial districts, Biella in Italy and Grasse in France, in which the worsening of competition has induced a deep evolution in the strategic behaviour of firms and in the asset of the district. Starting from this evidence they support the thesis that harder competition does not lead to a break in the district atmosphere, but to a change in its governance, in the mechanisms of interaction and level of commitment towards collective strategies.

Government R&D funding: new approaches in the allocation policies for public and private beneficiaries

Bianca Potì, Emanuela Reale
WP 09/2007; The objective of this paper is to perform a first experiment of quantitative assessment on changes in allocation mechanisms and in their underlying delegation models, using the quantitative information and the descriptions of national funding systems produced in the PRIME project funding activity. Delegation has been explored through changes in instrument portfolios and in evaluation modes, as proofs of an evolution in research governance. Some common trends can be identified: the reinforcing of both priority setting and peer review processes. The general result of our analysis is that some change in delegation modes took place, but there is not a simple transition from one delegation regime to another, while a "contract" delegation model (the NPM reform) is not detectable through project funding analysis.

Heterogeneity of innovation strategies and firms' performance

Bianca Potì, Giovanni Cerulli
WP 06/2007; This work deals with two main issues: first, the possibility of identifying differences in firm economic returns (operating profit margins) for different groups of innovation strategy and second, the possibility of checking for factors explaining the probability of being within the best performers for each group of innovation strategy. It is an empirically based analysis using descriptive statistics (first part) and a probit econometric analysis (second part) where data are collected at firm level from two CIS surveys matched with economic accountability data for 902 Italian manufacturing firms for the period 1998-2000. The distribution analysis of profit margins by different populations of firms shows a better economic performance for groups characterized by more complex innovation strategies. Unexpectedly, the risk associated to economic returns is lower for groups where returns’ mean is higher. In this case skewness is higher too suggesting that reaching “excellence” is more difficult. The probit regressions account for the role played by different (market and firm) factors on the probability of being the best positioned for each firm population. This work gives two main messages: first, when studying the impact of R&D activity (both on firm productivity or competitiveness) it is worth to distinguish among different kinds of innovation strategy rather than limiting the analysis to aggregated results and second, it appears quite clear that competition awards more complex innovation strategies than simple R&D intra-muros activity.

Hospital Industry Restructuring and Input Substitutability: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Hospitals

Massimiliano Piacenza, Gilberto Turati, Davide Vannoni
WP 03/2007; In this paper we investigate the economic rationality of the bed downsizing process characterising the hospital industry worldwide in the last decades, providing new evidence on the factor substitutability in the production of hospital services. We consider a sample of Italian regional producers and – differently from other studies – estimate a general cost function model, namely the Generalised Composite, firstly introduced by Pulley & Braunstein (1992). Alternative cost function specifications (included Translog) are estimated jointly with their associated input cost-share equations. For all models we derive Allen, Morishima and Shadow elasticities of substitution between input pairs, obtaining a fairly consistent picture across all specifications and elasticity concepts. More precisely, our results suggest a very limited degree of substitutability between factors in the production of hospital services (in particular, between beds and medical staff). These findings, consistent with previous evidence in the literature, suggest that a restructuring policy of the hospital industry which is confined to limiting the number of beds could not be a viable strategy for controlling the increase in public health care expenditure.

Il finanziamento pubblico alla ricerca spiazza l'investimento privato in ricerca? Analisi ed implicazioni per la crescita economica dei paesi

Mario Coccia
WP 04/2007; The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between public and private funding for research. Data from Eurostat are used. The methodology applies descriptive statistics, correlation, regression and cluster analyses. The main results are: public funding for research crowds out business funding one; moreover private rather than public funding for research is the cause of economic growth of countries. The best economic performance has been achieved by the USA, followed by Europe and Japan. Italy instead has higher public funds of research than private one and the result is low rate of economic growth over time.

Macchine, lavoro e accrescimento della ricchezza. Riflessioni sul progresso tecnico, occupazione e sviluppo economico nel pensiero economico del Settecento ed Ottocento

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2007; This paper presents the origins of the Economics of innovation describing the economic thought of the economists in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. In this period and in particular during the Industrial Revolution the economists argue the main effects of inventions and machines for consumers and entrepreneurs such as reduction of price, change of labour, improvement of international competition, rise of salaries, unemployment, economic growth and wealth of nations. Their discussions which are relevant, put forward the basis of the modern discipline of the Economics of innovation.

Measuring Intersectoral Knowledge Spillovers: an Application of Sensitivity Analysis to Italy

Giovanni Cerulli, Bianca Poti
WP 11/2007; R&D spillovers are unanimously considered as one of the main driving forces of technical change, innovation and economic growth. This paper aims at measuring inter-industrial R&D spillovers, as a useful information for policy-makers. We apply an “uncertainty-sensitivity analysis” to the Italian input-output table of intermediate goods split into 31 economic sectors for the year 2000. The value added of using this methodology is the opportunity of distinguishing (separately) between spillover effects induced by productive linkages (the Leontiev forward multipliers) and those activated by R&D investments, capturing also the uncertain and non-linear nature of the relations between spillovers and factors affecting them.

Quali sono i fattori determinanti della moderna crescita economica? Analisi comparativa delle performance dei paesi

Mario Coccia
WP 02/2007; The purpose of this paper is a comparative analysis of economic and technological performances of different countries. Data from Eurostat are used. The methodology applies descriptive statistics, correlation, regression and cluster analyses. The main results are: the best economic performance (and higher productivity) has been achieved by USA, followed by Europe and Japan. Italy instead has economic problems that breed an average low rate of economic growth over time. In all Japan case study shows that to be technological leader is not sufficient to increase economic growth but it is also necessaries to have a stability in economic and financial system.

Quanto e come investire in ricerca per massimizzare la crescita economica? Analisi e implicazioni di politica economica per l'Italia e l'Europa

Mario Coccia
WP 05/2007; This paper analyzes the relationship between economic growth and research funding. The econometric analysis show that gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) as percentage of GDP is a important driver of economic growth (R2 adj = 71%) that is measured by GDP per capita. The optimization shows that the level of GERD equal to 2.6 maximizes the GDP per capita, moreover is important that GERD financed by government is lesser than 30%. The paper also discusses the research policy implications of the Lisbon Strategy, the USA, Japan, and in particular of Italy.

Sviluppo locale e leadership. Una proposta metodologica

Erica Rizziato
WP 08/2007; This paper proposes a new methodological approach for local development. It is divided in three parts. The first part analyzes the critical points of local development in the framework of EU policies; the main critical point seems to be the lack of leadership competences to manage complex situations and the governance process. The second part underlines the main concepts and theories which are at the basis of the proposed methodology: system dynamics, constructivism, chaos theory, action research. The third one describes the methodology which is mainly focussed on: -an image of the organisation as a development community whose order and sense is given by the clients; -an image of the territory as a complex system of organisations whose interactions have to be driven by the development of the local community as a whole, avoiding internal conflicts;-a cyclic approach to create development inspired by action research principles: a group of process owners, belonging to the territory, start investigating the local social question and on this basis they create a local social network and promote experimental processes. The cyclic approach is based on a rhythm between action and reflection involving the local community. After the experimental phase it will be possible to extend the change process in a wider perspective. During the first cycle the process owners will acquire a new professionalism which could be a base for a new local leadership and a real governance.

The role of R/D expenditure: a critical comparison of the two (R&S and CIS) sources of data

Bianca Potì, Emanuela Reale, Di Fiore Monica
WP 07/2007; The paper explores the relation between two data sources (R&D and CIS surveys) in the aim of better representing the roles of R/D activity in relation with innovation processes. This paper starts with controlling the relation between the R/D expenditure in the two surveys (R&D and CIS) for a same group of firms and for the same year (2000) and deals with the question of how much we know at present of the different components of the industrial R/D activity and how we can use the frame of the two surveys for arriving to gain this knowledge. The final aim is that of getting finest grained indicators for studies on the impact of industrial investment on R/D.

2006

Analisi della Burocrazia negli Enti Pubblici di Ricerca. Parte II (Bureaucracy analysis within public research bodies)

Mario Coccia, Alessandro Gobbino
WP 05/2006; The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Bureaucracy within Public Research Bodies and in particular of the Italian National Research Council. The research is presented in two parts: the first one describes the methodology to measure bureaucracy and the sample represented by 11 institutes of National Research Council of Italy. The second part, instead, analyzes the results of the bureaucracy within Public Research bodies Italian and compare them to the other international studies. The main funding is that the bureaucracy of Italian public research is due to high number of bureaucratic practices rather than the increase of administrative staffs such as in Norway and California Universities. Moreover the Italian Public Research institutes have two organizational behaviour: high bureaucracy – low performance and low bureaucracy – high performance.

Analisi della crescita economica regionale e convergenza. Un nuovo approccio teorico ed evidenza empirica sull’Italia (Analysis of Regional Economic Growth and Convergence. A New Theoretical Approach and Evidence in Italy)

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2006; This paper proposes a new method to measure and analyse the typology of regional economic growth and convergence The model was originally developed by biologists in their study of morphological change of organisms. The paper investigates Italian regions using data of Gross Domestic Product per capita for the period 1980-2003. The results show the disequilibrating characteristic of the economic growth within the space. In particular the inner dynamics of convergence property are formed by three patterns, which show economic growth of system, development and developing system. The model facilitates the identification of regional economic performance, and provides relevant information to policy-makers, who must define best-policy practices to increase the wealth of regions and nation.

Analisi economica dell'impatto tecnologico (Economic Analysis of Technological Impact)

Mario Coccia
WP 03/2006; This research presents the scale of innovative intensity (SIIN) based on a meta-taxonomy that subsume other, less comprehensive taxonomy. The scale is used for a theoretical framework of measurement –technometrics- based on the economic impact of the technological change on the economic system. The technological impact can have positive and negative externalities for society and this is important to compute the Net Social Utility of the technology for adopters and economic and social environment. The theory is applied on the technology catalytic muffler, agricultural mechanisation and aircraft technology and the results show as these innovations have different degree of intensity according to their economic impact on the geo-economic system.

Classifications of Innovations. Survey and Future Directions

Mario Coccia
WP 02/2006; The purpose of this paper is to focus on similarity and/or heterogeneity of taxonomies of innovation present in the economic fields to show as the economic literature uses different names to indicate the same type of technical change and innovation, and the same name for different types of innovation. This ambiguity of classification makes it impossible to compare the various studies; moreover the numerous typologies existing in the economics of innovation, technometrics, economics of technical change, management of technology, etc., have hindered the development of knowledge in these fields. The research presents also new directions on the classification of innovation that try to overcome these problems.

Economic and social studies of scientific research Nature and origins

Mario Coccia
WP 07/2006; Interest in the role that science and scientific research play in economics and the other social sciences has exploded in the last fifty years. This attention undoubtedly reflects the increased importance that scientific research is contributing more and more to employment and economic growth, as well as the comparative advantage of countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature and origins of the studies which focus scientific research and organization (such as economics of science, sociology of science, managerial economics of research organizations, political economy of science, etc.). The paper shows as the foundations of this discipline are the works of Huxley, Bernal, Bush, Peirce, Polanyi, and Freedman and the success of the Manhattan and Rand projects (1930s-1950s) that symbolised the power of big science projects involving governments, scientists, industrialists and universities.

Il finanziamento delle imprese Spin-off Un confronto fra Italia e Regno Unito (The financing of spin-off firms: a comparison between Italy and the United Kingdom)

Elisa Salvador
WP 12/2006; This paper aims at examining the university spin-off firms context at present in place in Italy, with particular attention to the relationship with the academic institutions and the problems of financing. In the latest years, more and more attention is devoted to investigate the emergence of the university spin-off phenomenon. There is an increasing focus on universities’ entrepreneurial orientation and their ability to exploit and transfer scientific knowledge to the commercial sector. The present paper is based on a series of interviews held during the period May-July 2005 in several university spin-off firms in Milan, Bologna, Padova and Genova. The paper is divided in two parts. In the first one, after a theoretical background on the spin-off literature, it follows a general description of the United Kingdom context and the Italian university spin-off firms framework and their characteristics. The second part is focused on an analysis of the spin-off firms interviewed. The results highlight positive and negative factors in the relationship between university institutions and spin-off firms. Furthermore, the relationships with banks and venture capitalists are investigated. The interviews highlighted a lack of competencies in the financial sector and a general negative opinion on venture capital. Italian university spin-off firms have difficulties in negotiating good conditions with banks and are afraid to trust in venture capitalists. Besides, Italy doesn’t have an effective business angels network and it lacks seed capital. Therefore they prefer to count on the classical three Fs, 'family, friends and fools', to raise capital for their business. Notwithstanding, Italian university spin-off firms are characterised by a very high know-how background and a great desire of independence. In conclusion, Italy is just at the beginning in developing the university spin-off phenomenon. Most universities emanated spin-off regulations only in recent years. There is significant potential for the Italian university spin-off firms to play a bigger, more enhanced role in the creation of new jobs in the future, and in supporting technology transfer.

La burocrazia nella ricerca pubblica Parte III Organizzazione e Project Management negli Enti Pubblici di Ricerca L’analisi del CNR (The Bureaucracy in the Public Research. Organization and Project Management within Public Research Bodies. The CNR’s analysis, part three)

Mario Coccia, Alessandro Gobbino, Secondo Rolfo
WP 06/2006; The organization of public research labs plays a fundamental role to increase their efficiency and the production of scientific research necessary to economic system. The paper presents the main organizational studies carried out on public research bodies in U.S.A. and Europe. After that this research analyzes the organization of the biggest public research body in Italy, showing the points of strength and weakness. Some public management implications and relationship with bureaucracy complete the research.

La burocrazia nella ricerca pubblica. Parte I Una Rassegna dei Principali Studi (The Bureaucracy in the Public Research. A survey of the modern case studies, part one.)

Mario Coccia, Alessandro Gobbino
WP 04/2006; The purpose of this paper is to present the main studies carried out on the Bureaucracy in public research institutions. The first part of the paper describes the classical theory concerning the Bureaucracy developed by Weber, Merton et al. The second part of the research focuses the studies on the bureaucracy carried out on public research institutions in United States of America and Norway. Some concluding remarks complete the research.

La mission manageriale. Risorsa delle aziende (The mission of top management in companies)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 14/2006; A new approach to quality policies in companies concerns the evaluation of the mission of top management. This topic has the goal to define the indispensable factors for top management to activate a new organisation in companies and afterwards to determine a pattern of social indicators concerning the quality of labour of workers and middle management.

Le politiche del governo federale statunitense nell’edilizia residenziale. Suggerimenti per il modello italiano (The housing policy of the United States Federal Government. Suggestions for the Italian model)

Davide Michelis
WP 11/2006; This paper aims at examining the federal housing policy at present in place in the United States of America. The most significant initiatives are the “public housing” program, that provides rental housing for eligible low-income families, and “Section 8”, that grants, through the allocation of vouchers, rent subsidies to a relevant number of needy individuals. They’re both administered by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and, locally, by the public housing authorities. Particularly interesting are the programs aimed at helping assisted residents to move toward self-sufficiency. Funds for housing affordability are also provided to the states and the local governments through the housing block grants and the LIHTC program. The last part of the paper tries to underline the elements that could be of interest for a comparison with the Italian public housing system, which is object of many reform proposals in this period.

Models for Default Risk Analysis: Focus on Artificial Neural Networks, Model Comparisons, Hybrid Frameworks

Greta Falavigna
WP 10/2006; During the last three decades various models have been proposed by the literature to predict the risk of bankruptcy and of firm insolvency. In this work there is a survey on the methodologies used by the author for the analysis of default risk, taking into account several approaches suggested by the literature. The focus is to analyse the Artificial Neural Networks as a tool for the study of this problem and to verify the ability of classification of these models. Finally, an analysis of variables introduced in the Artificial Neural Network models and some considerations about these.

Peer review for the evaluation of the academic research. The Italian experience (Paper presented at the Platform FTEval International Conference, New Frontiers in Evaluation, Vienna, April 24-25 2006)

Emanuela Reale, Anna Barbara, Antonio Costantini
WP 15/2006; Peer review, that is the evaluation process based on judgments formulated by independent experts, is generally used for different goals: the allocation of research funding, the review of the research results submitted for publication in scientific journals, and the assessment of the quality of research conducted by Universities and university-related Institutes. The paper deals with the latter type of peer review. The aim is to understand how the characteristics of the Italian experience provide useful lessons for improving peer review effectiveness for evaluating the academic research. More specifically, the paper investigates the peer review process developed within the Three-Year Research Assessment Exercise (VTR) in Italy. Our analysis covers four disciplinary sectors: chemistry, biology, humanities and economics. Thus, the choice includes two 'hard science' sectors, which have similar type of research output submitted for the three-year evaluation process, and two sectors with different types of output. The results provide evidences, which highlight the important role played by peer review for judging the quality of the academic research in different fields of science, and for comparing different institutions’ performance. Moreover, some basic features of the evaluation process are discussed, in order to understand their usefulness for reinforcing the effectiveness of the peers’ final outcome.

Reflexions en theme de districts, clusters, reseaux: Le probleme de la governance (Districts, clusters and networks: the governance problem)

Secondo Rolfo
WP 09/2006; While the Italian industrial districts are facing the strong challenge of a growing competition coming from China and other developing countries, the economic and social literature is showing a renovated interest towards local agglomerations of firms. The paper focuses on the large and not yet stable theoretical framework concerning the concentrations of firms at a local level. Networks and clusters are the more used words to define these different forms highlighting internally different sub-categories. More important are however the relations within the local actors (firms, collective and public bodies, universities, ...) and able to generate different forms of governance.

