This paper explores the use of a micro-economic model to analyse the provisions and parties of bioprospecting contracts. It focuses on the pharmaceutical industry as the representative biodiversity buyer, presenting an original theoretical framework that explains the main contract...

In order to regulate the proliferated bioprospecting and protect the biological diversity in the source countries, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established a legal framework for the reciprocal transfer of biological materials between the interested parties in bioprospecting...

When procurement contracts are incomplete, they are frequently changed after the contract is awarded to the lowest bidder. This results in a final cost that differs from the initial price, and may involve significant transaction costs due to renegotiation. We propose a stylized model of bidding...

This paper discusses a methodology to assess the performances of tourism management of local governments when economic and environmental aspects are considered as equally relevant. In particular, the focus is on the comparison and efficiency assessment of Italian municipalities located on the...

When procurement contracts are awarded through competitive tendering participating firms commit ex ante to fulfil a set of contractual duties. However, selected contractors may find profitable to renege ex post on their promises by opportunistically delivering lower quality standards. In order...

A suitable strategy for achieving sustainable development is to foster environmental innovations. Environmental innovations, however, suffer from so-called "double externalities", because apart from innovation spillovers they also improve the quality of public environmental goods, which can be...

We study learning and influence in a setting where agents communicate according to an arbitrary social network and naïvely update their beliefs by repeatedly taking weighted averages of their neighbors’ opinions. A focus is on conditions under which beliefs of all agents in large societies...

This paper presents a model of collusive bargaining networks. Given a status quo network, game is played in two stages: in the first stage, pairs of sellers form the network by signing two-sided contracts that allow sellers to use connections of other sellers; in the second stage, sellers and...

Recent research in the field of network economics has shown how explicitly modelling the network structure of social and economic relations can provide significant theoretical insights, as well as account for previously unexplained empirical evidence. Despite their critical importance to many...

In this paper, we compare two different representations of Framework Programs as affiliation network: “One-mode networks”' and “Two-mode networks”'. The aim of this article is to show that the choice of the representation has an impact on the analysis of the networks and on the results...