The main aim of the paper is to highlight the relation between flexibility and vertical integration. To this purpose, we go through the selection of the optimal degree of vertical disintegration of a flexible firm which operates in a dynamic uncertain environment. The enterprise we model enjoys...

One of the main reasons why workers' enterprises (WE) still represent a relevant chunk of the economy may lie in some affinities with conventional profit maximizing firms. To prove this, we compare the entry policies of WEs and conventional firms when they can decide size at entry while having...

In many industries it is quite common to observe firms delegating the production of essential inputs to independent ventures jointly established with competing rivals. The diffusion of this arrangement and the favourable stance of competition authorities call for the assessment of the social and...

In a continuous-time framework we study the technology and investment choice problem of a continuous co-digestion biogas plant dealing with randomly fluctuating relative convenience of input factor costs. Input factors enter into the productive process together mixed according to a given initial...

Recent European Legislation on immigration has revealed a particular paradox on migration policies. On the one hand, the trend of recent legislation points to the increasing closure of frontiers (OECD 1999, 2001, 2004), also by using immigration quotas. On the other hand, there is an increase of...

This paper considers the supplier’s strategic delivery lead time in a public procurement setting as the result of the firm’s opportunistic behavior on the optimal investment timing. In the presence of uncertainty on construction costs, we model the supplier’s option to defer the...

In this article we study the long-run average rate of forest conversion in Brazil. Deforestation results from the following trade-off: on the one hand, the uncertain value of benefits associated with forest conservation (biodiversity, carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services), on the...

Capacity Remuneration Mechanisms (CRM) can be used in power markets to overtake marketfailures, reaching security of supply. However, investment in capacity is a dynamic process, thatdepends on the evolution of prices and costs overtime. In our paper we study the capacity remuneration value...

Drawing on the real-options theory we analyse bidding behaviour in a sealed-bid-first-score procurement auction where suppliers, facing variable production costs, must simultaneously report the contract price and the cost level at which they intend to perform the project. We show that this award...

In Italy and in many EU countries, the last decade was characterized by a large development of distributed generation power plants. Their presence determined new critical issues for the design and management of the overall energy system and the electric grid due to the presence of discontinuous...