Regulatory and Environmental Effects on Public Transit Efficiency. A Mixed Dea-Sfa Approach

Beniamina Buzzo Margari, Fabrizio Erbetta, Carmelo Petraglia, Massimiliano Piacenza
WP 13/2006; The aim of this paper is to account for the impact of statistical noise and exogenous regulatory and environmental factors on the efficiency of public transit systems in a DEA-based framework. To this end, we implement a three-stage DEA-SFA mixed approach based on Fried et al. (2002) using a 1993-1999 panel of 42 Italian public transit companies. This allows us to decompose input-specific DEA inefficiency measures into three components: exogenous effects, pure managerial inefficiency, and statistical noise. First, the initial evaluation of producer performance is carried out using conventional variable returns to scale DEA (Banker et al., 1984). Second, a SFA approach (Battese and Coelli, 1992) is used to regress single input slacks on subsidies regulation (cost-plus versus fixed-price contracts) and a set of environmental variables including network speed and user density. Finally, third stage re-runs DEA on inputs purged of both exogenous effects and statistical noise. Results are such that adjusting for the type of regulatory scheme, environmental conditions, and statistical noise increases average efficiency in the industry and reduces dispersion among firms. Furthermore, the implementation of fixed-price subsidies is found to enhance efficiency in the usage of “drivers” and “materials and services” inputs. Such a result sheds some light on the determinants of input-specific efficiency differentials in the industry, improving the existing evidence on mean overall cost efficiency (e.g. Gagnepain e Ivaldi, 2002; Piacenza, 2006). As a policy implication, it is confirmed the relevance of regula tion aimed at replacing cost-plus subsidization mechanisms with high-powered incentive contracts as well as improving operating conditions of public transport networks.

Shareholder Protection and the Cost of Capital Empirical Evidence from German and Italian Firms

Julie Ann Elton, Laura Rondi
WP 08/2006; We investigate implications for the cost of capital in a model with agency conflicts between inside and outside shareholders, where the severity of agency costs depends on a parameter representing investor protection. Using firm-level data for Italy and Germany we find significant differences in shareholder protection and its implications for the firm’s ownership structure and the cost of capital. Results indicate that concentrated inside ownership increases the cost of capital for Italian firms while having no significant impact on the cost of capital for German firms. Evidence also suggests bank influence in Germany may serve to reduce investor risk for outside shareholders. In contrast, the magnitude of capital stock distortions is found to be quite important in Italy. Overall, slow growth in continental Europe may be more closely linked to institutional differences in shareholder protection between countries rather than inside ownership of firms.

2005

Analisi e valutazione delle performance economico-tecnologiche dei paesi e situazione italiana (Analysis and Evaluation of the Economic and Technology Performances of Countries and Italian Situation)

Mario Coccia, Mario Taretto
WP 09/2005; National transparency and good government are important prerequisites in order to access international financial markets. In relation to the growing relevance of such issues, this study evaluates economic and technological performance of countries by discriminant analysis. The application is based on 34 countries for the 2000-2002 period. These results provide information on country risk, as well as on economic stability and growth. Some concluding remarks with a particular attention to the Italian country conclude the research.

Analysis of the resource concentration on size and research performance: The case of Italian National Research Council over the period 2000-2004

Mario Coccia, Secondo Rolfo
WP 03/2005; Nowadays the Government of industrialised countries, in presence of reduced public funds, has to manage the public research laboratories to increase the efficiency and research performance, necessary to the competitiveness of firms and of economic systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between size and performance of public research organisations within of the Italian national system of innovation, for the period 2000-2004, which is characterised by two different research policies. The comparative analysis shows that the results can supply useful information to policy makers on the behaviour of these structures. The new research policy based on merger among the research institutes generates higher research performance and scale economies. However some elements suggest to be cautious about this relationship and to further investigate.

Changing patterns in the steering of the University in Italy: funding rules and doctoral programmes

Bianca Potì, Emanuela Reale
WP 11/2005; The paper aim is to highlight the transformation of the state-university relationships in Italy, because of the introduction of the autonomy-accountability principles for the university government. The focus is on funding rules and procedures and doctoral programmes as examples of changes of the university steering. The analysis is carried out taking into account two different government theories, namely the New Public Management (NPM) and the Network-based governance system (NBG). The work is based both on the literature related to the steering of the Italian Universities, and on the Government’s acts (laws and related official documents). The paper is the first deliverable of the Project “The steering of Universities. A comparative research on the impact of new rules and actors on University governance” – SUN, developed within PRIME - Network of Excellence (VI EU Framework Program).

Gli approcci biologici nell’economia dell’innovazione (Biological Approaches within the Economics of Innovation)

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2005; The innovation is a main variable of the economic growth, but the origin and diffusion of innovations are functions of several variables. For this reason, the contributions of other disciplines have been used to understand in depth its behaviour and spatial-temporal dynamic. The aim of this paper is to investigate as the biological approaches have affected the economic thought and the development of the economics of innovation. This research shows as, since 1957 the patterns of technological diffusion are originated from researches on allometric growth and epidemiology carried out, from 1920 to 1945, by Huxley, Reeve and other biologists of the Oxford research institute of zoology. This paper also focuses the historical aspects of the evolutionary theory of economic change, developed by Nelson and Winter in 1970s which drew one’s inspiration from natural selection of Darwin’s theory (1859). Although these arguments are still a matter of intense controversy within the history of the economic thought, the relation between economics and biology has played a fundamental role to analyse some complex economical phenomena and for establishing the knowledge basis of a new theory of technological and economic change.

La Comunicazione Integrata tra Uffici per le Relazioni con il Pubblico della Pubblica Amministrazione. (The communication integrated between Public Relation Offices of Public Administration)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 06/2005; The hypothesis to start a collaboration between Public Relation Offices in relation to the institutional mission to create a system of integrated communication is the consequence of the existence of a ‘cultural difficulty’ to enable the comprehension and acceptance of the role of the URP in their own structures and of the presence of an "inner" difficulty of communication. Therefore information flows become negative in relation to the needs of the customers whose satisfaction is instead the main objective of the new model of Public Administration. The definition of the proposal of a plan on a possible interaction between URP is the consequence of the reflection on art.8 item 2 letter e) of law 150/2000, ‘Discipline of the activities of information and communication of Public Administration’: ‘Public Administration sees to the reorganization of the Public Relation Offices ... guaranteeing the mutual information between the Public Relation Offices of several Administrations’. The proposal to collaborate to the definition of the plan ‘Integrated communication between URP’, is based on the following objectives: identification of joint interventions in order to optimize the actions of communication, creation of a system of permanent synergies between services, performance of communication at several levels and creation of one interactive net, creation of an active and integrated communication between Administrations and Agencies. The following set of researches refers to the activity of work group set up and management.

La customer satisfaction dell’URP del CNR. I casi Lazio, Piemonte e Sicilia (Customer satisfaction in the URP of the CNR. The cases of Lazio, Piemonte and Sicily)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 05/2005; Researches on the degree of customer satisfaction aimed at customers of the public communication have the objective to listen and to fully comprehend the needs expressed by the customers. They should lend constant attention to the customers’ judgment, to develop and to improve the ability to dialogue and relation between those who communicate and those who receive the service. The will of the Government to put into effect a radical process of change and modernization of the Public Administration implies that the Public Administrations promote, diffuse and develop surveying systems of the quality perceived by the customers, finalized at planning systems of distribution of the services based on the effective needs of the citizens, using at best the available resources. Evaluating customer satisfaction allows therefore the Offices Relations with the Public to get in touch with their own customers in order to understand better and better the needs to communicate of communication activities receivers and, consequently, to redesign the policies of public communication. In this framework the URP of the CNR has carried out a survey of customer satisfaction on the perceived and expected quality and on the level of gratification of their services to a sample of CNR workers with the objective to define new modalities of distribution of the services or to improve those already existing and to determine the proportions of the technical characteristics to the actual requirements of their own internal customers.

Le risorse pubbliche per la ricerca scientifica e lo sviluppo sperimentale nel 2002 (R&D Public Resources in 2002)

Anna Maria Scarda
WP 04/2005; The report presents the results of the survey on R&D resources available on 2002. The annual enquiry surveys both the R&D appropriations in the Government budgets and the personnel engaged in research activity. Information and data are inserted in the database SINCR, which has been created for this purpose at the Institute.

New Tools for the Governance of the Academic Research in Italy: the Role of Research Evaluation

Bianca Potì, Emanuela Reale
WP 13/2005; Evaluation has been put on the agenda of most Governments as a central process to enhance the public research institutions’ performance (Geuna, 1999, Geuna and Martin, 2003, Shapira and Kuhlman, 2003). New agencies or intermediate bodies have been settled up, both at the Government and at the institutions’ level, aiming to assess the quality of research and its impact on the socio-economic environment. In Italy, the pressure for a greater accountability of the public research institutions started at the beginning of nineties, but the system was deeply modified in 1999. Moreover, the Government at the beginning of 2004 launched a formalised evaluation exercise (the VTR), aimed to assess the research performance of all the public institutions (Universities and public research agencies) across scientific fields, for a three-years period. The modification recently introduced in the Government criteria for the core funding allocation to the Universities would assure the impact of VTR results on funding decisions. Different key interested groups, both from academics (Conference of Rectors) and from stakeholders (mainly Industrial Associations), contributed to the development of the described process, by interacting with the Government and with the intermediate bodies in charge for establishing the evaluation procedures. The aim of the paper is to investigate how the new evaluation procedures, even at this early stage, have been implemented by the public research institutions, and how these procedures are changing the internal models of research direction and organisation. The paper was prepared for the Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook Conference on “Changing Knowledge Production through Evaluation” Bielefeld, 9-11 June 2005

Product Differentiation, Industry Concentration and Market Share Turbulence

Laura Rondi, Catherine Matraves
WP 14/2005; Building on the current theory of industrial concentration, we analyze the relation between market size and product differentiation, and show how product differentiation impacts market share turbulence. Our basic results highlight that in markets where vertical product differentiation dominates, firms will have an incentive to escalate investment in advertising and/or R&D as market size increases. Such (firm-specific) investments will make competitive advantage more sustainable as the firm is less imitable. This will not be the case if the market is primarily characterized by homogeneous product or horizontal product differentiation. Our predictions are tested using an original EU dataset for the period 1987-1997. Our results strongly support our predictions – the degree of market share turbulence increases with market size. However, this relation is weakened by competitive investment in advertising and R&D.

Ricerc@.it Sistema informativo su istituzioni, enti e strutture di ricerca in Italia (Ricerc@.it -Information system concerning Public and Sme’s R&D institutions in Italy)

Edoardo Lorenzetti, Alberto Paparello
WP 17/2005; In the first months of 2003, the Presidency of the National Research Council (CNR) entrusted to the CERIS the realization of an innovative information system concerning Public and Sme’s R&D institutions in Italy. The system - at first called Re@Search, then become Ricerc@.it - had to satisfy the information needs regarding research structures, according to the model synthetic but tendentially exhaustive: Who Makes, What, Where? Today, this prototype system still maintains a good informative value, that must be increased, more effectively, on cartographic bases.

Riforme del Servizio Sanitario Nazionale e dinamica dell’efficienza ospedaliera in Piemonte (Reforms of the National Health Service and Dynamics of Hospital Efficiency in Piedmont)

Chiara Canta, Massimiliano Piacenza, Gilberto Turati
WP 15/2005; In this paper we estimate cost efficiency and technological characteristics of public hospitals in Piemonte over the period from 2000 to 2004. During the Nineties, different regulatory reforms aiming at controlling health expenditure affected the Italian National Health Service, ranging from the introduction of a new reimbursement scheme for hospitals (DRG-based) at the micro level, to the implementation of fiscal federalism at the macro level. We argue that all these legislative interventions rendered producers more prone to control costs, in order to be able to meet financial constraints. Our empirical findings support this hypothesis: average cost inefficiency, computed after estimating a Translog stochastic cost frontier by the Battese and Coelli (1992) approach, reduced remarkably during the observed years, while the adoption of more effective technologies shifted upward the minimum-cost frontier. We also find evidence of relevant scale economies not exploited by producers, which decrease with hospital size (number of beds) and output complexity (average DRG weight).

Sistema informativo sulle strutture operanti nel settore delle biotecnologie in Italia (The Italian Biotechnologies Information System)

Edoardo Lorenzetti, Francesco Lutman, Mauro Mallone
WP 02/2005; Within the realization programme of National Observatory (ONBB), the National Committee for the Bioemergency and Biotechnology (CNBB) has committed to our Institute, in close collaboration with the Institute for Industrial Promotion (IPI) of the Ministry for Productive Activities, the planning and execution of a prototypal information system (SIB) which could allow the networking of all useful information in the field of biotechnology, both on a national and international level. In this technical report the attention is focused on the criteria along which the map of the structures and the whole architecture of the system have been constructed.

Struttura di costo e rendimenti di scala nelle imprese di trasporto pubblico locale di medie-grandi dimensioni (Cost Structure and Returns to Scale in Public Transit Systems: An Application to Italian Large-sized Companies)

Carlo Cambini, Ivana Paniccia Ivana, Massimiliano Piacenza, Davide Vannoni
WP 16/2005; In this paper we analyse the cost structure of a sample of Italian Local Public Transport (LPT) companies operating in large urban centres, so as to extend the evidence of some recent studies focused on small-sized and medium-sized operators. The main focus is to verify the presence and the extent of both scale and density economies. Technological characteristics of LPT systems are analysed by estimating a variable cost function model, which includes firm-specific fixed effects and considers three alternative supply-oriented output measures. The results show the presence of short-run and long-run scale economies, as well as of economies of network density, for both the average sample firm and companies belonging to the highest percentile (large-sized operators), regardless of the type of service provided (urban or mixed). This evidence suggests that, from a technological point of view, a proper LPT network should at least include a large urban centre and should be extended so as to embrace the intercity service too, while a regulatory policy aimed at fragmenting the served area in various sub-networks would imply a loss of productive efficiency.

The patenting regime in the Italian public research system. What motivates public inventors to patent

Bianca Potì, Emanuela Reale
WP 10/2005; The paper deals with two aspects: the public ownership of intellectual property rights and the holding of the title (individuals vs institutions) for the public financed research. A key problem in the past and still now in Europe has been the low transfer of results coming from public research to industrial users. Recently a new trend developed which favours the patenting of the scientific results of public actors. This change partly comes from the modification of the public funding mechanism of allocation and goes with changes in the regulation and regime related to the ownership of intellectual property rights. The paper is built on a pilot study, which controlled if and how the modification in national regulation affected the actors’ behaviour. It is based on a survey of public inventors, in two public institutions (Cnr and Roma 1 University) who disclosed their inventions to the institutions in the last three years; on interviews with the responsible persons of the patent offices in the two institutions and on some data from the Cnr 2005 patent portfolio. This pilot study on public patenting in Italy seems to confirm the persistence of the academic incentives in the patenting activities of the public research institutions, even in presence of the 2001 patenting regime, aimed to assign IPR title to the public inventors. Furthermore the results highlight the presence of a relation between public institutions and firms that are not completely captured by the patenting indicators. Patents are only the emerging part of a more large hidden area of relationships between public institutions and industrial firms.

Una 'discussione in rete' con Stanley Wilder (A 'networked discussion' with Stanley Wilder)

Carla Basili
WP 12/2005; On 4th January 2005 the USA Information Literacy community is shocked by the Stanley Wilder's article ‘Information Literacy Makes all the Wrong Assumptions’ published on The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article strongly criticises against Information Literacy and academic libraries. As a reaction, an intense debate immediately arises within the USA Information Literacy community through the ILI-L discussion list. The first part of this paper attempts to identify a framework in the various Wilder's argumentations, which - despite the title of the article - seem to be lacking in systematisation. Furthermore, a comment point-by-point is given of the article contents. The second part of this paper illustrates and comments the very interesting discussion originated within the ILI-L list in reply to the article in hand. This exercise confirms once again the validity of the discussion list as a qualified source of information, able to return a realistic and vivid image of phenomena, much more than whatever form of essay which has to be well-pondered and ‘filtered’ before the formal publication.

Una proposta di marketing territoriale: una possibile griglia di analisi delle risorse (One proposal of territorial marketing: one possible grill of analysis of the resources)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 08/2005; Carrying out a marketing operation on a territory means to define the conceptual instruments and acts in order to connect the demand of the territory to its offer; such action has the function to define a geographic area in relation to the expectations and the needs expressed by the demand, both internal and external. Marketing aims at arousing the interest of those who are actively involved in the ‘territory’ system and at specifying which strategies must be put into effect in order to acquire new customers and in order to satisfy their needs. This working paper proposes a model of analysis related to the value resources of the territory which need to be worked on, and that is: the space, the places, the events; the infrastructures and the equipment, general and specific; the proposed activities, entertainment, culture, sport and events; the various subject-actors.

Un’analisi teorica sul Marketing territoriale. Presentazione di un caso studio. Il 'Consorzio per la tutela dell’Asti' (Theoretical analysis on the marketing territorial. Presentation of the case study: 'Consorzio per la tutela dell’Asti')

Maria Marenna
WP 07/2005; The increasing word wide competition of the global firms has been stirred up the difference geographic areas to compete versus the others. Each country tries to be leader on the market and to take advantage by the own resources and the potentiality to grow up. The geographic areas are managed like a firm to reach the maximum efficiency with the minimum economic resources. On the first part of this working paper is showed the marketing tools connected to the idea to see the territory as a product. The second part is developing the searching of “Consorzio per la tutela dell’Asti”. This area is divided in 52 counties between Asti, Cuneo and Alessandria. The target of this studio is to give a strategic point of view to territorial marketing for underline the “intangible heritage” of those areas, like elements which improve the attraction of then.

