This paper tries to identify under which conditions voluntary certification could be an answer to the governance of sustainability at global level. The study addresses the case of biofuel sustainability certification in Brazil and the role of the EU Directive on biofuels. The case study has...

This article employs a nation-wide sample of supermarket scanner data to study product and brand competition in the Italian breakfast cereal market. An Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) modelled to include Distance Metrics (DMs) and consistent with the methodology proposed by Pinske, Slade and...

As policy makers, taxpayers and consumers are willing to know the actual contribution of farming to natural and social environment, sustainability and sustainable development arose as key issues in public debates. Sustainability is a multifaceted concept that includes environmental, economic and...

Upland population levels are strongly correlated to environmental dynamics such as morphology, exposure and climate. A temperature fall leads to a shortening of the plant growth season, which can lead to lower pasture productivity and thus livestock can spend shorter periods in the mountains....

The agricultural sector is receiving a great deal of attention for topics of general interest as the security, multifunctional activities, alternative uses of crops in food/feed/fuel, reduction in GHG (Green House Gas) emission, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment). The EU policies are directed to...

This paper was removed Feb. 27, 2013 at the request of the authors.

Recently, several studies compared the performance of conventional and organic farms. Most studies concentrated on technical efficiency. In this paper we add to this literature by also comparing the scale efficiency of conventional and organic milk farms in Austria during the period 1997-2002....

A large body of literature has highlighted and analysed the issues which affect the quality and the reliability of evaluation results of the RDPs measure. In addition to weaknesses in the specification of objectives, measurement of the additionality, several authors have pointed-out a lack in...

The validity of risk estimates elicited through the Exchangeability Method (EM) has been theoretically questioned because the use of chained questions may undermine the incentive compatibility of the game even when subjects are rewarded with real monetary incentives. In this paper, we examine...

According to the theoretical models of the multinational enterprise, trade costs play a fundamental role in determining the pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI). The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of trade policies on the outward stocks of FDI of the EU. We estimate a model...