How many hours per week should workers in the United States and Germany spend at their paying jobs? The present paper addresses this question by constructing policymakers’ reaction functions capable of modelling the optimal length of working time as a function of the relevant labour market...

This paper aims at analyzing whether Active Labour Market Programs (ALMP) could have different effects on unemployment and employment dynamics according to the particular region where the program is implemented. To this end, the research analyses alternative theoretical and econometric models...

Two aspects play a role in the household decision-making, the efficiency and the bargaining power’s argument. The crucial difference between the two approaches is the expected influence of personal and partners’ wage. To investigate which of the two models hold, in the Italian context, we...

Taking into account the economic consequences of obesity highlighted in literature (Cawley, 2004), this study investigates the association between overweight and skill attainment at the university of Salerno in Italy, with particular focus on gender differences. Our findings indicate a...

In this paper we describe some interesting applications of the Coalitional Game in Cancer Diagnosis. Particularly we illustrate specific studies that starting from the description of the Microarray Technology apply game theoretical tools able to improve the analysis of genes’ expression data....

In this paper we propose an ecological and evolutionary model for the historical comparative analysis of some major changes in national public welfare systems. In section 1 the essential features of the conceptual framework are outlined, by shortly reviewing some recent works developed by...

In this paper «land take» and its drivers within the urbanization process is studied with a focus on recent developments in Italy. Several sources of information, recently made available by national and European agencies, are used to highlight the main characteristics of land take, its...

In this paper we develop an empirical two-stage model of competition for the banking industry that incorporates the choice of capacity in the form of new branches. It is estimated using data on Italian banks for the years 1995-2009. The results show that the conduct of banks is significantly...

The implications of individual heterogeneity for the evolution of wealth distribution are studied in a standard model of occupational choice with financial market imperfections and local non convexities in education investment technology. We consider heterogeneity in the cost of educational...

This paper examines the determinants of innovation and its effects on small- and medium-sized firms We use the data from the OPIS databank, which provides a survey on a representative sample of firms from a province of the Southern Italy. We want to study whether small and medium sized firms can...