2004

Analisi del rischio paese e sistemazione tassonomica (Analysis of country risk and taxonomic arrangement)

Mario Coccia
WP 14/2004; The crisis of international markets following recent events such as the terrorist attacks, the wars in the East, the growing financial globalisation and integration have raised an interest in the analysis of country risk. The Basel Committee suggests the development of risk models in order to make international financial markets more stable. The evaluation of country risk has very often been based on different approaches such as balanced score cards, ratings, structural models, interest yield etc. (Bouchet et al., 2003). One of the issues addressed by researchers has been that of default correlations (Merton, 1974; Ortiz and Rodríguez, 2002). In relation to these issues, this work aims at analysing country risk and at creating a taxonomic classification according to countries’ higher or lower stability as well as to their growth prospects. The methodology of the analysis is based on the analysis of the principal components and on a cluster analysis. The application on 51 countries shows four main types of countries in relation to the country risk. Some concluding remarks and macroeconomics implications conclude the research.PUBLISHER:CNR Ceris

Analisi della tecnologia e approcci alla sua misurazione (Technology and Technometrics approaches)

Mario Coccia
WP 05/2004; The technological innovation, nowadays, is one of the most important determinant for increasing the wealth of the nations. Souder and Shrivastrava said ‘we can’t begin to make decisions about technology until we understand it. And we can’t begin to really understand it until we can measure it’. For this reason within the economics a new branch called Technometrics is born: it is a new theoretical framework for the conception and measurement of technological change with important policy implications (Sahal, 1985). The aim of this paper is, after introducing the concepts of technological innovation as used by the economists during the nineteenth and twentieth-century, to show the historical evolution of the several approaches used to measure and evaluate the technology and technology change from 1930 to 2004. A discussion of these approaches shows the methodological difficulties and their potentials.

Analisi delle strutture pubbliche di ricerca scientifica.Tassonomia e comportamento strategico (Analysis of the scientific research structures: taxonomy and strategical behaviour)

Mario Coccia
WP 06/2004; Nowadays the Government of industrialized countries, in presence of reduced public resources, has to assign clear objectives to public research laboratories to increase the competitiveness of firms. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the public research bodies of the National Research Council of Italy in order to pinpoint the main typologies operating in the national system of innovation (NSI). This research shows four main types of research institutes as drivers of NSI. The results can supply useful information to policy makers on the behavior of these structures and on their strengths and weaknesses.

Brief notes on the policies for science-based firms

Mario De Marchi Mario, Maurizio Rocchi
WP 12/2004; One of the main reasons why the Italian industry’s R&D activities lag behind those of its competitors is often suggested to be the very low weight of high technology firms in that productive system. Here, we propose a specific measure to correct this anomaly. It aims both to foster the industry’s R&D and encourage a closer co-operation of public universities with private companies. This policy provision would serve a dual purpose: it could be seen as a means of fostering the co-operation between the public research sphere and industry; it could also be a way of financing the research universities do. We argue that, by submitting additional funding for university research to a judicious evaluation by private sector producers, Italy could increase its prospects of achieving economic returns on academic research.

Considerazioni Teoriche sulla Diffusione delle Innovazioni nei Distretti Industriali: Il caso delle ICT (Some Theoretical Topics on the Diffusion of Innovation within Industrial Districts: The case of ICT)

Arianna Miglietta
WP 08/2004; The new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) represent an important challenge for SME. Especially in the context of local productive areas, this topic may be relevant as a new opportunity of competitiveness for the system as a whole. In this working paper, the focus is on the industrial districts’ case as a relevant and successful example of concentration of economic activities. It is first reviewed the large branch of literature, both economical and sociological, related to industrial districts. Then, it is discussed the problem of how to identify these concentrations. Finally, some theoretical remarks on the patterns of diffusion of innovation inside industrial districts are analysed.

Countrymetrics e valutazione della performance economica dei paesi: un approccio sistemico (Countrymetrics and economic performance evaluation of countries. A systemic approach)

Mario Coccia
WP 13/2004; The crisis of international markets following recent events such as the terrorist attacks, the wars in the East, the growing financial globalisation and integration have raised an interest in the analysis of country risk. Facing such a turbulent situation of the markets (Emery and Trist, 1965), uncertain for nations and international investors alike, it is extremely important to provide an evaluation of country risk with a basis that must be as objective as possible in relation to industrialised countries as well as to emerging nations (Cruces et al., 2002). National transparency and good government are important prerequisites in order to access international financial markets. In relation to the growing relevance of such issues, this study shall try to measure and evaluate the risk of the country system by means of a new systemic approach. In particular, we shall attempt to calculate a magnitude that can act as an indicator of economic stability and growth prospects as well as of the risk of economic-financial crashes (complement). Moreover, we shall try to elaborate a quality-quantity scale along which countries can be placed according to their performance; this scale can also become an indicator of the nations’ economic stability and country risk. The application is based on 51 countries for the 2000-2002 period. Some concluding remarks and macroeconomics implications conclude the research.

Going public to grow? Evidence from a panel of Italian firms

Robert E. Carpenter, Laura Rondi
WP 10/2004; This paper investigates the consequences of the going public decision for the growth of Italian firms using US firms as a benchmark for comparison. We find Italian firms conducting IPOs are larger than US firms, but raise fewer funds from the IPO and grow more slowly afterwards. We also compare Italian IPOs across time. Firms going public in the 1990s display features that are more similar to US IPOs. We describe changes to the Italian economy and financial markets potentially responsible for the change. We also compare firms of different size and with different governance structure, and we find that they behave differently after going public. Our results suggest that public policies that simply increase access to equity markets may not be effective unless they provide incentives for the firms’ decision-makers to use the new capital to grow.

Labour market rigidity and firms' R&D strategies

Mario De Marchi, Maurizio Rocchi
WP 04/2004; The traditional explanations of Italian industry’s low commitment to R&D activities mainly rest on the firms’ size and relative specialisation of the national economy. We argue that they are not sufficient to justify the Italian anomaly; instead, in our opinion, it above all depends on the well-known rigidity of the Italian labour market. To show this, we first take into account the variability of innovation patterns through the economic system by adopting Pavitt’s taxonomy as our analytical instrument. We then demonstrate that the main factor underlying Italian industry’s management strategies in research is that supplier-dominated and scale-intensive industries in Italy are desperately superficial in their commitment to R&D as a source of innovation. This situation, as unusual as it appears at first sight, has been so far economically viable, because in the supplier-dominated and scale-intensive categories, and within the limits of technology, research and investment in machinery are interchangeable to some extent as means of innovation. Our results seem to suggest that a substitution effect between spending on R&D and investment in machinery indeed is working in Italy in these two sectors. The fact that the low R&D commitment continues at all stages of the economic cycle suggests that the Italian phenomenon may be the result of a constant tendency among companies to counter the rigidity inherent in the deployment of labour as a factor of production. This rigidity is a circumstance very frequently accounted for in the explanation of the higher economic growth in the US with respect to European countries. The novel and major finding of our study is that the rigidity of the labour market - besides being classifiable in economic models as a generic cause of the slower growth in a European country - emerges as a specific cause in models based on innovation theory, via firms’ lower commitment to R&D.

Le origini dell'economia dell'Innovazione: il contributo di Rae (The origins of the economics of innovation: the Rae’s contribution)

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2004; Nowadays the innovation is one of the most important determinant for increasing the wealth of the nations. The patterns of technological innovation are studied by Economics of innovation. The aim of this paper is to prove that the origins of the Economics of innovation go back to many years before Schumpeter’s theory (1911), thank to the original studies of Rae. He really did not know much of any economics literature and developed most of his concepts on his own. J. Rae has recently been rediscovered as a genuine precursor of the endogenous growth theory. I think, he needs to be rediscovered a second time for his contribution to the understanding of the economic role played by the innovation and technology change within the economic system. The Scottish philosopher within his book Statement of Some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, issued in 1834, put forward the basis of the Economics of innovation individuating the nature, causes and effects of the technological progress on economic growth. The main results achieved are the importance of Rae’s work for the Economics of innovation and a definition of this branch which embodied the main concepts appeared during the history of the economic thought. Clearly, it is not complete definition, but it is the first step towards a completely individuation of the purpose of this important field of specialisation within the Economics.

Le politiche industriali regionali nel Regno Unito (The regional industrial policies in the United Kingdom)

Elisa Salvador
WP 09/2004; This paper aims at examining the regional industrial policies at present in place in the United Kingdom. The analysis is divided in two parts: while the first one provides a survey of the national level, the second one is focused on the regional level. After a thorough description of the governance structure of the industrial policies in the UK, it follows a brief analysis of the incentive schemes provided for firms. The same framework is adopted in the case of Wales, the region choosen for a regional investigation. The results highlight the importance and the consequences played by the devolution process and the new labour programme. The main changes are the introduction of the Regional Development Agencies in England and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. These new bodies have the power to elaborate strategies and implement policies to improve the economic development. However, this picture is still in progress, as it lacks clarity on 'who does what' at the national level. Besides, fewer and more focused incentive schemes are required and more attention to meet the needs of SMEs should be devoted.

Le relazioni tra ricerca pubblica e industria in Italia (Public research-industry relations in Italy)

Secondo Rolfo
WP 16/2004; Following the growing interest towards the role of the knowledge in the modern economies the economic literature has focused a lot of studies into the role of the producers of new knowledge, e.g. universities and public research institutions. The relations between these bodies and the firms, the contributions of the technological spillovers at the local level, the creation of new technology based firms, the challange between fundamental research and applied research are some of the arguments of the present debate. This paper represents a short survey of the international literature with a focus on the studies concerning Italy. The results show a common evidence even if in some areas the Italian sistuation is quite underdeveloped with large areas for future policy intervention.

Liberalizzazione e integrazione verticale delle utility elettriche: evidenza empirica da un campione italiano di imprese pubbliche locali (Liberalization and Vertical Integration in Electric Utilities: Evidence from a Sample of Italian Local Public Firms)

Massimiliano Piacenza, Emma Beccio
WP 02/2004; In recent years changes of regulation in European electricity industry have been oriented towards a gradual liberalization of the sector, stressing the issue of energy provision for selling in the open market. Within the Italian regulatory framework, since local public firms cannot compete against other bigger operators in auctions for energy Cip 6/92 and for the import rights, they have addressed themselves towards upstream integration, i.e. in the generation stage. In this study we analyze the cost efficiency of vertical integration, by estimating a translog multiproduct cost function for a sample of 14 local electric utilities operating in both generation and distribution during the period 1994-2000. The empirical evidence suggests the presence of widespread cost complementarities between the two stages and points to vertical integration as a crucial success factor for local public firms. Thanks to the cost savings it enables, vertical integration allows electric local utilities to reach both the minimum production capacity and the efficiency that are required to compete in the open market.

Lo stato di salute del sistema industriale piemontese: analisi economico-finanziaria delle imprese piemontesi. Terzo rapporto 1999-2002

Giuseppe Calabrese, Fabrizio Erbetta
WP 18/2004; Pubblicazione promossa dalla Regione Piemonte, Direzione Industria, Settore Osservatorio Settori Produttivi Industriali e redatta dal Ceris-Cnr.

Modelli di analisi e previsione del rischio di insolvenza. Una prospettiva delle metodologie applicate (Analysis and forecasting models for default risk. A survey of applied methodologies)

Nadia D'Annunzio, Greta Falavigna
WP 17/2004; During the last three decades various models have been proposed by the literature to predict the risk of bankruptcy and of firm insolvency, which make use of structural and empirical tools, namely rating system, credit scoring, option pricing and three alternative methods (fuzzy logic, efficient frontier and a forward looking model). In the present paper we focus on experting systems of neural networks, by taking into account theoretical as well as empirical literature on the topic. Adding to this literature, a set of alternative indicators is proposed that can be used in addition to traditional financial ratios.

Organizing the Offices for Technology Transfer

Chiara Franzoni
WP 15/2004; Research Institutions (RIs) in last decades have been involved in both production of technological applications and commercialization of research results for the sake of technology transfer. These tasks are frequently taken as overlapping both in theory and practice, whereas they should be ideally separated. The present paper focuses on the latter, by questioning why RIs have to be involved into commercialization of research. Drawing on the identification of coordination needs among demand and supply of technological opportunities, evidence of five extensive case studies of Technology Transfer Organizations (TTOs) belonging to RIs is analyzed, with regard to the efficiency of the process of opportunity recognition. The claim for superior efficiency of RIs in technology transfer depends, in a static perspective, on an expected superior capacity of TTOs to manage existing knowledge. However, in practice, TTOs do not always exploit available sources of efficiency gains. Implications for management of knowledge and technology transfer are discussed.

Osservatorio sulla dinamica economico-finanziaria delle imprese della filiera del tessile e dell'abbigliamento in Piemonte. Primo Rapporto 1999-2002

Giuseppe Calabrese, Fabrizio Erbetta, Federico Bruno Rolle
WP 19/2004; Pubblicazione promossa dalla Regione Piemonte, Direzione Industria, Settore Osservatorio Settori Produttivi Industriali e redatta dal Ceris-Cnr.

Osservatorio sulla dinamica economico-finanziaria delle imprese della filiera dell'auto in Piemonte. Secondo Rapporto 1999-2002

Giuseppe Calabrese, Fabrizio Erbetta, Federico Bruno Rolle
WP 20/2004; Pubblicazione promossa dalla Regione Piemonte, Direzione Industria, Settore Osservatorio Settori Produttivi Industriali e redatta dal Ceris-Cnr.

Ricerca teorica vs. ricerca applicata. Un’analisi relativa al Cnr (Fundemental research vs. applied research. An analysis concerning the Italian National Research Council)

Mario Coccia, Secondo Rolfo
WP 07/2004; Within the current debate about the role of public research in the modern societies and the relations between public and private research, there is an increasing interest towards a possible rivalry between fundamental and applied research. Some preoccupations arise from the fact that the strong pressure on public researchers in order to increase their involvement in the economic applications could limit the amount and the quality of the fundamental research. The policy implications of this rivalry need strong arguments, but at the moment no clear answer can be found in the economic literature. In this light the paper studies for the period 2000-2003 the situation within the Italian National Research Council using the data concerning the 108 institutes (grouped in 5 scientific areas). The international publications have been considered a good proxy of fundamental research against the funds provided by the market considered as a clear indicator of the applied research. The results seem to highlight for 4 scientific areas an increasing rivalry probably caused by the cut of public funding in the period that obliged the researchers to pay more attention to applied research.

Uno studio sull’innovazione nell’industria chimica (Italian chemical firms' innovative behaviour)

Anna Ceci, Mario De Marchi, Rocchi Maurizio
WP 03/2004; In our analysis, we have remembered the general result reached by studies on innovation of late, according to which innovation in manufacturing industry is a complex phenomenon and does not lend itself to be described and explained through simplistic analytical models. We have then taken clue from a variegated description of the firms’ innovative behaviour, based on several indicators of their innovativeness. Our results confirm the idea that remarkable differences exist between the two sub-sectors into which chemical industry is broken down: pharmaceutical and basic chemicals. As for policy implications, the close correlation between patents and basic-research expenditure suggests that the Italian Fund for basic research (FIRB) might be useful in order to promote innovation in chemical industry.

What Drives Market Prices in the Wine Industry? Estimation of a Hedonic Model for Italian Premium Wines

Luigi Benfratello, Massimiliano Piacenza, Stefano Sacchetto
WP 11/2004; The aim of this paper is to provide new evidence on the factors affecting wine prices on both methodological and factual grounds. On the methodological ground, this study is the first to apply a general Box-Cox transformation within the context of hedonic models which exploit all the variables (objective and sensorial characteristics, reputation) pointed out by previous literature as relevant in driving market prices. On the factual ground, the paper fills the lack of empirical evidence on the issue for Italy, one of the leading wine producers, by using a large dataset on two premium quality wines (Barolo and Barbaresco) covering the 1995-1998 vintages. Our results support the evidence obtained using data from other countries, showing that sensorial traits, the reputation of wines and producers, as well as objective variables are all important factors influencing the consumers’ willingness to pay. More importantly, by resorting to a non-nested statistical test (Vuong, 1989) we compare two alternative specifications (taste vs. reputation) and find that the reputation model significantly outperforms the one containing the taste variables. In turn, this result suggests that the reputation model is closer than the taste one to the true model that generated the data.

2003

An approach to the measurement of technological chage based on the intensity of innovation

Mario Coccia
WP 02/2003; The economics of innovation presents a lot of taxonomies of innovation. This research introduces the scale of innovative intensity (SIIN) based on a meta-taxonomy that subsume other, less comprehensive taxonomy. The SIIN is similar to the seismic scale of Mercalli used for measuring the intensity of earthquakes. This scale is used for a theoretical framework of measurement based on the economic impact of the technological innovation on the economic system. The theory is applied on some case studies from agricultural mechanisation and ICT industries and the results show as the Internet innovation has a higher economic impact than farm tractors.

Donne-scienza-tecnologia: analisi di un caso di studio (Women – Science – Technology: Analysis of a Case Study)

Anita Calcatelli, Mario Coccia, Katia Ferraris, Ivana Tagliafico
WP 07/2003; Nowadays, a very little attention has been dedicated to gender studies in science and technology. In particular, very few researches deal with women vertical, but also orizontal, segregation in public research institutions. The main purpose of this work is to analyze the phenomenon of glass ceiling within an Italian public research labs which operate in Technological Science. The methodology applied is based on the narrative interview, applied to one of the biggest Technological Research Institute inside the National Research Council of Italy. This study shows tree main results: 1) gender identity; 2) social construction of science; 3) organizational culture of gender. Moreover another important factor has emerged: the freeze of careers. In fact it stops the possibility to actuate any kind of management actions against glass ceiling. Some concluding remarks ended this works.

Il servizio postale: caratteristiche di mercato e possibilità di liberalizzazione (Postal Service: market characteristics and possibilities of liberalization)

Daniela Boetti
WP 06/2003; Postal Services play a fundamental role in each nation, because of the double impact they generate from a social and economic point of view. The introduction of the European directives opens the way towards a larger importance of free competition. But, even if liberalisation of postal markets has just occurred with good results in some countries, it doesn't exist a unique solutions applicable everywhere. Costs of postal sector are strictly connected with delivered volumes, so liberalisation can change into a great failure in those markets characterised by a small postal volume. The aim of this research is to underline the importance of inquiring into the real existence of natural monopoly structure into the postal sector and to reconsider the definition of universal service obligation. Liberalisation has to be followed by a reduction of the cost supported by the incumbent, especially in a low volume per capita market.

