This book explores technological innovation in family firms, seeking to reconstruct the links between the heterogeneous dimensions of family businesses and their innovative behaviour. Building on and examining the traditional view of family firms as conservative, this book contributes to...

Empirical laws are rare in economics. This book describes efforts to anchor economic knowledge to invariant empirical laws. It links 17th and 18th century Galilean monetary economists to econophysics, a field that emerged in the mid-1990s. This virtual journey from past to present is charted by...

Is democracy still the best political regime for countries to adapt to economic and technological pressures and increase their level of prosperity? While the West seems to have stagnated in an environment of political mistrust, increasing inequality and low growth, the rise of the East has shown...

This book examines the everyday-life patterns of young adults under circumstances of vulnerability and precariousness. Its main focus is on the web of social relations that structure the everyday life of young people, for instance by providing resources and tools of solving problems, exerting...

This book illustrates the importance of bonds as a funding tool available to banks. After providing the reader with an overview of the funding strategies adopted during the last ten years by European banks, the book offers a deep focus on the Italian banking industry. Notably, the authors...

This book explores the role of national fiscal policies in a selected group of Euro-area countries under the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In particular, the authors characterize the response of output to fiscal consolidations and expansions in the small Euro-area open economies...

Little is known of Antonio Serra except that he wrote his extraordinary 1613 Short Treatise on the Causes that Make Kingdoms Abound in Gold and Silver even in the Absence of Mines in a Neapolitan jail, and that he died there soon afterwards. However, the influence of this work represents a...

This book focuses on the relationship between business strategy and competition among Italian SMEs in the aftermath of the economic crisis. First examining business strategy and competitive advantage in a broader sense, Business Strategies and Competitiveness in Times of Crisis goes on to...

This book analyzes the wrapping and packaging machinery sector in the Emilia/Bologna district in Italy and compares the most recent trends with those in the industry in Schwäbisch Hall and Waiblingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, which represents a direct rival. In a detailed and original...

This book focuses on the questions of how territorial differences in productivity levels and unemployment rates arise in the first place and why territorial differences in labor market performance persist over time. Unemployment divergence and unemployment club convergence have been touched on...