This paper contributes to the relatively new literature on the role of intermediaries in international trade. Using Italian firm-level data, we document significant differences between exporters of different types and highlight the role of country-specific fixed cost in the choice of direct...

This paper provides a description of the production process by comparing different frameworks in which to analyze the relations between inputs and output. The analyses are performed on a representative sample of Italian manufacturing firms. We employ both parametric and non-parametric analysis....

This paper jointly considers some pieces of evidence regarding peculiarities of industries' structure which are often separately addressed. Italian industrial sectors are known to be characterized by a high proportion of small enterprises that suffers from constraints to growth. We look at the...

The study of firms' default has attracted wide interest among both practitioners and scholars. However, attention has often been limited to a relatively small set of financial variables. In this work, we try to increase the scope of analysis extending the investigation to other possible...

This paper investigates the relevance of financial and economic variables as determinants of firm defaults. Our analysis is not limited to publicly traded companies but extends to a large sample of limited liability firms. We consider size, growth, profitability and productivity together with a...