We provide an empirical investigation of cost overruns in small public procurement projects, using a panel dataset of auctions held in the Italian Veneto region between 2004 and 2006. We use this sample to study the effect on cost overruns of auction formats (average bid as opposed to first...

We study optimal procurement in the presence of default risk. Contractors differ in the penalty they suffer in case of default, which is private information. If the loss to the procurer from non-completion is high relative to the cost of completion, the optimal mechanism is to assign the project...

This paper addresses the issues of whether and how the degree of economic integration may affect central government tax revenues and the intensity of decentralisation. To this purpose, we empirically test the direct impact of economic integration on central tax revenues using the concept of...

The aim of the paper is to identify the internationalization models of SME industrial district firms within a very integrated and dynamic Regional Innovation System (RIS) of Italy. By doing so, we investigate which are the strategies of firms embedded in a RIS to access global suppliers and...

In this paper, we estimate, model and forecast Realized Range Volatility, a new realized measure and estimator of the quadratic variation of financial prices. This estimator was early introduced in the literature and it is based on the high-low range observed at high frequency during the day. We...

It is well-known that the estimated GARCH dynamics exhibit common patterns. Starting from this fact we extend the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model by allowing for a cluster- ing structure of the univariate GARCH parameters. The model can be estimated in two steps, the first devoted to...

We address some issues that arise with the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model. We prove that the DCC large system estimator (DCC estimator) can be inconsistent, and that the traditional interpretation of the DCC correlation parameters can lead to misleading conclusions. We then suggest...

This paper analyses market competition between two different types of payment schemes: card associations and proprietary systems. The main focus is on the role of the collective setting of the interchange fee by members of the association. We describe the sterilising role of the interchange fee:...

We try to determine whether it is better for a government to tighten or relax limits for immigrants in order to control migration inflows. To this end, we use a real option approach to migration choice that assumes that the decision to migrate can be described as an irreversible investment...

Relying on the relevance of other-regarding preferences in workplaces, the paper provides a behavioral explanation for the puzzle of unpaid overtime. It characterizes the optimal compensation schemes offered by the employer which induce overtime by exploiting workers’ horizontal reciprocity...