Imprese innovative in Friuli Venezia Giulia: un esperimento di analisi congiunta (Innovative firms in Friuli Venezia Giulia: a Conjoint Analysis experiment)

Lucia Rotaris
WP 08/2003; The European market is rapidly enlarging towards the Eastern part of the continent. This phenomenon is stimulating the enterprises localized in the North-Eastern part of Italy to innovate their productivity processes and their products in order to preserve their competitiveness in the national and international context. In order to measure the innovation attitude of a sample of firms localized in Friuli Venezia Giulia (an Italian region at the border with Slovenia and Austria) a conjoint analysis experiment has been performed. Conjoint Analysis (CA) is a research methodology employed originally in the marketing field in order to study the customers' preferences for goods and services. Lately it has been successfully used in transport economics, in ecological economics and in health economics, but it has never been applied to innovation problems before. The objective of this paper, then, is twofold: on the one hand it wants to verify the effectiveness of the CA methodology in testing the firms' attitude towards innovation processes, and on the other hand it aims at measuring the innovation propensity of the sampled enterprises. During the performed CA experiment the following innovation factors have been analysed: labour force reorganization, research and development activity implementation, typology of research and development to be performed, typology of machinery to be used. On the bases of the responses obtained during the interviews it has been possible to estimate the firms' intervention priorities over the next 5 years. Moreover it has been possible to verify the usefulness of the CA methodology in describing and predicting the sample attitude toward innovation. The paper is organized as follows: after a brief description of the productivity context characterizing the FVG region, there will be a detailed description of the CA methodology and of the questionnaire used for the research project, the final results will then be commented and some conclusions on the validity on the application of the CA methodology will be drawn.

L'innovazione nelle new technology-based firms in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Innovation in new technology-based firms in Friuli-Venezia Giulia)

Guerra Paola
WP 10/2003; This paper discusses the results of a research project on new technology-based firms. The aim of the project is to analyze the innovation activity of new technology-based firms. The focus is on the process of knowledge creation that fuels innovation. The analysis is based on an empirical research which regards the new technology-based firms located in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, more precisely in Area Science Park - the multisectorial science parks in Trieste - and in the Technological Innovation Centre of Agemont (Agency for Economic Development of Mountains), which is in Amaro (UD).

Mappe cognitive per analizzare i processi di creazione e diffusione della conoscenza negli Istituti di ricerca (Cognitive maps to analyze the creation and diffusion processes of knowledge in the Research Institutes)

Emanuele Cadario
WP 05/2003; The internal communication represents a final aim of the organizations in order to be productive in the long run, and a means for the spreading of the organizational culture. The present work, deepening the thought of Nonaka, Argyris and Schön, has the purpose of analysing the ways of conversion of knowledge and the dynamics of learning inside a Scientific Research Institute. The aim is to look for and detect elements that can be referred to the single or double loop learning processes, as well as to underline the passage from the individual to the organizational learning. The research uses the methodology of the Cognitive Mapping with the Self Q-Self technique, developed in four rounds on a sample of fifteen researchers. The results emerged from the individual cognitive maps and from the congregate map show the need to improve the intra-organizational communicative dynamics that have turned out to be rather slow and complex. The research has further caused immediate improvements both for the exteriorization of the individual implicit knowledge and for the combination of interdisciplinary learning. The work is brought to a close by some management implications.

Models for measuring the research performance and management of the public labs

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2003; The science sector, in some European countries, is doing a strategic restructuring due to budget cuts (e.g. Italy). Thus, the measure and evaluation of research performance (metrics) of its units (public research institute) is needed. General models to assess the R&D performance of a public research lab are presented here. The methodology uses the discriminant analysis and the results are two canonical discriminant functions (direct and Wilks methods) that could provide indications about the performance of research bodies. The functions are successfully applied to 200 public research institutes belonging to the Italian National Research Council. These functions are also tools for appropriate decisions and actions to improve research performance, especially by the more effective use of existing resources and for reducing the X-inefficiency. Some policy and management implications are discussed.

Regional Industrial Policies in Germany

Karl Helmut, Möller Antje, Wink Rüdige
WP 09/2003; The working paper presents an overview to the system of industrial policy in Germany. Special focus is directed to the relationships between federal and regional (Länder) policies. As German industrial policy is distributed across various policy fields, objectives, strategies and instruments of the main fields – innovation, SME, and regional economic policy – are discussed against the background of recent structural challenges to the German economy. Case studies for two Länder – Northrhine-Westphalia as typical West-German old-industrial heartland and Saxony as the main industrial location in the Eastern Länder – reveal the complexity and diversity of institutional approaches and the main challenges for future regional industrial policies in Germany.

Scala della magnitudo innovativa per misurare l'attrazione spaziale del trasferimento tecnologico (Scale of technology magniture for measuring the spatial attract of technology transfer)

Mario Coccia
WP 04/2003; Analogous to the Richter Scale for earthquakes, you introduce the Scale of Technological Magnitude (SMAT in Italian), an event scale to quantify the size and impact of technology transfer in geo-economic environment and adopters. It is based on number of technological contacts and computed integrating the technology transfer function over space horizons ranging for belts of 200 km. The purpose is to analyse the spatial behaviour both of technological sources, and technological transfer for understanding the inner dynamics and geo-economical impact. The data of some research labs, located in the Northwest Italy and operating in the technological fields, are used. The results have shown a high magnitude of technology transfer within industrial district and a reduction in the intensity as the epicentral distance from the source increase. Same concluding remarks are discussed.

Serie Speciale - Lo stato di salute del sistema industriale piemontese: analisi economico-finanziaria delle imprese piemontesi. Secondo rapporto 1998-2001

Giuseppe Calabrese, Fabrizio Erbetta
WP 11/2003;

Serie Speciale - Osservatorio sulla dinamica economico-finanziaria delle imprese della meccanica specializzata in Piemonte. Primo rapporto 1998-2001

Secondo Rolfo, Giuseppe Calabrese, Fabrizio Erbetta, Daniela Boetti
WP 12/2003;

Serie Speciale - Osservatorio sulla dinamica economico-finanziaria delle imprese delle bevande in Piemonte. Primo rapporto 1998-2001

Giuseppe Calabrese, Daniela Boetti
WP 13/2003;

Verso una patente europea dell'informazione: il progetto EnIL (Towards a european information driving licence: the EnIL project)

Carla Basili
WP 03/2003; Taken literally, the concept of ‘Information Society' means considering information as the fulcrum of everyday activities and implies attention to a number of factors, including: the volume of information available today; the variety of information content, information formats and vehicles of distribution; the prevalence of information-intensive activities, strictly based on lifelong learning attitudes; the massive fruition of information, i.e. information as a mass phenomenon. The combined effect of these factors results in a diffuse disorientation with respect to the current formidable supply of information. Therefore, a minimum set of competencies is widely required in order to improve the ability to dominate the multiform (print, electronic, local, online, networked, multimedia) universe of information available. Mastering this set of competencies is what is here assumed to be the purpose of information literacy (hereafter IL). Further, there is a great gap between USA-Australian and European approaches to IL. In fact, while in the USA and Australia IL is a national policy issue, in Europe it has been developed only in the form of episodic and fragmented initiatives. In view of the above, the EnIL (European network on Information Literacy) project started in 2001 by initiative of the Institute for Studies on Scientific Research and Documentation of the Italian National Research Council with the following aims: Establish a network of excellence made up by European IL experts (the EnIL network); Produce a report on the state of the art of IL in each of the EU-15 Member States; Agree among the EnIL members a common research agenda and the condition under which share methodologies, tools and results gained by the single Countries; Evaluate the feasibility of a European Information Driving Licence (EiDL), analogously to the European Computer Driving License; Start a pilot project of EiDL in Italy.

2002

Analisi del processo innovativo nelle PMI italiane (Analysis of the innovation process within Italian SMEs)

Giuseppe Calabrese, Mario Coccia, Secondo Rolfo
WP 11/2002; The industrial structure of many European countries is dominated by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Although SMEs consider the new product development process fundamental for the success in the global market, the level of formalisation of the innovation process is very low (Slywotzky et al., 1997). Moreover, if we consider the SMEs operating in the mature sectors, such as automotive and machines tools, the situation is worrying. The aim of this paper is to analyse in-deep, within a sample of SMEs located in a highly industrialised Italian region (Piedmont), the strategy used both for new product development, and for incremental innovation. The latter may often occur, not so much as structured research and development activities but, in order, for: - the involvement of the entrepreneur or managers; -the improvements informally suggested by engineers or technician engaged in the production process; - the proposals and the initiatives coming from users. The methodology in this paper is a longitudinal study which provides a close-up view of the adoption of these non-structured innovation patterns (Leonard-Barton, 1990; Langley, 1996). Although the SMEs located in this area are specialised rather than diversified in their technological competencies and product range, they lack of information about the financial facilities to the innovation process and marketing capabilities. These generate two effects: 1) the SMEs cannot tackle the R&D expenditures for new product; 2) they cannot completely take advantage from their innovation process. This research would like offer some useful considerations to the European policy maker and managers in managing new product development and innovation within SMEs.

Analisi di un sistema innovativo regionale e implicazioni di policy nel processo di trasferimento tecnologico (Analysis of a regional innovation system and policy implications within the technology transfer process)

Monica Cariola, Mario Coccia
WP 06/2002; The Internet Economy increases the integration among the subject involved in the production and diffusion of knowledge, in particular sources and interfaces of innovation: their action is amplified when Information and Communication Technology (ICT) favors the creation of an integrated network with their users. The aim of this research is to analyze the role and the integration of these subjects in the Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG), an innovative region in the Northeast of Italy. The method used direct survey on all the subjects (sources and interfaces) operating in the territory, and the results revealed the poor diffusion of ICT tools in support of their integration and low integration among the actors. Moreover the innovative process is mostly left to the initiative of the singular bodies and the competitive development of the local enterprises results probably below the effective potential of the region. An model specialisation-integration based is proposed in order to improves inter-organizational and territorial synergies among the subjects themselves.

Analisi psico-economica di un'organizzazione scientifica e implicazioni di management: l'Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale 'G. Ferraris'(A psycho-economics analysis of a scientific organization and management implications: the Italian Electronics Institute 'G. Ferraris')

Mario Coccia, Alessandra Monticone
WP 07/2002; Nowadays, a very little attention has been dedicated to the field of job satisfaction (JS) and organisational commitment (OC) analysis in public research institutions. This work, run in the Italian National Electronics Institute (Istituto elettrotecnico nazionale) "Galileo Ferraris" located in Turin (North west Italy), investigates the relationships and links between JS, OC and R&D performance. Methodologies applied are both interviews with the managers and a questionnaire based on QSO (Organisational Satisfaction Questionnaire: Cortese and Quaglino, 2000) and Meyer and Allen (1993) Organisational Commitment Original Scales. Results shows that JS has a good correlation with commitment and a low correlation with R&D performance: the first (JS) can be therefore considered as an intermediate variable. Moreover the research shows the elements to be considered to improve JS, OC and consequently R&D performance. Implications for the management and some future developments conclude this work.

Aspetti gestionali e analisi dell'efficienza nel settore della distribuzione del gas (Managerial aspects and efficiency analysis in the gas distribution industry)

Giovanni Fraquelli, Fabrizio Erbetta
WP 03/2002; The gas distribution in Italy is nowadays subjected to a deep process of deregulation, aimed to strengthen the competitive rules. In the same time, this industry is undergoing intensive regulation constraints, particularly in the definition of service prices. The mentioned deregulation process is considered to impact positively both on profitability and productivity growth. The present study is aimed to verify how cost saving can be regarded as one of the most important competitive advantage. This analysis is conducted on a sample of 33 firms, observed through the period 1994-1999. Categorical variables such as type of ownership, operational size and diversification of activities are also taken into account.

Dimensione organizzativa e performance della ricerca: l’analisi del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche italiano (Size and research performance: Analysis of the Italian National Research Council)

Mario Coccia, Secondo Rolfo
WP 05/2002; Beginning with the recent reorganisation of the principal Italian public research bodies, which has led to the founding of larger labs, this paper evaluates the presence of statistically significant relationships between the dimensions of the research bodies and the performance of the same. The results of this research can be divided into three parts. The first concerns the descriptive-explorative analysis of the data; the second and third sections, based on the aforementioned data, will present the principal results obtained from the modelling activities with multiple regression and inference, both aimed at analysing the dynamics of the performance as the dimensions of the organisation change.

Dinamica e comportamento spaziale del trasferimento tecnologico (Dynamic and Spatial Behaviour of Technology Transfer)

Mario Coccia
WP 04/2002; The purpose of this research is to analyse the spatial behaviour of technological transfer for understanding the inner dynamics. The data of some research labs, located in the Northwest Italy and operating in the technological fields, are used. The results have shown a superposition of behaviour types: a main behaviour represented by a decreasing curve, explained by Hägerstand studies (1969) and, under this behaviour, regular damped oscillations. The intensity of damped oscillations depends from the technological production in the labs, while the dynamic behaviour and the positive peak are correlated to the innovation demand of industrial area. Same policy implication and future development are discussed.

Firm Diversification in the European Union New Insights on Return to Core Business and Relatedness

Laura Rondi, Davide Vannoni
WP 08/2002; According to ex-ante expectations, one effect of the increased competitive pressure within the Single Market was to drive firms to reduce diversification and refocus on their core business. This paper addresses two main questions: the extent and the purpose of multi-product strategies. Using a large database of 223 leading manufacturing firms in the EU, we document whether EU leaders reduced diversification over the decade 1987-1997. We then investigate if firms have de-diversified by re-focussing around a core of related activities, testing for alternative measures of 'core' and 'relatedness'. Our results confirm that firms readjusted corporate structures around one (or more) core(s) of related activities.

La valutazione dell'intensità del cambiamento tecnologico: la scala Mercalli per le innovazioni (The Intensity Evaluation of Technological Change:the Mercalli scale for innovations)

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2002; The purpose of this paper, after accurate description of the taxonomies of the innovation available in economic literature, is to evaluate technological change on the basis of the effects provoked by the innovative waves on consumers, firms and markets. Similarly to the Mercalli-Cancani- Sieberg scale, used in seismology to empirically evaluate earthquakes, this paper introduces a scale of innovative intensity (SIIN) characterised by 7 increasing degrees that describe the main effects caused by innovation on the geoeconomic environment. A conclusive discussion will show that the geographical approach proposed is complementary to the historical approach used in economic theory and assists comprehension of the complex phenomenon of economic-technological change.

La valutazione della soddisfazione di operatori di aziende sanitarie (Assessment of customer satisfaction in public companies)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 10/2002; La ricerca sulla customer satisfaction di operatori e di direttori di 1 e 2 livello di un'Azienda Sanitaria Locale di Torino ha l'obiettivo di stimare lo scarto tra percezioni ed aspettative di qualità di operatori e di manager di 1 livello nei confronti dei dirigenti di riferimento (manager di 2 livello) e di questi nei confronti della mission del top management dell'Azienda. La ricerca permette di definire il tasso di coerenza nei confronti di elementi considerati di qualità dalla dirigenza mentre l'analisi delle aspettative di qualità che gli operatori nutrono nei confronti dei propri referenti definisce l'insieme degli indicatori di gestione, in relazione agli standard della mission ed identifica conseguenti obiettivi di miglioramento e di innovazione.

Le nuove tecnologie di informazione e comunicazione nelle pmi: un'analisi sulla diffusione dei siti internet nel distretto di Biella

Simona Salinari
WP 09/2002; The new information and communication technologies represent both an important challenge and an opportunity for small and medium enterprises. In case of the industrial districts, low-price technologies, easy to implement and flexible to use could give a new impulse to the competitiveness of local enterprises. This working paper, after a theoretical framework concerning the impact of ICTs on SMEs, presents an empirical analysis about the diffusion of web sites among the firms of the textile district of Biella. This analysis, led on the basis of a questionnaire, shows that the largest part of the enterprises, even if provided with a web site, never take advantage of the actual potentialities of the instrument, but they only use it as a showroom to get a better visibility, and not as a strategic support or as a platform for e-commerce

Metrics della Performance dei laboratori pubblici di ricerca e comportamento strategico (Metrics of the public research lab performance and strategic behaviour)

Mario Coccia
WP 12/2002;Nowadays, in Italy the science sector is doing a strategic restructuring due to budget cuts. Thus, the measure and evaluation of research performance of its units (public research institute) is needed. This research uses the discriminant analysis (direct and Wilks methods) for measuring the research performance and evaluating public labs. The results are two canonical discriminant function which are successfully applied to 200 Italian public research institutes belonging to the National Research Council. This functions are also tools for appropriate decisions and actions to improve research productivity within the research labs and could provide indications by the more effective use of existing resources and for reducing the X-inefficiency. Some policy and management implications are discussed.

Regulatory Constraints and Cost Efficiency of the Italian Public Transit Systems: An Exploratory Stochastic Frontier Model

Massimiliano Piacenza
WP 02/2002; The core of the present study is to analyse the cost efficiency of public transit systems in Italy, investigating the way subsidization mechanisms and network characteristics affect the x-inefficiency levels of firms. The analysis uses a seven-year (1993-1999) unbalanced panel of 45 Italian public-owned companies run under two different regulatory schemes (cost-plus or fixed-price). A stochastic cost frontier is estimated by applying the Battese and Coelli (1995) econometric model, which allows the inefficiency measures to depend on observable factors that are firm-specific and can vary over time. The results provide some insights regarding the appropriate mechanism of granting subsidies, and in turn they are useful for assessing the ongoing reform of the sector. The evidence indicates that there is scope for transport policy to increase cost efficiency. Efforts have to be intensified in the twofold direction of replacing cost-plus subsidization mechanisms with high-powered incentive schemes and improving exogenous operating conditions of the network. The latter goal could be pursued by acting on factors such as the road space allocation (exclusive lanes for trams and buses, parking and private traffic regulation), or the provision of incentives for the use of public modes.

