Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we try and analyse the welfare effects of these reforms in Italy, with particular attention to water and energy goods. The first step is to introduce a sensible measure of affordability of...

The security of natural gas supply is an important issue for all EU countries due to the region’s heavy dependence on imported supply sources and in light of energy demand for gas that is continuously increasing. Discussions have emphasised strategies for securing the supply at the macro...

We evaluate the demand for long term care (LTC) insurance prospects in a stated preference context, by means of the results of a choice experiment carried out on a representative sample of the Emilia-Romagna population. Choice modelling techniques have not been used yet for studying the demand...

Multi-attribute stated preference data, derived through choice experiments, is used to investigate the consequence of a finite number of preference groups in a sample of Yorkshire Water residential customers on the conditional distributions of willingness to pay in the sample. The research...

This paper considers the estimation of binary choice panel data models with discrete endogenous regressors. We present a switching probit model which accounts for selectivity bias as well as for other forms of time invariant unobserved heterogeneity. Individual effects are allowed to be...

During their holidays, tourists produce direct and indirect effects on local residents, which can either be positive or negative. In this paper we investigate how residents of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside resort hosting more than ten million national and foreign overnight stays every year,...

This paper carries out an investigation into the socio-economic determinants of couples’ childbearing decisions in Italy. Since having children is in most cases a “couple matter”, the analysis accounts for the characteristics of both the possible parents. Our results do not support...

In this paper we investigate the choice of FDI versus joint-venture, made by Italian, Spanish and Swiss multinationals in China, as shaped by the risk of Dissipation of Intangible Assets. Probit estimates, based on an entirely new firm-level dataset, constructed by the author, show that FDI is...

The paper studies the impact of ethnic diversity on social participation of young people. We first propose a theoretical model in which the agents choose between structured and unstructured social activities by taking into account the ethnic composition of the groups they join. We test our...

Besides other determinants environmental regulation, institutions like environmental agencies and social customs lead to a demand for environmental goods and services. On the basis of the public choice theory it can be shown that environmental regulation is endogenous and can be influenced by...