We explore the relationship between litigation rates and the number of lawyers, in a typical supplier-induced demand (SID) frame. Drawing on an original panel dataset for the 169 Italian courts of justice between 2000 and 2007, we first document that the number of lawyers is positively...

In many developed countries, abandoned (derelict or underused) industrial areas often occupy important parts of the cities. This raises issues about the possibilities of reusing these areas as well as on the conservation of industrial heritage they often entail. Conjoint Analysis (CA) can shed...

Geography has long been considered as a fundamental prerequisite for economic development and growth. In recent years, a growing number of papers have considered the role of physical geography as a determinant of regional growth and development by considering it as a source of intrinsic...

It is a largely accepted idea that complexity and recent global phenomena have generated a multi-layered diversification process in Western societies. Migration phenomena are largely responsible for this process both in receiving European societies as well as in original sending countries....

In the domain of desertification and climate change an important amount of new knowledge and research material has been obtained from the many projects carried out in the EU-DG12 Environment and Climate programme. However, so far little effort has gone into making this scientific material...

We estimate the relationship between urban spatial expansion and its socio-economic determinants in Lombardy, the most urbanised region of Italy (and one of the most urbanized of the European Union), at the municipality level. Test results suggest that this relationship varies significantly...

The intrinsic complexity of the sustainability concept challenges research towards more sophisticated ways to model and assess the dimensions underlying it. However, currently adopted modelling techniques and indicators frameworks are not able to give an integrated assessment through the...

We present a theory of spatial development. A continuum of locations in a geographic area choose each period how much to innovate (if at all) in manufacturing and services. Locations can trade subject to transport costs and technology diffuses spatially across locations. The result is an...

In recent years a growing body of literature has begun to consider the possible presence of path dependence in the development processes of countries. This phenomenon has always been recognized in regional and urban studies because the path of development almost naturally follows a...

This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...