Technometrics basata sull'impatto economico del cambiamento tecnologico (Technometrics based on economic impact of the technological change)

Mario Coccia
WP 13/2002;The economics of innovation presents a lot of taxonomy of innovation. In this research you introduce the scale of innovative intensity (SIIN) based on a meta-taxonomy that subsume other, less comprehensive taxonomy. The SIIN is similar to the seismic scale of Mercalli used for measuring the intensity of earthquakes. This scale is used for a theoretical framework of measurement – technometrics - based on the economic impact of the technological change on the economic system. The intensity of innovation is calculated by a integral of a function in an n-dimensional space.

2001

Accords technology transfer based: theorie et methodologie d'analyse du procecessus.(Partnerships Technology Transfer-Based: Theory and Methodology for Analysing the Process)

Mario Coccia
WP 09/2001; This article examines the technology transfer-based partnerships between public research organisations (sources of knowledge, innovation and technology) and users (firms, public administrations, etc.) as dynamic processes for a mutual learning. This process can provide for the R&D organisations an increased capacity of technology transfer and self-financing, while for firms an enhancing in competitiveness. This paper makes suggestions to researchers for studying strategy process and describes some methodologies, called longitudinal studies, that show as the patterns evolve over time. A theoretical framework and a case study in biomedical innovation (from Van de Ven and Garud, 1993) are presented.

Competitività e divari di efficienza nell'industria italiana

Giovanni Fraquelli, Piercarlo Frigero, Fulvio Sugliano
WP 01/2001; This paper assesses the role of competition in explaining the efficiency in the Italian manufacturing. Technical efficiency differentials have been measured by applying Data Evelopment Analysis (D.E.A.) methods on a panel of 420 firms from 32 industries at 3- digit level, over the period 1983-1992. The analysis shows that a tougher competitive environment is efficiency enhancing . Consistent with previous empirical evidence we find a negative link between efficiency and concentration. Moreover efficiency declines more slowly when the level of concentration is highest, suggesting a non-linear relationship. The results have policy implications. The undergoing process of liberalisation and privatisation in Italy should take into account the beneficial effects of a more competitive environment.

Costs and Technology of Public Transit Systems in Italy: Some Insights to Face Inefficiency

Giovanni Fraquelli, Massimiliano Piacenza, Graziano Abrate
WP 12/2001;This study provides fresh evidence about the characteristics of technology and cost structure of public transit systems in Italy. The aim is to suggest useful guidelines for facing detected inefficiencies. The analysis is carried out through the estimation of a translog variable cost function. The sample includes 45 Italian public companies. Firms are observed in the years 1996, 1997 and 1998, and operate both in the urban and extra-urban compartments. Results support previous evidence on the existence of natural monopoly at local level and stress the importance of the average speed of vehicles in explaining cost differences between companies. We conclude that cost benefits can be achieved by promoting mergers between firms (whenever possible), introducing some forms of 'competition-for-the-market' (e.g., competitive tendering for the single license) and taking more care of the local traffic regulation.

Does the run-up of privatisation work as an effective incentive mechanism? Preliminary findings from a sample of Italian firms

Fabrizio Erbetta
WP 11/2001;The main viewpoint related to privatisation is concerned with the aim of verifying the presence of incentive mechanisms on the managerial behaviour. This paper, differently from other earlier studies on this topic, is aimed to study, with an econometric approach, the dynamic of economic performance in the years before privatisation, over a sample of Italian privatised firms in the last decade. The results show an interesting growth in the productivity levels in the four years preceding the shift from public to private ownership. This suggests that other mechanisms than property rights influence managerial efforts. The main source of such improvement can be attributed to the labour factor, in agreement with many theoretical and empirical studies.

Il nuovo panel Ceris su dati di impresa 1977-1997 (The new Ceris panel of italian firms 1977-1997)

Luigi Benfratello, Diego Margon, Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli, Davide Vannoni, Silvana Zelli, Maria Zittino
WP 05/2001; The new CERIS panel on Italian firms covers the period from 1977 to 1997. The panel is unbalanced and includes 1710 manufacturing firms with at least five consecutive years. It contains condensed balance sheet and profit and loss data (collected from Mediobanca annual directory 'Le Principali Società Italiane') as well as and firm-level information (e.g. primary industry, ultimate ownership, group affiliation, location, foundation year, stock market listing) and sectoral data for the firm's primary industry (e.g. production and price indexes, turnover, etc.). For each firm the stock of capital at replacement cost has been computed following the perpetual inventory technique. This paper outlines the methodology followed to construct the final panel to be used in applications and describes the content of each variable. Finally, a number of descriptive tables illustrate the main characteristics of the database.

Il trasporto pubblico locale in Italia: variabili esplicative dei divari di costo tra le imprese (The Local Public Transport in Italy: Determinants of Cost Structure)

Giovanni Fraquelli, Massimiliano Piacenza, Graziano Abrate
WP 03/2001; The aim of the present study is to provide fresh evidence about the characteristics of cost structure of public transit systems in Italy. The analysis is carried out by comparing the productive performance (average costs and productivity) of small, medium and large-sized companies providing both urban and extra-urban transport service. The sample includes observations of 47 Italian firms operating during the period 1996-1998. In an attempt to analyze the composite nature of costs, we separate components closely related to the physical production of output from those concerning the general organization of transport service and selling activities. The results highlight the role played by input prices and labor and capital productivity in explaining the observed cost differences between companies. The findings also show that inefficiency varies with firm size, network density, the average speed of vehicles and the regulatory context (in terms of the different subsidization mechanisms) that companies have to face.

Le NTBFs a Sophia Antipolis Analisi di un campione di imprese (The New Technology Based Firms in the Sophia Antipolis Park's. Analysis of a sample of firms)

Alessandra Ressico
WP 13/2001; The rule of New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs) is increasing proportionally to the globalisation of the market. The industrialized countries consider more and more this kind of firms a tool of competitiveness. The Science Park of Sophia Antipolis is an excellent example to identify the policy to support the start-up and the growth of these firms. This research has been carried out through 19 direct interviews to a representative sample of firms, in the Sophia Antipolis Area, and shows the profile of these NTBFs and their entrepreneurs.

Le martingale aspetti teorici e applicativi.(The martingales: theoretical and empirical characteristics)

Fabrizio Erbetta, Luca Agnello
WP 07/2001; This paper offers an overview on the characteristics of martingales. These latter are markovian processes without underlying trend, in which the stochastic variable depends on its ultimate realisation. Some application fields are in studies relative to financial markets, and especially the derivative securities. Drawing from the theoretical and empirical literature, the main mathematical characteristics are presented. In order to transform processes with increasing or decreasing trends into martingales, the Doob-Meyer decomposition and the change of probability measure approaches can be adopted. Finally, four applications are considered with regard to the pricing of futures, call options and stocks.

Prime valutazioni qualitative sulle politiche per la R&S in alcune regioni italiane.

Elisa Salvador
WP 08/2001; This paper aims to examine the evolution of Industrial Research in Italy in the last decades. The analysis provides a survey of the most important contributions in the literature; a careful definition of the concepts "basic, applied and pre-competitive research"; the theoretical foundation of R&D policy; an outline of R&D national policy; an analytical framework of R&D policy in some Italian Regions. The results highlight the role played by the institutional intervention and the influence of UE. In this context, in spite of the law and funds constraints, the measures adopted by Italian Regions are quite numerous at the present time.

Relatedness, Coherence, and Coherence Dynamics Empirical Evidence from Italian Manufacturing

Stefano Valvano, Davide Vannoni
WP 04/2001; This paper investigates the determinants of coherence and coherence change using a sample of Italian leading firms in the period 1993-1996. Following a methodology developed by Teece et al (1994), the observed diversification patterns of our sample firms provide the information required to construct an index of relatedness between pair of sectors, which is in turn used to obtain a measure of firm's coherence. The econometric analysis highlights that relatedness is higher when sectors share similar technological and marketing characteristics, and when they are positioned at different stages of the productive chain. Analogously, coherence is higher for firms active in industries characterised by similar R&D intensities and exploiting vertical integration links. Firms which enter the group of top 5 leaders are more coherent than the average. From a dynamic perspective, we find that coherence increases for firms with main activities in sectors which are expected to be more affected from EU integration. Finally, the results show that a deepening of vertical integration strategies is good for coherence change, while an increase of diversification brings a reduction in coherence.

SMEs and innovation the role of the industrial policy in Italy.

Giuseppe Calabrese, Secondo Rolfo
WP 06/2001; The aim of this paper is to match the Italian small-medium firms' (SMEs) need for technological innovation and the state and regional aid programs aimed at supporting innovation and technology. The purpose is to highlight existing capabilities and new opportunities in support of Italian SMEs requirements in innovation. The paper reports the results of two empirical research projects recently carried out at Ceris-Cnr (Institute of Economic Research on Firms and Growth – Italian National Research Council). After a framework of the most important innovation policies the Italian aid programmes for innovation and technology are described. In particular the role of the Italian Regions is analysed in depth. The empirical research confirmed that the approach to innovation of Italian SMEs tends to satisfy the demand of existing market in the best possible way ompared with competitors. Product improvement follows incremental processes. The most common way of introducing new technology is the purchase of new machines and equipment to reduce costs and improve quality. All the industrialised countries tend to favour the linking of the SMEs with external sources of knowledge. The research shows that such a policy clashes with the SMEs' capacity for absorbing innovation. Most of them lack the technical structures (technical office, design department, R&D laboratory, prototype department, etc.) and graduate staff capable of interfacing with the research world.

Trasferimento tecnologico: indicatori spaziali.(Technology Transfer: Spatial Indicators)

Mario Coccia
WP 10/2001; This study analyzes the action of the ‘space' variable on the technological transfer activity, matching the traditional space approach (physical distance) to the modern one (interactions). The aim of this piece of research is double: 1) Build indicators, using the two above mentioned approaches, for measuring and studying how the dynamics of technological transfer on territory 2) Assess the indicator reliability by checking the Hagerstrand proximity effect 3) Apply the indicators to cases of study for describing the additional information supplied in the phenomenon analysis. The indicators built were named Space Center of Gravity of the Technological Transfer (BASTT), Interactive Density Index (INDI), Spatial Attractiveness of Technological Transfer (ASTT); Force and Potential of Technological Transfer (FTT and PTT). data from ten Institutes of the Italian National Council of Research present in Piedmont, an industrialized region in the North-Western part of Italy, were used in order to check item 2 assessments. The results pointed out high values of attractiveness and intensity of the technological transfer activity of institutes located in industrial districts, a symptom of the environment dynamism issued from the successful technology-institutions-territory trinomial that creates knowledge spillover and external economies. Moreover the indicators passed item 2 test and the empirical analysis has shown the reduction of the technological transfer proximity effect of some R&D Institutes; the cause of this strange phenomenon can be explained by what has been called the magnetic effect. The technological flow follows the companies in the spatial delocalization activity, creating in this way a larger spatial attraction with productive specialization areas born far away from the research center, compared with the near ones.

Waste water purification in Italy: costs and structure of the Technology.

Giovanni Fraquelli, Roberto Giandrone
WP 02/2001; This work examines the purification processes of urban waste waters in Italy, with reference to costs and technology. The operating cost function of 103 plants shows that an increase in the sizes of the smaller ones generates strong economies of scale. A minimum efficient size at about 100,000 inhabitants, however, inhibits the creation of large monopolies at a local level and allows to maintain indirect competition. Among the explanatory variables of the costs, the pollution load of the waste water takes on a high statistical significance and suggests environmental prevention. The recent introduction of advanced treatments is expensive, but their costs are balanced by a notable improvement in the pureness of the effluent. As for general environmental policies, it is necessary to find good compromise between the need to improve the effectiveness of the existing plants and the investments in areas where the water purification service is still inexistent.

2000

Effetti delle fusioni e acquisizioni: una rassegna critica dell'evidenza empirica (Effects of mergers and acquisitions: a critical survey of the empirical evidence)

Luigi Benfratello
WP 11/2000;The aim of this paper is to review the 'state of the art' of empirical analysis on the subject of the effects of mergers and acquisitions. After a brief introduction I will present the conflicting evidence outlined, up to the mid eighties, by the Industrial Organization stream of analysis and the Financial Economics one; afterwards, the most important contributions emerged since then, innovative in terms of amount and type of data used and in terms of more accurate methodologies, will be presented. Finally, special attention will be devoted to the still scattered empirical evidence for Italy.

Foreign Direct Investment and Trade in the EU: Are They Complementary or Substitute in Business Cycles Fluctuations?

Giovanna Segre
WP 07/2000; Strong empirical evidence indicates the particular relevance of the phenomenon of foreign direct investment (FDI) and a widening stream of the literature is pointing out the importance of including the study of FDI in international economics analysis and, in particular, in the analysis of economic integration. In order to shed some light on the relationship between trade, foreign direct investment and the correlation of production fluctuations, we undertake an empirical investigation applying our analysis to three-digit industry level data for the manufacturing sector in Italy. The empirical results obtained indicate that the degree of Italian sector openness, measured both in term of trade flows and FDI consistence, is relevant for the level of correlation between production growth rates of Italy and the other European countries.

Gli effetti occupazionali dell'innovazione. Verifica su un campione di imprese manifatturiere italiane.(The Employment Effects of Innovation. Evidence from a Sample of Italian Manufacturing Firms)

Marina Di Giacomo
WP 09/2000; This paper deals with a controversial question: Can innovation create unemployment? Theoretical frameworks and empirical evidences on that topic provide quite different results, depending on the socio-economic and institutional contest where the innovation is introduced and the type of technological change (process vs. product). In our empirical evidence we used a database with information on sales, investments, R&D, product and process innovation and number of employees of about 3000 Italian manufacturing firms. The database covers the period 1992-94. Employment grows in technological advanced industries with respect to traditional industries. The econometric analysis suggests that there are some differences in the behaviour of firms in different regions of Italy. Firms in North East of Italy have better performances than other firms and medium-small firms increased their employment. In particular high R&D expenditures have a negative impact on employment. Big firms spend more in R&D and lose employees in the three years. Investments oriented to increase productive capacity have a positive impact on employment.

Identità e immagine organizzativa negli Istituti CNR del Piemonte (Organizational identity and corporate image of the National Council of Researches (CNR) in Piedmont-Italy)

Paolo Enria
WP 12/2000; Nowadays, the differentiation of the corporate image is one of the most important goals in business. The aim of this work is to introduce a sequence of actions suitable for building a powered organizational image. At the first step, we study identity in organizaztions through a research for the italian CNR (National Council of Researches). In fact, we note that managing the cultural identity is useful to combine the two aspects of the organizational communication: the internal and the external. Through the analysis of the main theories of the image and the organizational identity, we also introduce a new communicational pattern up to date and ready to be tested.

Investment, cash flow and managerial discretion in state-owned firms. Evidence across soft and hard budget constraints

Elisabetta Bertero, Laura Rondi
WP 10/2000; In this paper we extend to state-owned enterprises the empirical work on investment-cash flow sensitivities. Our sample is a panel of Italian state-owned manufacturing firms over the period 1977-1993. The distinctive element of public firms' financial environment is the budget regime under which they operate. Our analysis of Italian institutions identifies a switch from a soft to a hard budget constraint regime in 1987, for which a critical determinant was Italy's attempt to qualify for EMU. We estimate a number of models of investment with additional cash flow terms and test for parameter constancy across budget regimes and the business cycle. We find that there is a positive correlation between investment and cash flow also for public firms, but only when the budget regime is soft. We argue that excessive managerial discretion is likely to be responsible for this correlation. We also find that the switch to a hard regime brings about an important change in the investment decisions of this panel of public enterprises.

Italian Corporate Governance, Investment, and Finance

Robert E. Carpenter, Laura Rondi
WP 14/2000; Italian industrial structure and financial markets have several distinct features. Italian firms are relatively small, few trade publicly and no corporate bond market exists. The limited types of external funds available to Italian firms makes them prone to financing constraints. We examine a panel containing over 1100 Italian firms. We find that firm size does not appear correlated with the severity of financing constraints. We also find that small firms are frequently mature. Our results suggest that young firms face financing constraints, while mature firms may develop relationships with lenders that lower the costs of external funds. Small, young firms appear to face the tightest financing constraints. Many firms are affiliated with pyramidal business groups. We find that affiliation with pyramidal business groups appears to reduce the effect of financing constraints. Our results have important implications for government policy to promote small firm growth in Italy.

L'attesa della privatizzazione: una minaccia credibile per il manager? (Privatisation: is it a real threat for managers?)

Giovanni Fraquelli
WP 08/2000; The privatisation process in Italy is going on but for the biggest firms it is till in progress. Given the context, it is difficult to test the performances after privatisation. However it is possible to analyse the behaviour of the firms during the years immediately close to privatisation. The research compares the four years before privatisation with the previous years. Using a panel of 10 firms, working prevalently in public utility sectors, it is possible to see a significant improvement of efficiency and profitability during the last period before privatisation. The results seem due to two main factors: the reduction of political interference and the risk to be replaced as a real threat for managers of state owned firms.

La mission del top management di aziende sanitarie (The mission of top management in health companies)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 03/2000; A new approach to quality policies in health companies concerns the valuation of the mission of top management. The research has the goal to define the indispensable factors for top management to activate a quality system in hospital companies and afterwards to determine a pattern of social indicators of the quality of services and of the management of health companies.

