Abstract: This paper analyses the economist Antonio de Viti de Marco’s collaboration with the daily press, in relation to his scientific work and in the context of early twentieth century Italy. It brings out De Viti’s proposals for free trade and fiscal policies intended to support the...

The aim of this paper is to investigate a vertically differentiated market served either by a multiproduct monopolist or by duopolists, in which a public authority aiming at increasing the welfare level can choose among two instruments, namely, quality taxation/subsidization, and minimum quality...

Il lavoro illustra il pensiero dell'economista romagnolo Angelo Marescotti (1815-1892) relativo al processo di sviluppo delle industrie italiane e propone una rilettura delle tesi di Marescotti sull'innovazione e sul processo concorrenziale. Dall'analisi dei suoi testi emerge la proposta di una...

We revisit the Cournot-Bertrand debate in the light of Cournot (1863), Edgeworth (1881, 1897) and Launhardt (1885), tracing back to Launhardt the origin of price competition in duopoly models. Then, we discuss the formalization of consumer utility function for differentiated products, first...

The Italian economist Enrico Barone (1859- 1924) is best known for his contributions to marginal productivity theory and the socialist planning debate. This paper analyzes Barone’s contributions to the theory of perfect competition which are largely ignored in the secondary literature. It...

The purpose of this article is to show that there is a gap in the literature on the sources of monopoly power. It looks at the literature on the history of different topics (Industrial Organization, Models of profit maximization in non-competitive markets, Antitrust, Competition) to find out...

The purpose of this article is to begin writing the history of the concept of natural monopoly. In economics natural monopoly is described as a situation in which, for structural reasons, only one firm finds it profitable to produce in the market. The following features which go to make up the...

The profound and extensive influence of Spencer's thought is now generating a good deal of analysis, as is his contribution to evolutionist philosophy, to pedagogy, ethics, and anthropology. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Spencer's theoretical work on economic thought....

It is well known that one of the features of Public Choice, political realism, in Italy is embedded in a time-honored tradition going back to Machiavelli, and perpetuated by G. Mosca and Pareto in their political and sociological writings. The scientific spirit, which in their era led to the...