One of the main issues in portfolio selection models consists in assessing the effect of the estimation errors of the parameters required by the models on the quality of the selected portfolios. Several studies have been devoted to this topic for the minimum variance and for several other...

A recent popular approach to portfolio selection aims at diversifying risk by looking for the so called Risk Parity portfolios. These are defined by the condition that the risk contributions of all assets to the global risk of the portfolio are equal. The Risk Parity approach has been originally...

Index tracking aims at determining an optimal portfolio that replicates the performance of an index or benchmark by investing in a smaller number of constituents or assets. The tracking portfolio should be cheap to maintain and update, i.e., invest in a smaller number of constituents than the...

This paper is concerned with the valuation of European continuous-installment options where the aim is to determine the initial premium given a constant installment payment plan. The distinctive feature of this pricing problem is the determination, along with the initial premium, of an optimal...

This work deals with the current EU regional policy for the so-called Mezzogiorno of Italy. We discuss the new framework in the development policy for the South of Italy as a perspective tailored at enhancing the opportunities and capacities of the citizens. The paper addresses the thesis that...

GDP as an indicator is relatively recent. It was introduced seventy years ago and like many other institutions it is an issue of the historical period in which it was created in the years between the Great Depression and World War II. The adoption of the GDP as an indicator is not a neutral...

We study the di¤erentiability of the value function of a constrained optimization problem. We consider the envelope-theorem framework of Milgrom and Segal (2002), and we accomplish two goals. We show how one can relax Milgrom and Segal’s assumption that the choice set does not vary with...

This paper explores agri-food export dynamics in New Member States (NMS) and Old Member States (OMS) of the European Union during the enlargement process. A quality-oriented survey is conducted by developing an original analytical framework which combines information from trade similarity...

This paper’s purpose is to show a new informal social networks interpretation, according to which social networks change their nature if they are located in social contexts where organised crime is relevant. Here the perusal of a social network is just a necessary condition to enter the labour...

The objective of this paper is to show how European Union (EU), which employs different varieties of capitalism, and US, which operates based on a competitive capitalist model, are coping with the current economic crisis. Although EU is fragmented and needs to work towards better and deeper...