La percezione dei fattori di qualità in Istituti di Ricerca: una prima elaborazione del caso Piemonte (The perception of quality in research institutions)

Gian Franco Corio
WP 04/2000; A new approach to quality policies concerns the valuation of the perception of the quality of workers in research institutes. The goal of this research is to define the necessary factors which determine the components of the quality of the central agency.

Multinational Strategies and Outward-Processing Trade between Italy and the CEECS: The Case of the Textile-Clothing.

Giovanni Balcet, Giampaolo Vitali
WP 15/2000; The paper is focused on the internationalisation process of the Italian firms within the textile-clothing industry. According to the economic literature on this topics, the Italian industry, as well as the textile-clothing sector, seem to be a follower, as far as the internationalisation process is concerned. Only since the Nineties, the international pattern of growth of the textile-clothing sector is strictly linked to the delocalisation of production and the creation of foreign affiliates. Within this contest, the Outward-Processing Trade (OTP) played a major role: the increase of the OTP data from 1991 to 1998 is very strong, especially if the consider the geographical area of the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). Among the CEECs, the Italian firms are mainly linked to Rumania. Our paper confirms the complementary existing among the different types of internationalisation tools.

Multinational firms in Italy: trends in the manufactoring sector

Giovanna Segre
WP 13/2000; The paper describes the position of Italian economy within the international scenario of production internationalisation. Trends of foreign direct investment flows in Italy are analysed both considering FDI inflows and FDI outflows. Moreover, the degree of industry passive and active multinationality of the Italian manufacturing sector is analysed. To this aim, we computed two indices by looking at the share of multinational firms' production in Italy, using three-digit level data. The comparison between passive and active multinationality highlights the peculiar position of Italian economy characterised by a low level of active multinationality and a high level of passive multinationality in science based sectors. In specialised sectors the importance of active multinationality is, on the contrary, higher than for passive multinationality.

Poli produttivi e sviluppo locale: una indagine sulle tecnologie alimentari nel Mezzogiorno (Industrial Poles and Local Development: a Survey on Food Technologies in the Mezzogiorno of Italy)

Francesco G. Leone
WP 02/2000; This paper presents the results of an empirical survey carried out by Ceris-Cnr on the food-process machines industry in the South of Italy (Mezzogiorno). This survey has highlighted that in the southern regions, although the presence of important agroindustrial poles, the food-technology industry is characterized by the presence of a limited number of small enterprises with a craftmade organization. Nevertheless these SMEs are interested in introducing new innovative technologies. This situation of technological and organizational constraints derives by: an industrial policy that has not encouraged the development of the existing small enterprises; lackness of specialized technicians and workers; difficult relationships between enterprise and credit system; scarce cooperative relations between enterprises and research institutes. In order to improve the organization of the southern enterprises it would be necessary to activate instruments of industrial policy aimed to improve industrial infrastructures and create service companies supporting the enterprises operations on new markets.

Soddisfazione, coinvolgimento lavorativo e performance della ricerca (Satisfaction, Work Involvement and R&D Performance)

Mario Coccia
WP 06/2000; The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of Social Identify Theory's variables to research performance. Regression models were applied on data of ten national research Council (Cnr) institutes of Piemonte, a highly industrialised region in North Western Italy. Results show that there is a low but positive correlation between performance and work satisfaction, which, the latter, has a strong positive correlation with the work involvement. Implications for R&D management are discussed.

The public Transit Systems in Italy: A critical analysis of the regulatory framework.

Massimiliano Piacenza
WP 16/2000; n this paper we attempt to shed some light on the way the regulation of public transit systems has been approached in the past and is presently addressed in Italy. The reduction of x-inefficiency represents a great challenge for the local authorities, given the high operating costs faced by the transportation companies and the moderate tariffs level that do not allow the operators to balance costs and revenues. Throughout the 1980's and the first half of the 1990's, the problem was essentially met by means of stopgap measures taken mainly for emergency, to curb the deficit build-up. In the past five years it has been turning the efforts towards a radical reorganization of the whole local public transportation (LPT) industry, with the law 549/95, completed with the Decreti Legge 422/97 and 400/99. The reform process includes among its goals the attribution of financial responsibility to the sector operators and the start of privatization of the public transit systems. The introduction of more competitive environment, mainly by the resort to tendering for the allotment of concessions, represents the challenge for the future. A complete evaluation of the achieved results is probably still premature. Nevertheless, as the first goal is concerned, the reform appears suitable to yield some positive result. On the contrary, the liberalization and privatization of the LPT sector is progressing very slowly, due to the protection still given to the public-owned companies. It is then expected that in the future a decisive action with regard to such important aspects of the regulatory reform will be undertaken.

Trasferimento tecnologico: analisi spaziale (Technology Transfer: Spatial Analysis)

Mario Coccia
WP 01/2000; Aim of this paper is to analyse the spatial aspects of technology transfer (t.t.) in Cnr Institutes of Piemonte, a highly industrialised region in North Western Italy. The specific purpose is to verify two hypotheses 1) If the spatial propagation of t.t. follows the Hägerstrand adjacencyeffect;2) If there is a reduction of Hägerstrand adjacency-effect between Institutes and dynamical manufacturing areas which are localised far from knowledge sources.This work uses the data from internal administrative documents (invoices, customers' list) of the Institutes, for the 1996-1998 period. These hypotheses have been verified with geometrical and mathematical tools (Indices BASTT, ASTT, MITT, IDI). The latter have been built considering a spatial approach which is both neo-classical (physical distance) and modern (interaction). The empirical results confirm the hypotheses: the t.t. decreases when the physical space is more extended (Hp 1), moreover some Institutes have a strong t.t. activity toward industrial districts which are localised far (Hp 2). An example is t.t. from wool Institute localised in Biella to Prato and Vicenza textile areas or the t.t. from the agricultural mechanisation Institute of Turin toward firms localised in Reggio Emilia region.

Una metodologia per misurare la performance endogena nelle strutture di R&S (Syn Method as a Tool to Measure the Endogenous Performance in the R&D Organizations)

Mario Coccia
WP 05/2000; The purpose of this work is to build a quali-quantitative method for measuring the endogenous performance in R&D organization which supports the process of evaluation. The method is tested on Cnr Institutes of Piemonte, a highly industrialised region in North Western Italy and the score of method is used for to classify the R&D structures in ranks. The results of econometric analysis are: the Anova test shows that the groups (Institutes) have different means, instead the Bartlett test shows the errors are homoscedastic. Another result of statistical analysis is that the estimates have a normal distribution with g 1 = - 0.54 (negative skewness) and g 2 = - 0.08 (hyponormal). The method, called Syn, is alike to Delphi but is much flexible because achieves the convergence of estimates in maximum three rounds.

1999

A Mathematical Model for Performance Evaluation in the R&D Laboratories: Theory and Application in Italy

Mario Coccia
WP 12/1999; Aim of this paper is to build a method of performance evaluation for research organization, using a systemic approach that considers the interrelations among activities (administrative, scientific, technologic). The method is based on the research laboratories evaluation (relev) function which is a linear combination of seven indices, two financials, two tacit technological transfer, two bibliometrics and one technological. The relev function summarises quantitative, qualitative and cost aspects, it is simple and emphasizes evaluation of R&D outcomes rather than behaviour. The validity of the relev methodology was tested on the National Research Council Institutes operating in North West Italy.

Analisi sistemica della performance nelle strutture di ricerca (Systemic Analysis of Performance in Research Organizations)

Mario Coccia
WP 09/1999; Aim of this paper is to build methodologies of performance evaluation for research organisations, using a systemic approach. This approach considers the interrelations between administrative and scientific activities.The methods are based on: i) ranks, ii) ratios (Max Index : 100 = index lab i : x) and iii) research evaluations laboratories (relabs) function. The latter proves to be the best measurement system, because its indexes are a combination of quality, quantity and cost measures. The evaluation system described in the paper is applied to Institutes of National Research Council in Piedmont region. The comparison among the methods shows a Spearman's coefficient of rank correlation of about 0.8; these methods are simple, objective and focuses on outcome, not behaviour.

Beyond profitability: effects of acquisitions on technical efficiency and productivity in the italian pasta industry.

Luigi Benfratello
WP 14/1999; Unlike traditional studies on the efficiency-enhancing effect of ownership changes – which use either profitability measures or stock prices – this paper measures the effect of acquisitions directly on acquired firms' technical efficiency. Using a panel of Italian firms in the pasta industry for the 1981-1997 period, I estimate a stochastic production frontier with factors affecting efficiency (i.e. the Battese and Coelli (1995) model), in a translog specification with non-neutral technical progress. The results show that acquired firms' technical efficiency increases within the six years period following the acquisition, regardless of the nationality of the acquirer, and that a more productive use of resources, in particular labour, is the main source of this increase. However, the analysis beyond the six years period casts some doubts about the persistency of this increase.

Determinanti ed effetti delle fusioni e acquisizioni: un'analisi sulla base delle notifiche alle Autorità Antitrust (Determinants and effects of mergers and acquisitions: an analysis based on the notifications to antitrust authorities)

Luigi Benfratello
WP 15/1999; Using the Italian and European Union competition authorities databases over the 1991-1994 period, this paper analyses the ownership reallocation process in Italy, in terms of the characteristics of acquired firms and the effects of ownership changes. Our results show that acquired firms' financial and profitability characteristics in the years before the acquisition are, accordingly with previous literature, worse than the control sample, and that their performance deteriorates as long as the change in ownership approaches. As far as the effects of acquisitions are concerned, the impact is negative, even if not significantly, in the short-run as well as four years after the acquisition. A subsequent stratification of the sample allows a separate analysis for three groups of particular operations: privatised firms are only slightly worse than control sample before the acquisition and the performance improvement occurs mainly before and only slightly after the acquisition; independent firms acquired by foreign multinationals do not differ from the control sample before the acquisition, while their performance clearly worsen after the change in ownership; firms acquired through leveraged and management buyouts perform better than the control sample before the acquisition. These results are consistent with most industrial organization literature, except for firms acquired by foreign multinationals.

Developing innovation in small-medium suppliers: evidence from the Italian car industry

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 04/1999; Small-medium firms represent more than 90% of Italian firms, 50% of Italian production and 2/3 of employment and they need support in innovation process especially in known technology. The small-medium firm, in fact, operates chiefly in medium to low technology sectors, but cannot for this reason reject innovation. Suppliers are often too small to make the necessary investments in training, computer systems, research and development to make an effective partnership with final producers. Within this scenario the behaviour of the small-medium car suppliers is quite different, vertical disintegration, reorganisation of the supply base and the development of buyer-supplier relationships have undoubtedly changed the role of suppliers in the carmaker's strategies.

Empirical Studies of Vertical Integration: the Transaction Cost Orthodoxy

Davide Vannoni
WP 03/1999; In this paper the empirical literature on transaction cost motivations of vertical integration strategies is critically reviewed. From the large number of empirical studies on this particular area, it emerges that, notwithstanding a) serious data and measurement limitations; b) the different attention given to the specific asset hypothesis with respect to the other hypotheses advanced by the theory; c) the unbalance between single industry and cross section studies; transaction cost theory is successful in explaining why firms may decide to internalise some stages of the manufacturing process. However, the growing body of empirical papers has not solved all problems, and more work is warranted. There are still some under researched topics which deserve a deeper investigation as well as a number of methodological problems which should be addressed.

Esperimenti di trasferimento tecnologico alle piccole e medie imprese nella Regione Piemonte (Technology Transfer on Trial: some Cases in the Piedmont Region)

Mario Coccia
WP 11/1999; The purpose of the present work is to find out innovation demand of firms in Piedmont with the aim of technology transfer of Cnr activity. The process has been developed in three phases: 1) individuation and monitoring of firms with filtering method; 2) technological audits; 3) evaluation of the feasibility of technology transfer and activation R&D projects. Needs especially come out from firms of mechanical and automation industry. Even if the number of firms which need some kind of technological help is much wider, only 4.5 % of them signed agreement with Cnr Institutes. It is very difficult to start technology transfer actions mostly because there are problems to find well defined competencies and when the competencies are well established the time to realise the cooperation is generally quite long.

La valutazione delle politiche locali per l'innovazione: il caso dei Centri Servizi in Italia (The evaluation of the local innovation policy: the case of the Innovation Centres in Italy)

Monica Cariola, Secondo Rolfo
WP 01/1999; In Italy the examples of evaluation of local policy for innovation are very few. As an impact assessment is possible only if the number of centres to examine is little, this analysis has chosen a monitoring evaluation and, particularly, the reorganization of the matter regarding innovation centres for firms in Italy, mainly through an analysis of the characteristics of the services being offered, of the number of the organizations presently really operative on the national territory, of their locations and field of action, with a first evaluation of their economic performances. This research has studied only those innovation centres, (private, partially state-controlled or totally state-controlled) belonging or not to industrial district, offering technological services to firms. Limits and advantages of the Italian experience have been pointed out.

New Technology Based-Firms in Italia: analisi di un campione di imprese triestine

Annamaria Gimigliano
WP 06/1999; This paper is focused on the creation and development of New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs). Because their number in Italy is very low, we decided to investigate a small sample in order to highlight problems and obstacles. A direct inquiry has been carried out in the Trieste area and 22 small NTBFs have been interviewed.

Privatization in Italy: an analysis of factors productivity and technical efficiency

Giovanni Fraquelli, Fabrizio Erbetta
WP 05/1999; This work aims at investigating the changes in technical efficiency following the privatization of 39 Italian medium-sized firms operating in competitive sectors. Using Data Envelopment Analysis over a period of 10 years we highlight that, apart from acquisitions by foreign groups, there have not been significant changes in the levels of total efficiency. The only statistically significant change concerns the strong recovery in labour productivity that showed to be continuous even during the period undergoing public control. The results, in contrast with the main theoretical predictions, shift attention to the Italian financial market. A weak incentive system and the low competition in the access to the market for corporate control seem to be the main explanatory variables.

Struttura ed evoluzione di un distretto industriale piemontese: la produzione di casalinghi nel cusio (Structure and evolution of an industrial district of Piedmont: the production of kitchenware in the Cusio area)

Alessandra Ressico
WP 08/1999; The aim of this paper is to analyse the consequences of market globalisation on a small industrial district of north-western Italy. Industrial firms in the Cusio don't show wide innovation shapes but according to the firm size we could observe different innovation approaches: on one side small firms concentrate their efforts on the automation manufacturing process, while medium-big firms are much more oriented towards the development of design and sales strategies.

The entry mode choice of EU leading companies (1987-1997)

Giampaolo Vitali
WP 10/1999; The aim of the paper is to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between industrial structure and M&A process. We focus on the determining factors fostering a firm to choose controlling acquisitions or non-controlling ones. We use the Acquisitions and Divestments Database (ADD), a data-base collecting equity operations made by top-90 EU leaders in the period 1987-1997. A logit analysis shows some variables that increase the probability that the firm's entry mode choice is a non-controlling-acquisition: firm's size, firm's diversification strategy, industry concentration, oligopolistic competition. On the contrary, the R&D differentiated industries and the role of the stock exchange market enforce the probability that the firm's entry mode is a controlling acquisition.

Trasferimento Tecnologico ed Autofinanziamento: il Caso degli Istituti Cnr in Piemonte (Technology Transfer and Self-Financing: the Case of CNR Institutes in Piedmont)

Mario Coccia
WP 02/1999; The aim of this paper is an analysis of the technology transfers from Cnr Institutes of Turin Research Area to the subjects that could get benefits in the 1995-'97 period. Using the Cnr final budget, two statistical disaggregation levels were applied on the basis of data contained in internal documents of the Institutes to find out actions and subject's typologies. From this analysis of this period a substantial growth in self-financing of the Institutes was found; this is mostly due to an increase in calibration and testing activities, homologation of farm machinery and research activity under contracts with European Community and public administration.

Trasferimento tacito della conoscenza: gli Istituti Cnr dell'Area di Ricerca di Torino (Tacit Transfer of Knowledge: Cnr Institutes of Turin Research Area)

Mario Coccia
WP 07/1999; Aim of this paper is to analyse tacit transfers of knowledge from Cnr Institutes of Turin Research Area to the subjects that could get benefits in the 1995-'97 period. This work uses the data from Cnr final balance-sheets, integrated with internal administrative documents of the Institutes. The graphic representation of special index (value of technology transfer activity / Researches of Cnr Institutes) shows that the best Institutes in the tacit transfer of knowledge do not belong to the technological area but to the economics, phytovirology, phisics, geology and hydrobiology areas. The spatial distribution of this activity follows the 'agerstrand adjacency-effect', as 78.5% is located in the regions of North Italy, near Cnr Institutes of Piedmont.

Trasferimento tecnologico. Analisi dei fruitori

Mario Coccia
WP 13/1999

1998

98 S.E.M. and the changing structure of eu manufacturing, 1987-1993

Stephen Davies, Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 05/1998; This paper reports the initial results from a project designed to track the evolution of industrial and corporate structure of EU manufacturing alongside the ongoing European integration process. At the heart of the work is the construction of an "EU market share matrix" for 1993. This includes estimates of the turnovers of a set of 300 leading manufacturing firms, disaggregated across nearly 100 industries, and then, in turn, across the individual member states. This allows us to estimate the extent of diversification and intra-EU multinationality for each of the firms, and the concentration of producers and measures of geographical concentration for each of the industries. When coupled with a similar matrix for 1987, first reported in Davies, Lyons et al. (1996), this provides a rich and detailed mapping of how these structural dimensions have changed with the final stage (so far as the legislation is concerned) of the European single market programme. In effect, our work provides a complement to the EC's own evaluation (1996) which was derived mainly from published aggregate data on FDI, trade and mergers. In contrast, our work is more micro-based, using company accounts and emphasising industrial structure. Our main "headline" findings are that, on average, (I) concentration has remained stable, (ii) multinationality has increased rapidly - both the intra-EU multinationality of European firms and the inward multinationality of non-EU firms, (iii) diversification has decreased slightly. However, disaggregation in each case reveals an intriguing underlying picture of turbulence, and considerable inter-industry and inter-firm differences. For example, although concentration is stable on average, this hides often considerable turbulence of market shares. Moreover, there are signs that concentration has tended to increase in those industries in which integration has advanced most rapidly over this period. Similarly, although there is only weak evidence of "return to core business" in aggregate, this reflects the balance of opposing developments - increased diversification by many German firms, on the one hand, but de-diversification (and some signs of convergence) by firms from the other member states, on the other hand. Thirdly, preliminary analysis of our results on multinationality shows how they can be used to further our understanding of geographical concentration (or dispersion), and to distinguish between intra- and inter-industry multinationality. Thus, the paper serves two purposes. In addition to broadening our factual understanding of the impact of the SEM, it also sets out a research agenda of topics which deserve further, more disaggregated and analytical, research.

Alcune riflessioni preliminari sul mercato degli strumenti multimediali (Some preliminary consideration about multimedia instruments market)

Paolo Vaglio
WP 01/1998; This work has been carried out to describe the recent strong development concerning the on line and off line multimedia market, the causes of its development and whether it can be the driving force behind other sectors. The analysis focuses on factors that can slow down or impede further growths. The second part tries to clarify the possible future scenarios and to find out the objectives that are worth examining closely.

Before and after privatization: a comparison between competitive firms

Giovanni Fraquelli, Paola Fabbri
WP 02/1998; The analysis regarding the results of firms privatized mainly during the Eighties within competitive sectors confirms the superiority of private control. The comparison between suitable control samples shows an improvement in profitability associated to a clear progress in labour productivity. However, for many firms, this recovery was still insufficient to guarantee an active and lasting presence on the market. This evolution questions the functioning of the market, the selectivity of the financial operators and the incentive system used in the past as an industrial policy tool.

La valutazione della R&S in Italia: rassegna delle esperienze del C.N.R. e proposta di un approccio alternativo (The R&D Evaluation in Italy: a survey of the CNR experience and a proposal fur alternative approach)

Domiziano Boschi
WP 08/1998; This paper analyses the evaluation experience of the most important Italian research agency (CNR). Focus is on the activity of the 15 consulting committees and on the National Finalised Projects managed by CNR on behalf of the University and Research Ministry. From this survey the author presents a proposal for an alternative approach of evaluation based on a wider range of instruments especially directed to evaluate the economic effects of the big research projects.

Le importazioni come incentivo alla concorrenza: l'evidenza empirica internazionale e il caso del Mercato Unico Europeo

Anna Bottasso
WP 04/1998; In questo lavoro viene analizzata la letteratura empirica sulla verifica dell'ipotesi secondo cui le importazioni, effettive o potenziali, possono incentivare la concorrenza. La maggior parte degli studi analizzati, sia quelli relativi ai paesi industrializzati che quelli, più recenti, relativi a paesi in via di sviluppo, ha confermato l'esistenza di una correlazione negativa tra i margini di profitto delle imprese e il grado di penetrazione delle importazioni. Tale ipotesi è stata analizzata anche nell'ambito della valutazione dell'impatto della creazione del Mercato Unico Europeo: l'evidenza empirica disponibile a livello comunitario suggerisce l'esistenza di effetti di tipo pro-competitivo indotti dall'attuazione delle misure previste dal programma di completamento del Mercato Unico. Questo risultato viene confermato dagli studi condotti relativamente al caso Italiano.

Managerial discretion and investment decisions of state-owned firms: Evidence from a panel of italian companies

Elisabetta Bertero, Laura Rondi
WP 07/1998; In this paper we investigate the role of capital markets imperfections for the investment decisions of a panel of Italian manufacturing state-owned enterprises over the period 1977-1993. We explore whether asymmetric information and financing constraints or managerial discretion are the source of excess sensitivity of investment to cash flow. We estimate an accelerator model with additional cash flow terms and test for parameter constancy across soft and hard budget constraint periods as well as across the business cycle. We find that managerial discretion is responsible for the investment cash flow correlation, especially during the soft budget period. The evidence also suggests that the change in budget regime has an important impact on the investment decisions of this panel of public enterprises.

Multidimensional Performance in Telecommunications, Regulation and Competition: Analysing the European Major Players

Giovanni Fraquelli, Davide Vannoni
WP 09/1998; In this paper we adopt the methodology developed by Banker et al. (1993) in order to investigate the dynamics of the different components of performance for the major European telecommunications operators during the period 1989-1993. The results show a general improvement in productivity levels and a reduction in the ratio between output and input prices. The best productivity performances were attained by the British and (to a lesser degree) the French utilities, while only British Telecommunications was remarkably reducing output prices. These findings are consistent with the view that incentive regulation is useful to enhance efficiency but the introduction and the promotion of competition seems to be more effective in reducing the price levels.

The diversified firm: non formal theories versus formal models

Davide Vannoni
WP 06/1998; The paper analyses critically the theoretical approaches which try to explain the emergence and growth of diversified firms. While the outstanding theory is still heavily based on non formal analysis, some recent contributions have introduced formalised models. It is argued that a further development of formal theories could be very important for a deeper understanding of the complex phenomenon of multimarket production. Moreover, formal models could be extremely useful in order to build some precise hypotheses to be tested in sound empirical works.

1997

Aspetti e misure della customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction

Maria Teresa Morana
WP 15/1997; Total Quality as a means of obtaining customer satisfaction. Analysis of literature on CS/D and the identification of measurement methodologies CD/S for services.

Buyer-supplier best practices in product development: evidence from car industry

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 04/1997; Continuous innovations in product and process technology, coupled with time to market pressure, have made rapid product development a key strategic. Consequently, many firms have started to redefine the ways in which products are designed, developed and produced, to reduce the time from conception to manufacture. The strategies employed to achieve this goal vary, and include the integration of functions through selective use of concurrent engineering, the formation of strategic project teams, and information technology. A increasingly strategic role in product development has been played by suppliers and the purchasing department. Even though suppliers are in many cases considered to be integrated members of the development teams, they can not be compared to the internal functions. Communications patters in the external process chain are quite different than the internal ones. Product development requires a fundamental change in the attitudes of both buyers and suppliers.

Capacità competitiva e evoluzione strutturale dei settori di specializzazione: il caso delle macchine per confezionamento e imballaggio

Secondo Rolfo, Paolo Vaglio
WP 07/1997; The mechanical engineering is one of the leading industries of Europe. A very successful case is represented by the Italian packaging machinery industry that passed through the last recession without relevant consequences. This is largely due to the evolution of the original district of Bologna towards a more modern and complex structure, now spatially enlarged to several areas of Italy. The emerging of leading firms caused the growth of about 20 groups and a change of the interfirm relations. In this paper the export performances of this industry are analysed with the financial results of a firm sample and the external growth data.

Costs and structure of technology in the Italian water industry

Paola Fabbri, Giovanni Fraquelli
WP 14/1997; This paper analyses from an empirical point of view the technology underlying the Water industry. First, we study the impact of environmental and quality factors on the production process. Second, different functional forms are analysed in order to represent the technology. Overall results show that the coefficient of hedonic variables are significant and that the best functional form turns to be the transcendental logarithmic one. Finally, evidence on return to scale depends on the functional form adopted and on the inclusion of hedonic variables.

Costs, technology and ownership form of natural gas distribution in Italy

Giovanni Fraquelli, Roberto Giandrone
WP 13/1997; The analysis of the technology and costs of the gas distribution networks highlights that the number of customers is more important than the amount of gas delivered, as well as the absence of economies of scale, the presence of economies of density and the significant role of the morphologic and demographic variables. The diversification towards other services, such as water and electricity, provides good opportunities for efficiency. The lower costs for private operators and the constant economies of scale indicate that the privatisation process should continue and confirm the benefits of having many operators (yardstick competition). The control of monopoly rents in efficient conditions requires the use of a tariff system similar to a price-cap, provided that it takes into account the territorial constraints.

Distretti industriali e innovazione: i limiti dei sistemi tecnologici locali (Industrial Districts and Innovation: the Limits of the Local Technological Systems)

Secondo Rolfo, Giampaolo Vitali
WP 12/1997; A new approach of the innovation policies at the local level is concerning the creation of regional innovation systems. In Italy however the district level seems to be more adequate for the public intervention to capture the specific sectorial and local nature of the innovation process. In the Piedmont case the strong innovative potential is not sufficient in order to transform the technical systems of the two district, analysed in the paper, Biella and Cusio-Valsesia, into more modern technological systems.

Does debt discipline state-owned firms? Evidence from a panel of Italian firms

Elisabetta Bertero, Laura Rondi
WP 11/1997; This paper investigates whether financial pressure has an impact on the performance of state-owned firms. By combining different theoretical frameworks, we explore the conditions under which debt discipline becomes effective even for state firms. Using a panel of 1318 Italian state and private manufacturing companies, for the period 1977-1993, we estimate total factor productivity and employment equations, allowing the financial factors to have a different effect under ‘soft' and ‘hard' budget constraint regimes. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, the results show that state firms do respond to financial pressure by increasing total productivity and reducing employment in a ‘hard' budget constraint environment.

European integration and leading firms' entry and exit strategies

Stephen Davies, Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 10/1997; This paper provides empirical evidence on how EU leading firms adjusted to European economic integration with respect to the following strategic variables: entry/exit decisions in the product/geographic space (diversification/multinationality). A novel dataset, including detailed information on firms' output across industries and countries for a sample of 100 EU leading firms in 1987 and 1993, also enables us to provide preliminary evidence on the 'globalisation - return to core business' hypothesis. The econometric analysis of entries/exits in the primary industry suggests that the Single Market program affected company strategy by making multinational activity more necessary to face increased competitive pressure. Our results are thus far more consistent with a ‘think European view' than with the ‘return to core country' hypothesis, as implied by fuller exploitation of scale economies and comparative advantages.

Il comportamento ciclico dei margini di profitto in presenza di mercati del capitale meno che perfetti: un'analisi empirica su dati di impresa in Italia (Capital markets imperfections and markups cyclicality: an empirical analysis on firm level data in Italy)

Anna Bottasso
WP 20/1997; In this paper the cyclical behaviour of markups in presence of imperfect capital markets has been analysed from an empirical point of view. A markup equation has been estimated including among regressors a leverage variable. This approach is based on the hypothesis that more leveraged firms have a lower level of internal net worth and are more likely to be affected by problems induced by capital market imperfections. The empirical analysis has been conducted on a panel of 1168 Italian manufacturing firms observed over the period 1977-1993. Overall results suggest the existence of financial constraints which induce firms to reduce markups; since this incentive is higher during recessions, it seems that capital market imperfections have a procyclical impact on markups.

Investimenti, Fattori Finanziari e Ciclo Economico (Investment, Financial Factors and Business Fluctuations

Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 17/1997; In questo lavoro viene analizzata la relazione tra la disponibilità di fonti interne e le decisioni di investimento alla luce delle recenti teorie che enfatizzano il ruolo delle imperfezioni sui mercati dei fondi. In particolare, un modello di investimento che include variabili rappresentative della disponibilità di fonti interne è stimato utilizzando un panel di imprese italiane. I risultati delle stime, condotte separatamente per le imprese affiliate a gruppi e le imprese indipendenti, suggeriscono che il legame tra cash flow e investimenti è più probabilmente dovuto a problemi di asimmetria informativa sul mercato dei fondi esterni (sotto-investimento) che non a problemi di discrezionalità dei manager (sovra-investimento). Inoltre, vi sono segnali, anche se non conclusivi, che la relazione tra cash flow e investimenti sia controciclica, almeno per il campione delle imprese indipendenti, a conferma della teoria dell’acceleratore finanziario.

L'innovazione nei distretti industriali. Una rassegna ragionata della letteratura (Innovation in the Industrial Districts. A Critical Survey of Literature)

Elena Ragazzi
WP 05/1997; The rich literature on industrial districts leaves little space to the theme of innovation. Italian industrial districts are mainly specialised in traditional industries and the firms which compose them are of small size and then less prepared to manage technological change. Nevertheless innovation could prove in coming years a more and more important challenge to sustain the competitiveness of local systems of small firms in a context of globalisation of markets and of rise of new competitors. The paper starts with a revision of the concept of industrial district, analysing the elements that in the definition can have effects on the innovative capacity of firms. The third paragraph departs from the argument of industrial districts, to explore the grounds on which the spatial variable can have effects on the innovative activity of firm, intended both as the creation of new processes and products, and as the behaviour in terms of adoption of innovations. Finally the fourth paragraph comes back to industrial districts, to explain why and how firms belonging to districts may have special features, if compared to small firms acting in other environments, as regards the creation and adoption of innovation. The last section contains an agenda for future empirical research based on the critical points emerging from theoretical literature.

La normativa nazionale e regionale per l'innovazione e la qualità nelle piccole e medie imprese: leggi, risorse, risultati e nuovi strumenti (National and regional aids for small and medium firms in innovation and qualty)

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 09/1997; Le possibilità offerte in Italia al finanziamento agevolato sono numerose, ma nel caso dell'innovazione e la ricerca gli strumenti realmente utili sono molto limitati. Al tradizionale intervento nazionale, negli ultimi anni si sono aggiunte le iniziative comunitarie e regionali. La situazione che si presenta alle imprese è particolarmente complesso, spesso privo di informazioni chiare e omogenee. Nei confronti delle piccole e medie imprese il legislatore ha evidenziato particolare interesse nel favorire processi di innovazione. The chances offered in Italy for financial aids are several, but the effective instruments to foster innovation and R&D are very few. In this context, in the last decade, the initiatives of the European Union and of the Italian Regions were remarkable and have increased the opportunities for firms. Nevertheless the situation is quite confused, information are often poor, not clear, unhomogeneous. At all level, the law-makers have introduced special terms for small and medium firms to facilitate internal innovation process.

La qualità nei servizi pubblici: limiti della normativa uni en 29000 nel settore sanitario

Efisio Ibba
WP 16/1997; The use of regulations for the testing of quality requisites. Reference chart for the new set-up of the organisation of production processes regarding goods and services. ISO 9000 norms.

Multinationality, diversification and firm size. An empirical analysis of Europe's leading firms

Stephen Davies, Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 01/1997; Conventional explanations of diversification and multinationality both point to size/growth related motives and firm-specific intangible assets as the driving forces. However, previous empirical studies have rarely exploited this commonality by investigating multinationality and diversification jointly. Using a database of leading EU firms, we devise a typology of firm structures which distinguishes diversification at home and abroad. This provides the framework for a sequential probit model which focuses on the roles of firm size and product differentiation. Our results suggest that multinationality and diversification are complementary in the presence of product differentiation, indicating that specific assets are a public good within the firm. In other cases, size factors are more dominant: multinationality increases with the firm's absolute size in its home country (presumably because production abroad becomes more profitable relative to exporting); however, diversification also increases more with market share (perhaps as a means of escaping constraints on further growth). In these circumstances, multinationality may become a substitute for diversification, since the latter is no longer the only route to growth; but the reverse is not true, since diversification does not affect the relative profitability of foreign production.

Qualità totale e organizzazione del lavoro nelle aziende sanitarie

Gian Franco Corio
WP 02/1997; The area of organisation is the one to work in so as to improve products/services in health care firms, and to establish the transformation of professional behaviour. The actions and roles of middle management as a strategic entity in the case of the set-up of programs for improvement based on Total Quality. Total Quality as a strategic factor in health care firms with regard to management and as a basic component for 'purchasing' decisions made by external customers.

Reorganising the Product and Process Development in Fiat Auto

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 03/1997; Continuous innovations in product and process technology, coupled with time-to-market pressure, have made rapid product development a key strategic objective of manufacturing firms. Consequently, many firms have started to redefine the ways in which products are designed, developed and produced, so as to reduce the time from conception to manufacture. The strategies employed to achieve this goal vary, and include the integration of functions through selective use of concurrent engineering, the formation of strategic project teams, and technological connections by CAD/CAM systems. The research reported in this paper, co-ordinated by the WZB Institute of Berlin, is aimed at examining organisational, technological and human resources practices that enhance quality in R&D by improving communication and co-operation (C&C) between the actors. Although the research was carried out in 4 countries (Germany, Italy, Japan and US) and in 3 sectors (car, personal computer and machine tools) this paper analyses the evidence provided by a set of face to face interviews of the managers, engineers and designers of a European car producer.

Strategie di crescita esterna delle imprese leader in Europa: risultati preliminari dell'utilizzo del data-base Ceris 100 top EU firms' Acquisition/Divestment database 1987-1993 (M&A strategy of large companies in Europe: preliminary results from the Ceris database 100 top EU firms' Acquisition/Divestment database 1987-1993)

Giampaolo Vitali, Marco Orecchia
WP 18/1997; The database ADD (Acquisition and Divestment Database) was established at Ceris in order to investigate the external growth of large EU firms. The selection of the companies included in the ADD was aimed at building an homogeneous database according to the Market Share Matrix (MSM) - a database generated within a EU project on the structure of European manufacturing industry. In principle, the consistency between the two databases makes it possible to use jointly information on diversification and internationalisation of EU firms (MSM) and on their external growth (ADD). For each company, we considered the deals directly or indirectly carried out by the holding company and by the affiliates controlled by a percentage exceeding 50%.The database consists of 3 sets of variables describing: i) the "target" of the deal, i.e. the company that has been acquired; ii) the acquiring firm; iii) the characteristics of the deal itself.

Tecnologia e produttività delle aziende elettriche municipalizzate (Technology and productivity in italian electric municipal firms)

Giovanni Fraquelli, Piercarlo Frigero
WP 08/1997; This paper analyses the technological characteristics of a sample of Italian electric municipal firms. The standard partial productivity approach is integrated with total factor productivity measures based on Data Envelopment Analysis. Main results can be summarised as follows: i) small firms are often located on the efficiency frontier, this in turn pointing out that technological economies of scale do not seem very important in this industry, ii) the presence of economies of density is confirmed, iii) vertical integrated firms show better productivity performances. Also, according to Malmquist index all firms have experienced technological progress over time and this is particularly true for small firms. Summarising, from a purely technological point of view, small integrated firms seem to be the most efficient organizational structure in this industry.

The impact of financing constraints on markups: theory and evidence from Italian firm level data

Anna Bottasso, Marzio Galeotti, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 06/1997; this paper we look at both the theoretical and empirical behavior of price-cost margins when capital market imperfections affect firms' markup policies. We present a model of a firm operating in an industry with differentiated products and facing imperfect markets for financing operations. The model results in an Euler equation for the optimal price path which is estimated using data for several hundreds Italian firms over the period 1981-1993. The empirical results suggest that: (i) capital market imperfections are present in the sense that firms in our sample pay a premium on external finance which significantly depends on the debt to sales ratio; (ii) according to our estimates constrained firms find it optimal to cut price compared to unconstrained firms; (iii) as firms are more likely to be financially constrained in recessions, our results imply that financial market imperfections tend to make markups procyclical.

1996

Accordi, joint-venture e investimenti diretti dell'industria italiana nella CSI: Un'analisi qualitativa

Chiara Monti, Giampaolo Vitali
WP 07/1996; Le joint venture italiane nella Csi rappresentano un utile strumento di internazionalizzazione dell'impresa, tanto dal punto di vista della diversificazione dei mercati di sbocco, quanto da quello della delocalizzazione di attività produttive in paesi a basso costo del lavoro. Il censimento delle operazioni aventi finalità produttive condotte dalle imprese italiane nella Csi e attive al 1995 consente di approfondire tali aspetti. In particolare, la ricerca evidenzia i caratteri distintivi dei partner italiani e di quelli locali (con riferimento alla dimensione, fatturato, settore economico, localizzazione geografica, ecc.), nonché quelli dell'operazione stessa (con riferimento al tipo e al mercato di sbocco della produzione effettuata in loco, al capitale investito, ai problemi incontrati, ecc.). L'importanza dei settori tradizionali, delle piccole imprese, dell'ottica di medio periodo con cui effettuare l'investimento, del carattere aggiuntivo e non sostitutivo della produzione locale rispetto a quella italiana rappresenta il principale risultato che emerge dallo studio.

Coerenza d'impresa e diversificazione settoriale: un'applicazione alle società leaders nell'industria manifatturiera europea

Marco Orecchia
WP 04/1996; In this paper the measure of corporate coherence proposed by Teece, Rumelt, Dosi and Winter (1994) and the measure of inter-industry relatedness on which the former is built are analysed using a dataset that includes the five largest European producers in 100 3-digit NACE industries. The theoretical assumptions are discussed critically and the upper and lower bounds of both distributions are found. The empirical analysis shows that a strict positive relation between the frequency with which activities are combined within the same corporation - i.e. the degree of interindustry relatedness - and the technological and market similarities of those activities exists, in the sense that the more similar or complementary are the characteristics of the industries, in terms of technologies, skills, R&D and advertising expenses, the more related are the industries themselves. Corporate coherence is found to be negatively related to the degree of diversification. On average Italian firms are more coherent than their competitors in other European countries. However if we restrict the analysis to the largest firms we find that Italian firms are more diversified and less coherent than the others. In conclusion, a very polarized distribution of Italian firms emerges in which highly coherent small/medium sized firms operating in traditional industries coexist with large uncoherent conglomerates, both public and private.

Dati disaggregati e analisi della struttura industriale: la matrice europea delle quote di mercato

Laura Rondi
WP 10/1996;

I nuovi scenari competitivi nell'industria delle telecomunicazioni: le principali esperienze internazionali

Paola Fabbri
WP 06/1996; Il settore delle telecomunicazioni è interessato a livello mondiale da un processo di profondo cambiamento che coinvolge gli assetti istituzionali dei gestori, le forme di mercato, le strategie delle imprese, il campo d'azione e i protagonisti dell'industria. Il presente lavoro intende tracciare gli scenari competitivi che si stanno delineando. Tale analisi viene condotta attraverso una rassegna sulle principali esperienze internazionali che illustri per ognuna lo stato attuale e le evoluzioni in atto nel settore. Il confronto fra le diverse realtà, in termini di grado di effettiva apertura del mercato, consente di evidenziare come le medesime tendenze assumono in ciascun Paese caratteristiche peculiari, frutto della storia passata e delle presente situazione economica, politica, sociale ed istituzionale.

Innovazione tecnologica e competitività internazionale: quale futuro per i distretti e le economie locali (Technological Innovation and International Competitivity: Is there a Future for Italian Districts and Local Economic Systems?)

Secondo Rolfo
WP 09/1996; In this paper the analysis of the Italian system of industrial districts is carried on in the light of the more general crisis of Europe in terms of innovative capabilities and employment creation. Nevertheless the recent positive trend of Italian districts, the institutional context in which firms are operating is not helpful in order to support their turnaround towards more innovative activities able to increase employment. The problems coming from the insertion of the firms in a complex multinational competition need local specialised policies awaiting for a much important and complete national policy

L'analisi e la valutazione della soddisfazione degli utenti interni: un'applicazione nell'ambito dei servizi sanitari

Maria Teresa Morana
WP 02/1996; L'adozione dei principi e dei metodi della Qualità Totale e l'orientamento alla Customer Satisfaction hanno modificato l'organizzazione interna e la gestione del personale tanto nelle aziende private quanto in quelle pubbliche, produttrici di beni e/o servizi. In particolare il D.L. n. 502 del 1992 ha indotto una riorganizzazione del Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, ovvero la trasformazione delle strutture sanitarie pubbliche in aziende, rendendo necessaria e rilevante la valutazione delle prestazioni medico-sanitarie nonché la misurazione del livello di soddisfazione e/o insoddisfazione degli utenti esterni ed interni. L'assimilazione dell'assistenza sanitaria ad un processo produttivo di servizi ha consentito di utilizzare nell'ambito dell'azienda-sanità alcuni dei metodi di misura e dei modelli di analisi della customer satisfaction e della qualità del servizio, sperimentati in altri contesti di servizio. Lo studio, condotto nel corso dell'anno 1995 presso i laboratori di analisi di due aziende ospedaliere di interesse nazionale ad alta specializzazione: il C.T.O. - C.R.F.- Maria Adelaide di Torino ed il Civico-Oncologico - Maurizio Ascoli di Palermo, ha permesso di evidenziare che la metodologia impiegata e gli indici calcolati sono utili per la valutazione della qualità percepita e del livello di soddisfazione degli utenti interni e che il loro impiego può estendersi ulteriormente nell'ambito di questo settore specifico.

L'industria orafa italiana: lo sviluppo del settore punta sulle esportazioni

Elena Ragazzi, Anna Maria Gaibisso
WP 19/1996; This paper is the first result of a research project, which is in progress at present, on the export activity of goldsmith craftsman firms in Italy. It shows, in the first part, the research methodology followed by Ceris research unit to analyse the industries of competitive Italy, that are those industries often labelled as traditional that most sustain Italian commercial balance. Characteristics, point of strength and weakness and competitive challenges for those industries and for the goldsmith industry in particular are considered. In the second part of the paper a synthetic analysis of international trade of the Italian goldsmith industry is presented. The relevance of exports for the development of the industry is shown and a description of time tendencies and geographical destination is given.

La centralità dell'innovazione nell'intervento pubblico nazionale e regionale in Germania

Secondo Rolfo
WP 20/1996; Since last century the technological innovation has been one of the most important topics of the policies made by the German governments. After the II World War this interest involved also the regional governments who did not hesitate to adopt political measures parallel or in contrast with those of the federal government. The results are condensed in a large number of institutions involved in the research area and in the technological services and in a rich production of laws both at the federal and regional levels.

La funzione di costo nel servizio idrico. Un contributo al dibattito sul metodo normalizzato per la determinazione della tariffa del servizio idrico integrato

Giovanni Fraquelli, Paola Fabbri
WP 03/1996; Nel processo di riorganizzazione del servizio idrico italiano, imposto dalla ‘Legge Galli', il Comitato per la Vigilanza sull'uso delle Risorse Idriche presso il Ministero del Tesoro ha proposto la formulazione di un metodo normalizzato per la determinazione della tariffa. Il presente lavoro ha sottoposto ad esame tale metodo in merito alla definizione di una funzione di costo operativo del servizio acque potabili. L'analisi ha inteso verificare la capacità interpretativa della forma funzionale proposta e la significatività delle variabili esplicative. I risultati confermano, in generale, la validità della proposta ma indicano l'esigenza di migliorare la capacità esplicativa del modello considerando variabili rappresentative della produttività e del costo del lavoro

La relazione tra struttura finanziaria e decisioni reali delle imprese: una rassegna critica dell'evidenza empirica

Anna Bottasso
WP 23/1996; Theoretical literature suggests that firms' financial structure affects their real decisions because of capital markets imperfections. Several empirical studies have been conducted to test this hypothesis. This survey illustrates the main results of this literature focusing on the effects of capital markets imperfections on firms' real decisions: fixed capital investments, R&D investments, inventory investments, labour demand and profit margins determination. Unlike previous surveys on this topic, this paper includes empirical evidence on Italian firms and discusses recent contributions supporting the ‘managerial discretion theory' as an alternative explanation of the positive relationship between investments and financial variabiles.

La valutazione dell'impatto delle politiche tecnologiche: un'analisi classificatoria e una rassegna di alcune esperienze europee

Domiziano Boschi
WP 18/1996; The present work is a survey of the main initiatives undertaken in some European countries in the field of evaluation of publicly funded R&D and innovation policies. Although available evaluation tools are still poorly designed and not enough sophisticated to grasp all the facets of the innovation process, they allow to gather information that is extremely valuable strategic and operational purposes. Perspectively their use and their role can be seen as a supplementary policy leverage in the hands of policy makers by which to increase the amount of information needed to make long term strategic choices and commitments and to guarantee an efficient use of the resources allocated to each single unit or project. Surveying the main evaluation practices introduced in France, Great Britain and Germany can be a good starting point to make a comparative analysis of their innovation systems and their policy initiatives and to identify some key issues in terms of policy design and implementation

Le decisioni di entrata e di uscita: evidenze empiriche sui maggiori gruppi italiani

Alessandro Sembenelli, DavideVannoni
WP 11/1996; In questo articolo le determinanti delle decisioni di entrata e di uscita delle imprese vengono analizzate empiricamente attraverso l'esame di un campione rappresentativo dei maggiori gruppi operanti in Italia. L'attenzione è rivolta al ruolo degli investimenti irreversibili quali indicatori dell'esistenza di barriere all'entrata. Due ipotesi contrastanti sono sottoposte a verifica: da un lato si assume che le spese in ricerca e sviluppo e in pubblicità possano agire come barriere all'entrata in nuove industrie, sia per le nuove imprese, sia per le imprese già operanti in altri settori, a causa della loro specificità settoriale. Dall'altro lato, tali attività potrebbero indurre le imprese esistenti ad entrare in nuove industrie simili a quelle in cui sono già attive. Ciò implica che tali investimenti siano specifici per l'impresa ma trasferibili tra industrie. I risultati suggeriscono che la seconda ipotesi si adatta meglio al comportamento delle imprese analizzate.

Le direttrici della diversificazione nella grande industria italiana

Davide Vannoni
WP 12/1996; This paper focuses on the diversification strategies of the largest manufacturing groups operating in Italy between 1987 and 1993. The analysis of diversification at the firm level and at the industry level is followed with an empirical investigation on the links between the different areas of activity of our sample firms. The results highlight that diversification is mainly driven by vertical integration strategies, by the availability of some common specific resources, by strategies that could be defined as 'oriented' diversification. In particular, industries with high R&D expenditures are a source of diversification but at the same time they attract investments from other industries, while advertising expenditures only in 1993 seem to be significant. The arguments of those who emphasize the importance of specific assets seem then to be corroborated by the recently observed behavior of italian manufacturing firms.

Politiche per l'innovazione in Francia

Elena Ragazzi
WP 22/1996; France is a very interesting case study for industrial economists, for the strong presence of State in economy. Such choice in economic policy induced the creation of plenty of instruments and structures to be analysed. In the field of research, the French situation is characterised by a strong role of non-university public research, and for a concentration by respect to industries and subjects carrying on research. There are some industries, in which the State intervened both in economic and in research fields, that realise most French research. More over public bodies (as the CNRS or other specialised agencies) and big firms enjoying public procurement carry on a big part of it. To correct these distortions many bodies carrying on the technology transfer activities have been created, above all in the last decades.

Privatizzazioni: meccanismi di collocamento e assetti proprietari. Il caso STET

Paola Fabbri
WP 05/1996; Due aspetti molto importanti del processo di privatizzazione sono la scelta della tecnica di collocamento e quella dell'assetto proprietario da dare all'azienda dismessa. La soluzione ad ognuno di questi due problemi risulta legata da un lato agli obiettivi di policy, dall'altro a ‘vincoli esogeni': struttura dei mercati finanziari, assetto istituzionale e normativo del Paese, caratteristiche dell'azienda. In ogni operazione di dismissione questi due problemi non possono essere considerati separatamente: si tratta di scegliere quel meccanismo di collocamento e quell'assetto proprietario che, tenendo conto dell'interrelazione tra condizioni strutturali, obiettivi e mezzi, consenta un pieno successo. Tra le privatizzazioni previste dal Governo italiano viene presa in esame quella relativa alla STET. Dopo aver delineato l'importanza strategica della finanziaria delle telecomunicazioni, la sua dismissione viene calata nel quadro del processo di privatizzazioni in atto e dello ‘stato di salute' del mercato azionario. Il problema della scelta della tecnica di collocamento è affrontato in relazione all'efficacia di ognuna rispetto agli obiettivi di politica economica ed industriale. L'analisi delle caratteristiche dei principali modelli di assetto proprietario è finalizzata a verificarne l'adozione nel caso italiano in generale e della STET in particolare.

Ricerca, innovazione e mercato: la nuova politica del Regno Unito

Secondo Rolfo
WP 21/1996; The UK is the European country that moved more resolutely his policy for innovation towards the market. Here are analyzed recent changes concerning the public research system, the support to the innovation in SMES, the technological transfer. These changes have however caused conflicting reactions and doubts about their real effectiveness for the national economy.

Shareholders' voting power and block transaction premia: an empirical analysis of Italian listed companies

Giovanna Nicodano, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 17/1996; According to our pricing framework block transaction premia depend on voting power being transferred through a block relative to voting power enjoyed by the market. Block transaction premia are shown to be correlated with both the block seller's and the block buyer's Shapley-Shubik power indexes in a sample of Italian companies. This is consistent with the notion, first presented by Zwiebel (1995), that private benefits deriving from control of a company are divisible, and that the share of private benefits accruing to each shareholder is proportional to the probability of being pivotal in a controlling coalition.

Uno strumento di politica per l'innovazione: la prospezione tecnologica

Secondo Rolfo
WP 15/1996; This paper represents a survey of the recent initiatives of technology foresight in Europe. After the decline of forecasting techniques and the first experiments in Japan and the United States, technology foresight has been adopted in several European countries. However only in the 90's, under the pressure of more rigorous public policies, these initiatives started to play a fundamental role as an instrument of selection for the innovation policies; as a consequence their methodologies are becoming more sophisticated.

Verso la riconversione di settori utilizzatori di amianto. Risultati di un'indagine sul campo

Marisa Gerbi Sethi, Salvatore Marino, Maria Zittino
WP 08/1996; This paper examines the behaviour of the main operators in friction car components and in asbestos-cement during the transitional phase to alternative tecnologies after the introduction of law N. 257 in 1992. It considers the safety measures started up, the waste treatment in asbestos processing, the technical and economic features of substitute materials, the importance of the process changeover fixed by the new law. It also analyses the stimulating role of industrial policy tools directed to support the reorganization and quantifies the drop in import-export flows. In the second part of the paper the financial results of a panel of firms are analysed and compared with those of the industry they belong to during the period of the reorganization (1990-1992).

1995

Explaining corporate structure: the MD matrix, product differentiation and size of market

Stephen W. Davies, Laura Rondi, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 04/1995

Form of ownership and financial constraints: panel data evidence on leverage and investment choices by Italian firms

Fabio Schiantarelli, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 01/1995

Panel Ceris su dati di impresa. Aspetti metodologici e istruzioni per l'uso

Diego Margon, Alessandro Sembenelli, Davide Vannoni
WP 07/1995

Regulation and total productivity performance in electricity: a comparison between Italy, Germany and France

Giovanni Fraquelli, Davide Vannoni
WP 05/1995

Regulation of the electric supply industry in Italy

Giovanni Fraquelli, Elena Ragazzi
WP 02/1995

Restructuring product development and production networks: Fiat Auto

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 03/1995

Strategie di crescita esterna nel sistema bancario italiano. Un'analisi empirica 1987-1994

Stefano Olivero, Giampaolo Vitali
WP 06/1995

1994

Fiat Auto. A simultaneous engineering experience

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 04/1994

Perchè le matrici intersettoriali per misurare l'integrazione verticale?

Davide Vannoni
WP 03/1994

Scelte cooperative in attività di ricerca e sviluppo

Marco Orecchia
WP 02/1994

Una politica industriale per gli investimenti esteri in Italia. Alcune riflessioni

Giampaolo Vitali
WP 01/1994

1993

Firms financial and real responses to business cycle skocks and monetary tightening. Evidence for large and small italian companies

Laura Rondi, Brian Sack, Fabio Schiantarelli, Alessandro Sembenelli
WP 05/1993

Spanish machine tool industry

Giuseppe Calabrese
WP 01/1993

The UK machine tool industry

Alessandro Sembenelli, Paul Simpson
WP 03/1993

The italian machine tool industry

Secondo Rolfo
WP 04/1993